Life

If you’ve come to Substance in the last few years, you’ll know that we start out every new year with a season of fasting. Of course, nobody “has to” fast; but, when you understand what the Bible teaches on fasting, you’ll realize: we “get to” fast.  It’s actually an incredible opportunity. In both the Old…

Throughout the middle ages people believed in a theological concept called purgatory…a place between heaven and hell where certain people could pay for their sins before entering heaven.  Of course, Evangelical scholars don’t believe the concept even exists in the Bible.  Some credit Pope Gregory the 1st (late 6th century) as the originator.  But keep this belief…

Doubt is a regular part of faith.  As strange as it might sound, doubt is God’s way of making us hungry for deeper revelations.  It’s not something we fear; it’s something we explore. Keep in mind, there’s a huge difference between Skeptics vs. Cynics.  Skeptics are people who attempt to remain as intellectually neutral as possible but Cynics…

By popular demand, I wanted to repost a prior blog on how to survive the Fall Rat-Race! As I sat outside my kid’s school last week, it was amazing to see all of the parents scurry here and there.  Everyone looked exhausted… like I was watching the finish line of a super-marathon.  Kids fumbled in…

Did you know that angry tweets have a much higher rate of being retweeted.  At least that’s what a newly released study from China’s Beihang University says.  To be specific, anger tended to “spread faster” than joy, disgust, or sadness by a factor of three.  But researcher Rui Fan and his research team also found…

Having good Christian friends is one of the greatest ingredients that predicts your likelihood of spiritual growth.  Like I demonstrated in my book Pharisectomy, your friends are actually one of the greatest statistical predictors of life-expectancy, obesity, and happiness.  For example, I recently found a study showing that, if you have a larger number of…

As Christians, we all know that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit; but some of us are building a mega-church.  And the problem with bad eating is that it often takes awhile before we experience the real ramifications.  For years, my wife has told me:  “Peter, you have a unique ability to…

Doubt is a regular part of faith.  As strange as it might sound, doubt is God’s way of making us hungry for deeper revelations.  It’s not something we fear; it’s something we explore. Keep in mind, there’s a huge difference between Skeptics vs. Cynics.  Skeptics are people who attempt to remain as intellectually neutral as…

As you can see from blogs part one and part two on rest, healthy Sabbathing requires us to look at a lot of deeper issues in our lives.  It takes six days of preparation to have one true Sabbath.  We must plan ahead.  Rest is not a passive activity.  Quite often, it requires just as much preparation as a…

In part one of “How to have  Great Day Off” we talked about how God designed our bodies to rest.  “Goal Oriented” activities, whether fun or not, cause your body to release stress-hormones.  So, even though your stress may not be work-related, it still has all the same results:  low immune system, lower patience, and all around fatigue. …