A musical lyric about God that I heard on the radio today: 

"In all this world, you're all that's true. I'll always stand for you."

On a daily basis, believers and nonbelievers alike struggle with one main demand made by God -- he requires his followers to live on his terms.

Recently, a friend told me he plans to live on his own terms, not necessarily by what the Bible teaches. Although he professes a belief in Christianity, he knows that his lifestyle isn't focused on God. His plan is to repent on his death bed.

A prayer for the new year (from a service at my church):

I love church, and I hate missing it. But my lovely wife was sick this week, so I stayed home with her until the baseball game started.

I'll be honest with you -- I struggle with some of what the Apostle Paul has written in Ephesians 5, one of my Bible readings earlier this week.

For several weeks now, pastor-in-training Justin and I have been using "1 Timothy & Titus: Fighting the Good Fight" by John Stott.

This blog is a little out of order -- I'm skipping right to Titus chapter 2 -- but I don't care.

My Bible study focused on the book of Titus has officially started. Justin, one of my dearest friends, came to my house last night to talk for a couple hours over a Whopper and Cheese Nips.

We had chosen Titus because it was written by the apostle Paul and because it is short. Having read the book before our meeting, Justin and I made a list of all of our questions, words or phrases that we would like to study, and controversies we plan to discuss.