toddcast

Well, Happy Halloween. While I certainly am never one to turn away candy, I must admit Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays. I'm somewhat of a scaredy-cat, and all the frights and scares are not my thing. Neither are horror movies or scary stories around the campfire. Add rollercoasters and any type of thrill ride to that list. It may be for some people, but fear is not something I go looking for. Though I may not go looking for it, fear has a way of finding me and, for that matter, all of us. Whether it be the news, personal concerns, family matters, finances, or health worries, it seems like fear has a way of creeping into my life daily. Who needs Halloween when there are "wars and rumors of war" all around us? I find it comforting, though, that the Bible acknowledges that the world we live in often does elicit fear. And it talks about it often. A quick word search reveals that the words "fear" and "afraid" are used almost 500 times in our Bi...

Over the past few weeks, I've been preaching through 1 John—a brief but powerful letter the apostle John wrote in his later years. His audience faced confusion from false teachers who were distorting essential Christian truths. One particularly dangerous idea suggested that knowing God had nothing to do with how we actually lived. At first glance, this seems absurd. But is it really so far-fetched? Consider how often we treat Christian practices—church attendance, Bible reading, prayer—as the goal itself rather than as means to genuine transformation. I catch myself doing this. The rituals become my religion instead of pathways to change. Craig Groeschel captured this tension perfectly in his book title: The Christian Atheist: Believing in God but Living As If He Doesn't Exist. It's entirely possible to maintain all the outward Christian activities while remaining spiritually unchanged. This disconnect likely plagued John's original readers. It certainly affects us tod...