March 14, 2023
by Eric Stillman
I have mentioned before in this blog the incredible book of Puritan prayers known as The Valley of Vision. There is something about the combination of 17th-19th century language (complete with many SAT words) and the gospel declaration of the depth of our sin and the beauty of God’s love for sinners that speaks to me in a way that is very different than today’s average Christian book or devotional. Below are snippets from some of the prayers that are particularly meaningful to me. May these words humble you and lift you up as you meditate on the gospel of Jesus’ death for you:...Keep Reading
Posted in: Gospel Tags: Gospel, Prayer, Valley of Vision
March 7, 2023
by Eric Stillman
It is probably impossible to truly understand the motivations and desires that operate within us at any given time as we go about our daily life. This past Sunday, for instance, I led the music at church. During communion, we sang a new song called “Glory, Honor, Power” that begins with the line “Most worthy, worthy of praise.” That line, of course, is meant to be a declaration to God that He is the one who deserves the highest glory and praise. And, in my head, I believe that to be true.
But if I’m being honest, there is a part of me that is singing that line to myself....Keep Reading
Posted in: Discipleship Tags: Worship, Gospel, Discipleship
July 14, 2020
by Eric Stillman
This past Sunday, I preached on the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story that points to the sacrificial love and mercy that Jesus showed us when we were broken by our sin and headed towards eternal separation from God. This story always reminds me of a short story/drama which I read soon after I became a believer, called The Ragman by Walter Wangerin. I’ve reprinted it below:...Keep Reading
Tags: Gospel, Salvation, God's love
March 24, 2020
by Eric Stillman
Flash back with me to November of 2008. Our youngest son, Nate, was three months old. Ryan and Will, our two oldest boys, were three and two years old. I was two years into pastoring NewLife, and my wife Michele was working as she was able to help make ends meet. Naturally, Michele told me that she thought that the time was right for us to go through training to become licensed foster and adoptive parents through the state of Connecticut.
Over eleven years later, we have had the privilege of providing a temporary home for hundreds of children in the foster care system. ...Keep Reading
Tags: Jesus, Gospel, Adoption, foster care
March 3, 2020
by Eric Stillman
I have a love/hate relationship with a lot of church advice and church growth gurus out there. One particular strategy that I am torn on is the idea of giving people “next steps” at the end of a sermon. This often takes the form of a bulletin insert with a sermon outline that ends with a few “next steps,” such as “I will memorize Romans 8:38,” “I will pray for my next door neighbors,” or “I will tithe next month.” What I love about this approach is the practical call to discipleship and transformation, in that it challenges us to not just be hearers of the word but doers of the word. But what bothers me about this approach is how easily it can turn the faith into a religion of law: “do more and you will be accepted and feel like a better Christian,” instead of “truly realize how you have been accepted in Christ despite what you have NOT done, despite your failures as a Christian, and you will find yourself doing more in response to His love and grace.”
...Keep Reading
Tags: Church, Gospel, Seculosity
January 14, 2020
by Eric Stillman
How are you doing?
What answer comes to your mind when you are asked that question? In chapter 2 of David Zahl’s book “Seculosity: How career, parenting, technology, food, politics, and romance became our new religion and what to do about it,” he points out that more than ever, our answer to that question has become not “fine” or “good” but “busy” or “stressed.”
