College football is a really big deal! When the fall season is upon us, there are very few things that capture more of the attention of our country than this great sport. One of the most important things fans obsess over is the ranking system. Which team will be #1? Is it Alabama? Is it Ohio State? Or might it even be our beloved Gators? People care about the rankings because being #1 means that you are the best. Ranking Your Relationships: Getting the Order Right When it comes to our family relationships, especially with the extra members who come with a marriage, there is also a ranking system. It is important to realize that one relationship is most important and that all others are to fall in line accordingly. Coming in at #1 is our relationship with the Lord. It is always good to be...

What Is Your Relationship with God Like? I want to share an easy indicator of your relationship with God. This indicator has nothing to do with how much you read your Bible or how often you go to church. It’s not about the verses you have memorized, how long you prayed today, whether you go on mission trips, or work with the homeless. These can all be helpful, but it’s not the indicator I want you to think about. The indicator I want to emphasize is how you handle relational drama. Our lives are filled with drama. From the teen that fights with his parents about curfew, to the gossip at work about why she got the promotion instead of me, to an icy atmosphere around the dinner table after one spouse snaps at another – we all have drama. What we do with that drama gives a clear indication...

Ever since I learned I was going to be one, I’ve been thinking a lot about grandparents. My excitement over my grandchild in a few months is verging on obsession. My daughter and I have always been very close, and I am looking forward to the wonderful new things that will come to our relationship with the addition of her child and my grandbaby. But over the years, I’ve been aware of many strained relationships between parents and the grandparents of their children. I have seen the birth of a new baby initiate conflict between that child’s parents and grandparents. An important blog could be written about how grandparents can be unhelpful and unwise as they relate to their children and grandchildren.  But that is not what this blog is about. This blog is about how parents can be cruel, unloving,...

A Common Problem When was the last time you told someone that you were busy? If you are like most of us, you need only think back a few hours or a couple of days at most. A friend at church asks, “How was your week?” You respond, “It was good. Just busy, busy, busy.” Your spouse sends you a text, “How’s your day going?” You text back, “So busy.” Your child says, “Look at my drawing.” You reply, “Just one second. I’m busy.” A family member calls and asks, “Would you like to come over for dinner this weekend?” You respond, “Sorry, I’m busy then. How about next month?” The reality of our busyness is undeniable. We go about our days working long hours, rushing from one extra-curricular activity to the next, scrolling through our ever-repopulating social media timelines, responding to one urgent...

Prayer is hard. Christians know they should pray, but many have a complicated relationship with it. For some, prayer lives in the background of a busy life. The hectic pace of work or family pushes prayer to the periphery. These Christians often feel guilty about prayer. A convicting sermon or conversation leads them to try harder. They make a list, get up earlier, and try to follow the ACTS model (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication). But before long, their list is missing, they hit snooze again, and as soon as they start the act of adoration, the tasks of the day flood their mind, and prayer fades into the background of church and mealtimes. Prayer is hard, and the thought of trying to grow leaves them feeling ashamed. The good news is that even though prayer is hard,...

Have you heard it said that someone is “too heavenly-minded to be of any earthly good”? Perhaps that’s true of someone, but I’ve never encountered that person. I think that the opposite is often the case for most of us. We don’t think enough about heavenly realities but instead focus too much on what we can see in the here and now. However, the Bible actually commands us to think about heaven. Colossians 3:2 says, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth.” Our ability to be maximally helpful here on earth now is connected to our efforts to think often and think rightly about heavenly realities. To help you “set your mind on things above,” here are seven words that you can remember. Each word answers a different question we often have about heaven. God:...

How Can God Exist When the Evidence is Against Him? Answering atheism can seem like a daunting task. If you do any amount of Google searching about the evidence surrounding God’s existence, you’ll find page after page of atheists claiming to have proof that God isn’t real. They’ll cite studies about the ways our brains work, about social constructs that were generated as coping mechanisms, about new data from physics and chemistry that seem to indicate that the universe created itself or is just a part of a multiverse of universes. Do we need to be scientific experts in all of these fields in order to defend God’s existence and deal with the evidence atheists are throwing our way? How can God exist when the evidence is against him? I want you to see from the Bible that God believes that...

Both the downtown campus and Nocatee had exciting weeks of Glow Camp. Over 700 kids and students came together to hear God’s Word and learn to win the ultimate race. Jesus Christ has saved us through his life, death, and resurrection, and he enables us to grow into spiritual maturity. We want our kids never to give up and to serve the Lord with all their hearts! “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it” 1 Corinthians 9:24. The music for Glow Camp was produced “in-house” and is available to you and your family for free. You can listen to all the songs in the FBCJAX App. We already have the theme selected for next year, but we can’t announce it this soon! We look forward to all that God is going to do through...

On Sunday, July 21, at First Baptist, I announced that my young, unmarried daughter is pregnant. I love my precious girl more than I can communicate in words and would have preferred to keep this information private. However, the nature of my ministry means that the consequences of her private sin will be more public than it would be for most young women in her situation. I am sharing this information with the approval of her and the rest of our family. We all know that in short order, the nature of her sin will be obvious, but the nature of her repentance will not be unless you hear it from me. If you missed it, you can watch the announcement here: .embedtool {position: relative;height: 0;padding-top: 56%;overflow: hidden;max-width: 100%;} .embedtool iframe, .embedtool object, .embedtool...

Gentle parenting is a topic that inspires not much gentle debate. There’s actually a lot of disagreements out there about this. I have had, in the last week or so, an unusual number of people asking me about this. I don’t intend to do it full justice. I often remind you that we try to keep this around 10 minutes and so I can’t say everything; all I’m going to do here is have the very, very modest goal of pointing in the direction of what gentle parenting is, and given a few biblical thoughts about it, there will be more specific questions and more specific concerns. Here is what gentle parenting is, in fact, if I just ask you to consider whether or not you were spanked by your parents when you were growing up. It is probably the case that the number of you who would...