Because the Lord is building His church out of living stones—people—the great works He is building will not be completed quickly, or easily. Those who leave during the process, before the body of Christ has become what we are called to be, will not likely be part of the church at the end. They will more likely be part of those who persecute it. 

         However, not all who leave a local body of believers are leaving the Lord’s will. We must leave room for the Holy Spirit to place members of...

         Human idealism is one of the worst enemies of truth and perhaps the biggest deceiver of zealous Christians. Zeal is not the problem, since the exhortation to overcome lukewarmness is to “be zealous therefore and repent” (see Revelation 3:19). We could use more zeal in these times, and our King deserves it. However, sometimes if the enemy cannot stop us, he will get behind us and push us too far. This is how he often trips up the zealous. 

         Some Christians have a vision for what the church is supposed to be like...

         If our goal is to truly abide in the King (as it should be for every Christian), we should treat everyone with courtesy and respect. We do this because we will be in the office with our co-workers and bosses, and also because, even if they are not yet Christians, He loves them and died for them. After all, if the King is in us, how does He want to treat them? 

         New covenant life includes being part of a body of believers that acts as the Lord’s body on earth. We cannot...

         Just because we know in part, doesn’t mean we can’t be confident in what we know. However, we should always walk in humility, knowing there is always more to every story.

         We can have great confidence in the basic doctrines of faith that are clear in Scripture and should stand on these without compromise. At the same time, we can and should still have grace to those who do not see these doctrines as we do, because even basic Christian truths can’t be seen without the help of the Holy Spirit....

         We have been addressing the veils that must be removed to see the glory of the Lord without distorting it. The next veil is judging everyone and everything by one bad experience. 

         For example, I’ve heard of people visiting a church and making sweeping, general judgments about that church based on one visit. It may or may not have been an unusually challenging service, but the visitor concluded that the church was not doing well or—worse—said  it was a dead church based on that one visit. Every church, including thriving churches, will...