My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? (James 2:1-4)

I’ve made no secret that I am a superfan of The West Wing. But I may be an even bigger fan of how well the show’s star, Martin Sheen, lived out today’s passage.

In a terrific memoir of the show, the cast shared how Sheen would shake the hand of each background artist (or “extra”) and learn their names before filming. 

When “crew lunch” was first announced and those “extras” were sent to a separate area to eat, Sheen shut down this Hollywood habit, saying, “We’re all going to eat together.”

My f...

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. (James 1:17)

To kick off the new year, we are diving into one of the most practical books in the Bible: James. Over the next five weeks, I’ll focus on one section of each of the book's five chapters and apply it to the work God has called you and me to do in 2026.

Given that Christmas has just passed, I thought we'd start with James’s reminder that “every good and perfect gift” is not ultimately from Amazon or even your mother, but from God.

Of course, God is perfectly capable of giving good gifts miraculously (see manna from heaven as case-in-point). But all throughout Scripture, we see that God most frequently chooses to deliver his gifts through the work of human hands. 

For example, while God could have miraculously ended the famine in Egypt and Canaan, he chose to do that work through a government official named Joseph (see Genesis 41-45). W...

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

The Sawi tribe of Papua New Guinea celebrated cannibalism, revenge, and treachery. When a group of Christian missionaries read from the gospels, the Sawi were more drawn to Judas than Jesus. The missionaries were at a loss about how to share the gospel—until they witnessed a Sawi peace ceremony.

To make peace with a warring tribe, the Sawi chief ripped his only child from his screaming wife’s arms and gave his son to the enemy chief, who did the same in return. Both tribes understood that harming a “peace child” was forbidden. As long as the peace children lived, there would be no war.

The missionaries were horrified, but also hopeful. They explained that, “True peace can never come without a peace child.” The good news is that God gave his only Son, the ultimate Peace Child, to make pea...

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

What does it mean that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, is “Everlasting Father”? Many commentaries point out that Isaiah is not confusing God the Son with God the Father here. He seems to be saying that the Messiah will approach us with an everlasting father-like character. In Jesus’s own words, he is “gently and lowly in heart,” not gruff and legalistic (see Matthew 11:29).

I was recently at an event with the brilliant Christian psychiatrist, Dr. Curt Thompson, who offered a picture of Jesus’s father-like character that knocked me out. Psalm 121:3-4 tells us that God does not “slumber nor sleep” but he “watches over you” each night. Now, Dr. Thompson said, imagine that when you woke up this morning, the Trinity—Father, Son, and Spirit—all said to each other, “Ashley’s awake! Matt’s awake! Guys...

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

My friend Hannah Brencher says, “We are a follower-obsessed culture.” I am certainly not immune. I follow authors on Amazon, podcasters on Spotify, and “top voices” on LinkedIn. If we’re not careful, we’ll reduce Jesus’s call to “follow me” to little more than casually clicking “follow” on another influencer.

But Jesus is not just another guru. Today’s passage reminds us that he is Mighty God. Christ is not one of many, but the one and only. As Tim Keller said in his excellent book, Hidden Christmas, “The people who actually saw and heard Jesus never reacted indifferently or even mildly….Nobody said, ‘He is so inspiring. He makes me want to live a better life.’ If the baby born at Christmas is the Mighty God, then you must serve him completely.”

Here are 3 signs you and I are not—3 signs...

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

This Christmas season, you’ll likely hear the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah in your church, mall, or on TV. Over the next four weeks, we’ll examine the four messianic titles sung in that glorious piece derived from Isaiah 9:6—Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace—and ask ourselves what it means for our work today that Jesus is all these things and more. 

We begin with Christ’s title of “Wonderful Counselor.” 

The best counselors have been where you’ve been—they feel your pain. That’s what makes Jesus a Wonderful Counselor: nobody understands your pain better than him. Hebrews 4:15 says, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not ...

Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Luke 12:33-34)

My daughter Ellison and I were at Universal Studios standing in line for a Minions ride that had a consistently low 5 minute wait. As the doors swung open for our turn, it was clear there were too many people in our row. Either us or the party behind would have to wait another round. Ellison offered to let the other family go ahead of us.

Then, to our surprise and delight, an employee gave us an Express Pass to cut to the front of the line on the best ride in the park (Hagrid's rollercoaster) which had a minimum wait of 120 minutes that day.

Needless to say, we were ecstatic about the ride. But I was even more excited for the opportunity to talk with Ellison about eternal rewards. I read her today’s passage and explained th...

…see that you also excel in this grace of giving. I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:7-9)

I wince whenever I hear pastors urge their congregations to “tithe.” Why? Because we Christians aren’t under the Mosaic Law that instituted the tithe (more here if you’re interested). Believers under Jesus’s New Covenant are not given a rule for giving. We are given an example: Christ himself.

That’s what Paul is getting at in today’s passage. He encourages us to “excel in this grace of giving,” and roots that call in “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,” who “for your sake…became poor.” 

That brings us to the third biblical principle for stewarding the income we earn at work: We are called to give out of what Christ has given us. And beca...

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also….No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. (Matthew 6:21, 24)

In one of The Hunger Games novels, the characters are placed into a tropic arena where they are forced to survive and fight to the death. One of the warriors is tempted by the allure of her surroundings until she realizes that “everything in this pretty place — the luscious fruit dangling from the bushes, the water in the crystalline streams, even the scent of the flowers when inhaled too directly — is deadly poisonous” and designed to kill her.

That’s a pretty good picture of how God’s Word describes money: tantalizing but toxic. Which is why God calls us to surrender it to him. That brings us to the second biblical principle for stewarding the financial fruit of your labor: God doesn't need your money, but he wants your heart before mo...

 And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)

Work and money are inextricably linked. So over the next four weeks, I’ll unpack four biblical principles for honoring God with your income—whether you’re barely making ends meet or enjoying far more than your “daily bread.” 

Here’s the first: We are free to enjoy the fruit of our labor—but the primary purpose of abundance is to bless others.

1 Timothy 6:17 makes the first half of that statement clear. After warning Timothy not to put his “hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God,” Paul says it is that same God “who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.”

But Paul is even clearer that the primary purpose of our abundance is to bless others. In 2 Corinthians 9:8, he implies that abundance is anything beyond what you “need” to “abound in every good work” God has called you to. 

With t...