Author: Dwight Clough

Absalom would say to him, "Look, your claims are valid and proper, but there is no representative of the king to hear you." — 2 Samuel 15:3The most dangerous lie you can tell is one that you believe yourself. This is one of the most instructive passages in the Bible if you want to know how the devil manages to be so successful. Years earlier, the enemy laid a trap for an entire nation by getting the crown prince to rape his half sister. Without going into all the dynamics, that violation took years to set up, but it happened. …

I undertook great projects … Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. — Ecclesiastes 2:4, 11Where do we look for validation? I like projects. When I have the luxury of working on a project that is going well, I tend to be consumed by it, sort of like Sherlock Holmes was consumed by his cases and depressed when he didn’t have one. When I don’t have a project that is going well, I tend to feel…

There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow. — Ecclesiastes 1:11How do you find meaning in a meaningless world?Speaking as a man, I know that I have wanted to leave my mark on this world, to make a difference. I started out wanting to be a great preacher, or a great evangelist, or a great educator. Instead, I worked as a bus driver and a janitor. I wanted to be a famous author. (I always wanted to write something groundbreaking like JRR Tolkein’s Lord…

Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation. — Galatians 6:16The work of God is deep inside our hearts. A new creation is what we are. Who does the creating? God does. What is the result? The result is you are uniquely you and I am uniquely me; and God, you and I can all celebrate that. While, yes, sin is sin, God does an amazing thing in this verse. He liberates us from cookie-cutter righteousness. Righteous you and righteous I look totally different, just like each of my four kids looks totally different. There’s a…

Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. — Galatians 6:1I like chocolate. It has become a joke among those who know me well. I contend that chocolate is a great weight loss food because if you’re hungry for chocolate and you eat something else, you’ll eat and eat and eat and never get full.If I’m hungry for chocolate, I’ll sometimes dip pretty low. I’ll even eat generic kids snack chocolate that tastes more like plastic than the real thing. But give me…

Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. — Galatians 6:1If you take away sin, what is left?Think about it. I think this is a very important question that most people haven’t considered, yet it is the reason so many people have so many problems.I think most Christians would say that if you take away sin you are left with righteousness or obedience or goodness. But I disagree. If you take away sin, you are left with a vacuum. You are left with…

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather serve one another in love. … live by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. — Galatians 5:13, 16There are certain places you don’t want to be. You don’t want to be standing in the middle of highway in the path of a semi truck heading toward you at 70 miles per hour. You don’t want to be outside in your swimming suit when it’s twenty below zero. The don’t want to climb into the polar…

The chief priests and the teachers of the law … began looking for a way to kill [Jesus], for they feared Him. — Mark 11:18The chief priests and teachers of the law were educated, sophisticated, religious, successful and influential people in the mainstream of their mixed up world. They were not psychotic or schizophrenic. But they were crazy nonetheless. They were out of touch with Reality.If you’ve ever wondered why people do some of the wacky things they do or why men believe the outlandish things they believe, let me suggest that something like fear is probably to blame.Fear is…

The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men-robbers, evildoers, adulterers-or even like this tax collector." — Luke 18:11I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about the successful self-righteous, and it occurs to me that the enemy probably wants some people to be good. There are some people who are disciplined enough to pray regularly, avoid all kinds of sin, and live an exemplary life. Why would the enemy want self-made good Christians in our churches? Very simple. So they can offer the wrong prescription to everybody else.In…

This is the only thing I want to find out from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? — Galatians 3:2-3 NASBLet me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own…