I have spoken with believers who try to frame cowardice as a Christian virtue. Many believers have confused softness with spirituality and passive surrender with Christlikeness. Somewhere along the way, “harmless as doves” stopped being balanced with “wise as serpents.” The result is a generation of Christians who believe the most spiritual thing they can do is to let a criminal carve them up like Thanksgiving turkeys while they recite the Beatitudes through a forced smile. L

There was a day when the church feared sin. Now the church fears looking strange. Somewhere between Corinth and Laodicea, we learned to baptize carnality as long as it stayed quiet, clean, and socially acceptable. The devil does not mind if you sit in a Baptist church. He minds if you live a holy life. So he has outfitted a new line of sins that wear suits, sing hymns, and bow their heads during prayer. The average Christian would never dream of robbing a bank or running a me

There is a reason why some believers sputter, stall, and fishtail through the Christian life. It is not a lack of sincerity, nor a lack of biblical knowledge, nor even a lack of desire. The problem is humiliatingly simple: their flesh is still driving the car. You will not grow in the Christian life while your flesh holds the steering wheel. You can underline verses, fill notebooks, and “Amen” every sermon from here to the Judgment Seat, but if the flesh is still calling the