Sound familiar?...Keep Reading
Tags: Gospel, Stress, Rest, Busyness
May 21, 2019
by Eric Stillman
I recently completed my Masters in Professional Counseling. One of my classes was called Crisis Counseling, and much of the reading for that class was on the subject of trauma. As a Christian who knows apologetics, I am well-versed in how to answer the question “How can a good God let bad things happen?” But having the intellectual answers doesn’t change the fact that those “bad things” that happen to people so often take my breath away and bring me to tears at the depth of the horror some people are forced to endure....Keep Reading
Tags: Gospel, Suffering
May 14, 2019
by Eric Stillman
Last week, I read a lengthy article on the Financial Times website about Joel Osteen, Lakewood Church, and the prosperity gospel (you have to Google “Financial Times Joel Osteen” in order to access it). In case you’re unaware, Lakewood Church is the largest church in America, and millions more watch Joel Osteen every week on TV or online. Early on in the article is a paragraph that sums up very well Lakewood’s approach to the Christian faith:...Keep Reading
Tags: Gospel, False teachers
August 21, 2018
by Eric Stillman
In my opinion, Romans 8 the greatest chapter in the whole Bible. Filled with promises about the love of God and His commitment to us, it builds from verse 1’s declaration that “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” to the crescendo of verse 35-39, where we are exhorted that NOTHING can separate us from God’s love. Hallelujah! But perhaps just as important as Romans 8 is the end of the preceding chapter, Romans 7. After all, Romans 8:1 begins with “therefore,” which should prompt us to ask what it is “there for.” Romans 8, the passionate declaration of God’s great love for sinful, undeserving humans, follows Paul’s most candid confession of his complete inability to live up to not only God’s standards, but even his own. Listen to these words:...Keep Reading
Tags: Gospel, Discipleship
August 14, 2018
by Eric Stillman
Soon after the Holocaust, an East German pastor by the name of Guenter Rutenborn wrote a play called The Sign of Jonah, in his attempt to make sense of all the horror had transpired in his country. In his play, a group of German people attempt to come to terms with the atrocities that had been committed on their soil, asking who was to blame for the Holocaust. Some blamed Hitler. Others blamed the munitions manufacturers. Still more blamed the German people in their apathy. Finally, the people realized that above all the others, that God was to blame. After all, God had created this world. God had placed all of this power in such unworthy hands. And God had for some unknown reason allowed all of these tragedies to happen....Keep Reading
Tags: Gospel, Suffering
March 27, 2018
by Eric Stillman
Fourteen years ago, Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ hit movie theaters. Many movies have been made about the life and death of Jesus, but Passion undoubtedly contained the most intense and visceral depiction of Jesus’ suffering and death. Many moviegoers ...Keep Reading
Tags: Easter, Gospel
March 28, 2017
by Rob Freyer
Jesus speaks these words to his disciples and the rest of the population surrounding him, and it can be understood as both a challenge and a command for those who at this point still aren't sure who he is ... a prophet, John the Baptist, or some other figure of importance. This statement is a make or break ultimatum. Will these people follow, and what are they willing to give up to do so?...Keep Reading
Posted in: Discipleship Tags: Gospel, Discipleship
January 31, 2017
by Eric Stillman
Soon after the Holocaust, an East German pastor by the name of Guenter Rutenborn wrote a play called The Sign of Jonah, in his attempt to make sense of all the horror had transpired in his country. In his play, a group of German people attempt to come to terms with the atrocities that had been committed on their soil, asking who was to blame for the Holocaust. Some blamed Hitler. Others blamed the munitions manufacturers. Still more blamed the German people in their apathy. Finally, the people realized that above all the others, that God was to blame. After all, God had created this world. God had placed all of this power in such unworthy hands. And God had for some unknown reason allowed all of these tragedies to happen.
As the group of people come to this conclusion, God’s punishment is considered, and this sentence is pronounced:...Keep Reading
Posted in: Gospel Tags: Gospel, Suffering
November 15, 2016
by Eric Stillman
Most of the Psalms are directed towards the community of believers, encouraging them towards praise and communion with God. Other Psalms are directed towards God, expressions of worship or lament. But some Psalms, like Psalm 42, are directed inwardly. They are much needed reminders that often our biggest enemy in our life and faith is ourselves, and the messages we are telling ourselves. Listen to how the great Welsh preacher Martyn Lloyd-Jones put it:
Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? ...Keep Reading
Posted in: Discipleship Tags: Gospel, Discipleship
June 28, 2016
by Eric Stillman
There is a popular expression in evangelical circles called “preaching the gospel to yourself.” Essentially, this saying acknowledges that we often forget the truth of who God is and who we are in Christ and choose instead to live according to lies. We forget that our self-worth is not a matter of what we do or do not do, but is found in the reality that God loves us so much that His Son Jesus willingly gave His life to save us. We forget how loved we are, choosing instead to listen to the evaluations of other people. We beat ourselves up over our sins and shortcomings, forgetting that all of our sins were nailed to the cross when Jesus died, so that God sees us as perfect in Christ. We mistakenly think that we are independent creatures who can do whatever we please, forgetting that when Christ saved us, He called us to die to ourselves and to live for Him....Keep Reading
Posted in: Gospel Tags: Gospel, Music
March 8, 2016
by Eric Stillman
Twelve years ago, Mel Gibson’s movie, The Passion of the Christ hit movie theaters. Many movies have been made about the life and death of Jesus, but Passion undoubtedly contained the most intense and visceral depiction of Jesus’ suffering and death. Many moviegoers ...Keep Reading
Posted in: Gospel Tags: Easter, Gospel, Passion of the Christ
September 29, 2015
by Eric Stillman
This past weekend was our annual men’s conference at NewLife. On Friday night, I shared about the gospel of Jesus, and contrasted it with two tendencies we have in our Christian walk: legalism and antinomianism. The main belief of the legalist is “If I perform well, God will accept or bless me.” The legalist tends to believe that if he is praying regularly, having his quiet time, and living victoriously over sin, that God loves him more. But if he is falling to temptation and not spending much time in prayer or devotion, that God is angry or disappointed with him.
