Signs & Wonders Blog

Thank God for grace! None of us deserve eternal life but God made that available through the death and resurrection of His Son. We need to continue receiving that grace to fulfill His plans and purposes for us on this earth. A doctrine I’ve heard taught by some modern grace teachers is that once you’re saved, all your past, present, and future sins are forgiven. For a while I kept thinking, something isn’t right about the future part. Then I read Michael Brown’s book “Hyper-Grace” in which he shares this powerful analogy… “It’s as if you have a debit card with a prepaid amount of one million dollars, but the account is not charged until you go out and use it. In the same way, the forgiveness of all of our sins has been prepaid, but that forgiveness is not applied in advance. It is applied as needed.” The Lord also gave me this illustration. If you’re married, there have been times you said or did things that hurt your spouse. Your marriage didn’t suddenly end but that r...

Pulse nightclub in Orlando Last Sunday morning in Orlando, Florida, a Muslim man walked into a gay bar and went on a shooting spree. 49 people plus the gunman were killed. Another 53 were wounded. Not counting massacres done to Native Americans during the Westward Expansion, this was the worst mass shooting on U. S. soil. From an eternal perspective, the greatest tragedy regarding any large loss of lives are those who died without knowing the Lord. While it’s possible there were Christians among those killed in Orlando, it’s likely most of them weren’t. 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 says, “Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.” Fortunately verse 11 offers hope to those who repent, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the...

Until I gave my life to the Lord in 1991, I didn’t have much appreciation for contemporary Christian music. During the 1980s I worked at roller rinks that had a Christian Skate Night. Most of the songs I heard then sounded lame and outdated compared to the secular stuff I loved so much.  Although there’s now a greater variety of quality Christian music to listen to, I’ve noticed an increasing number of songs with the repeated syllables "oh" and “whoa.” Two Sundays ago I watched a worship service online. During which many “whoas” were sung. They were even added to the Delirious classic “Majesty (Here I Am)”, which doesn’t have “whoas” in the original recording.  I don’t want to be critical of brethren who put their hearts into worshipping the Lord. Still, I’m turned off by the excessive usage of these filler  syllables.  Can you imagine praying with a bunch of “whoas”? (“Father God…Whoa Whoa”) The word whoa is also a command to make a horse stop or slo...

Charles Spurgeon once said, “A time will come when instead of shepherds feeding the sheep, the church will have clowns entertaining the goats.” That statement has been quoted when Christian critics see something going on in church they deem “worldly.” Recently a women’s conference at Hillsong NYC featured people on stage dressed as various characters including “The Naked Cowboy”, a popular Times Square street performer who wears only boots, a cowboy hat and briefs strategically covered by his guitar. The cowboy at Hillsong was portrayed by its youth pastor Diego Simila. Over the years Hillsong Church has been a frequent target of heresy hunters. Therefore, I wasn’t quick to pass judgment on them but hoped to see an official statement explaining what happened. That eventually came from Hillsong founder Brian Houston. As I suspected, it was a lapse of judgment by the conference organizer. Houston pointed out, “He [Diego] was wearing proper shorts, not underwear, and he had a f...