My Journey in Christ

As many of you know, I’ve had a very hard relationship with my older sibling for many years. She has shown a lot of narcissistic behavior, and honestly, dealing with it has been exhausting and painful. For a long time, I kept trying to fix everything. I tried to keep the peace, explain myself better, avoid arguments, and hold the relationship together no matter how unhealthy it became. I truly believed that if I just said the right things or handled things differently, things would eventually get better. But they never really did. Thankfully, through the support, advice, and Christian guidance of good friends at church, I slowly began learning how to handle the situation in a healthier and more biblical way. One of the biggest lessons I learned was that loving someone does not mean letting them manipulate you, control you, or constantly hurt you emotionally. Ironically, once I started setting healthy boundaries and stopped allowing unhealthy behavior, the relationship changed very quic...

There’s a real temptation in debates about faith to go to extremes. Some people shrink what the Bible says about believers until it becomes little more than moral improvement and a distant heaven. Others stretch the language so far that the line between God and humanity begins to blur. But Scripture itself does neither. It presents something far richer and more precise. At the center of this discussion is the claim that believers are “heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.”¹ That is not casual wording. It speaks of inheritance, glory, and participation in what belongs to Christ Himself. The question is not whether this is significant—it clearly is. The question is what it actually means. The Bible explains that becoming children of God is not something we possess by nature, but something we are brought into. We are “born again”² and receive “the Spirit of adoption.”³ This means our place in God’s family is real, but it is given by grace, not something inherent to our being. This dis...

Here is your essay with MLA-style sources including web links (reputable Bible sources), while keeping the superscript citations connected: The Lesson of the Charcoal Fire: What John 21 Teaches About Failure, Love, and Restoration John 21 presents one of the most personal and instructive moments in the New Testament. After the resurrection, the disciples return to Galilee, and Peter goes back to fishing (John 21:3).¹ This decision likely reflects more than habit—it suggests uncertainty and the weight of his recent failure. Only days earlier, Peter had denied Jesus three times (Matthew 26:69–75),² despite his earlier confidence that he would never fall away. While the disciples are fishing, Jesus appears on the shore, though they do not recognize Him at first. He instructs them to cast their net on the right side of the boat, and they catch a large number of fish (John 21:6).³ This mirrors an earlier moment in Luke 5:1–11⁴ when Jesus first called Peter. The repetition is intentional. It...

Every generation of Christians inherits the same Bible—and then asks the same question: How do all these pieces fit together? Out of that question come different frameworks, and two of the most influential are Dispensationalism and Covenant Theology. The debate between them isn’t just academic. It shapes how people read Scripture, understand God’s promises, and even think about the future. Dispensationalism tries to bring order by dividing history into distinct eras—dispensations—where God relates to humanity in different ways. It emphasizes clear distinctions: law versus grace, Israel versus the Church, present age versus future kingdom. For many, this approach feels clean and logical. It takes prophecy seriously and insists that God’s promises—especially to Israel—are to be understood plainly¹. Covenant Theology, on the other hand, pulls the lens back. Instead of dividing the Bible into compartments, it traces a single, unified story—God redeeming a people for Himself through Christ....

There’s something really appealing about the idea that Jesus meets us in everyday life. Most of us want that—we want a faith that isn’t distant or abstract, but real and present in our daily routines.  A recent sermon on Luke 24 leaned into that idea, reminding people that the risen Jesus walked alongside His disciples, talked with them, and revealed Himself in the middle of an ordinary journey. At its best, that message is encouraging—and it’s true. Jesus is alive. He’s not just a figure from history. He rose, and He is present with His people. But here’s where we need to slow down and think carefully. In Luke 24, when Jesus reveals Himself to the disciples, He doesn’t start with an emotional experience. He doesn’t create a dramatic moment right away. Instead, He opens the Scriptures and explains what God had already said about Him. That detail matters more than we sometimes realize. Because today, we often flip that around. We talk a lot about “encountering Jesus,” about feeling ...

It is understandable why some people—both inside and outside the church—begin to see Christianity through the lens of a kind of “sword and sorcery” fantasy. Popular imagery often portrays spiritual life as a dramatic battlefield filled with powerful warriors, overwhelming force, and visible dominance. That kind of imagery can feel intense and meaningful, and to be fair, it reflects something real—the existence of a spiritual struggle between good and evil. But where things go wrong is when the aesthetic of power gets mistaken for the nature of God. Scripture itself corrects that idea immediately. In Epistle to the Ephesians 6:12, it says that our struggle is “not against flesh and blood.” That single statement dismantles the idea that Christianity is about physical dominance, force, or outward displays of strength. The passage goes on to describe the “armor of God,” but that armor isn’t made of steel—it consists of truth, righteousness, faith, salvation, and the Word of God (Ephesians ...

Faith is necessary because it is the way a person comes into a right relationship with God and receives His grace. The Bible teaches that salvation is received through faith rather than human effort. Ephesians 2:8–9 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith… not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Hebrews 11:6 also says, “Without faith it is impossible to please him.” Romans 1:17 adds, “The righteous shall live by faith.” These verses show that faith is essential because it is how we trust God and receive what He promises. The source of faith is ultimately God Himself. Jesus is described as the one who begins and completes faith in us. Hebrews 12:2 calls Him “the founder and perfecter of our faith.” Faith also comes through God’s Word. Romans 10:17 says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” This shows that God produces faith through Christ and strengthens it through Scripture and the work of the Holy Spirit. Faith and righteousnes...