Probably every person who has ever used a phone has heard the recorded message, “Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and dial again.” This is an indication that something went wrong with the attempted call, usually on the caller’s end or the phone network. Can something similar happen in our spiritual lives? We may be under the impression that God…

Climbing Mount Everest is a hard thing to do. Going all the way through med school and residency and becoming a full-fledged doctor is a hard thing to do. Carrying a baby for nine months and going through childbirth is a hard thing to do. Add to this list—forgiving someone who has wronged you. That’s a hard thing to do. Can I…

During what had to be a very somber occasion, Jesus said to one of His dear friends, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster shall not crow this day before you will deny three times that you know Me” (Luke 22:34). Peter “spoke more vehemently, ‘If I have to die with You, I will not deny You!’” (Mark 14:31). Only hours later, Peter was…

As Jesus approached the city of Jerusalem in the last week of His life, He sent two of His disciples into a village, “where as you enter you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat” (Luke 19:30). Two verses later, they “found it just as He had said to them” (19:32). A few days later, Jesus sent Peter and…

After a long night of agonizing, blood-stained prayers, followed by a friend’s betrayal and a criminal arrest, then hours of kangaroo court proceedings, accompanied by taunts and violent mobs, which culminated in a vicious scourging, Jesus was “led away” to be crucified, “bearing His cross” (John 19:16-17). Somewhere along the way, the executioners “compelled a certain man, Simon a Cyrenian…to bear His cross”…