The antinomian, on the other hand,...Keep Reading
Posted in: Discipleship Tags: Gospel, Discipleship
May 5, 2015
by Eric Stillman
Bright and early this morning, I was standing on one of the top rungs of my extension ladder, leaned up against a branch of a pine tree in my neighbor’s yard, trying to pull my cat out of the tree without losing my balance. We had heard Pumpkin’s cries throughout the night, but he was too high to reach without a ladder, and we dared not frighten our neighbors by bringing a ladder on to their property in the middle of the night. But once dawn broke, Michele and I were there with our ladder, and there I was, climbing through the pine tree to reach our cat. One ripped shirt and many scars later, I managed to unhinge our wide-eyed feline from the branch where he spent the night, and to bring him safely down to solid ground.
This past month, I have been preaching through a sermon series that examines the implications of the gospel for various areas of our life. One of the repeated themes is that the gospel teaches us to find our identity and our self-worth in God’s great love for us instead of rooting it in anything else....Keep Reading
Posted in: Gospel Tags: Gospel, Identity
March 26, 2013
by Eric Stillman
‘œYou see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!‘ (Romans 5:6-10)...Keep Reading
Posted in: Gospel Tags: Gospel, Grace
March 5, 2013
by Eric Stillman
One of the biggest reasons people turn away from God and the Christian faith is the hypocrisy of Christians. Even those who have very little knowledge of the Bible know that the message of Jesus had something to do with love and moral living, and when they see followers of Jesus who preach love but live lives marked by looking down on the world, judging others, or moral failure, they are turned off from Christianity. Add to the everyday hypocrisy of believers bigger scandals such as the Catholic sex abuse scandal or the shady dealings of some televangelists, and it’s no wonder that many people in our world have a hard time embracing the Christian message....Keep Reading
Tags: Gospel, Evangelism
November 20, 2012
by Eric Stillman
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)...Keep Reading
Tags: Gospel
June 7, 2011
by Eric Stillman
Today’s post is a story from Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel. If you have never read this book, do yourself a favor and add it to your summer reading list....Keep Reading
Tags: Gospel, God
March 1, 2011
by Eric Stillman
“As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him” (Mark 9:15)....Keep Reading
Tags: Gospel, Discipleship
June 8, 2010
by Eric Stillman
This past Sunday, I preached about the gospel and personal growth, and how the deeper our belief in the good news of Jesus Christ’s death for our sins is, and the more we look to Him for our hope, peace, love, significance, and life, the more we have the power to overcome the challenges we face. During the sermon, I briefly mentioned my lifelong struggle with time management and prioritizing. I’ve tried every different system under the sun, put up motivational quotes and sticky note reminders, sought out accountability, installed deadlines - all with limited progress. Why is this the case? Do I just need to find a doctor who will prescribe me with a pill? Have I just not found the right system?...Keep Reading
Tags: Gospel, Discipleship
May 11, 2010
by Eric Stillman
I was reading John Shore’s conversion story the other day on The Huffington Post, and as I was glancing through some of the comments, I saw one that read:
“It seems as if this is virtually the same conversion story that I’ve heard from so many Christians. It is primarily based on fear. What a sad reason to change your life as there are so many other ways. Fear, as a motivator, doesn’t seem like a very nice reason to embrace a religion, but it seems as if it is the main reason that so many people do. Just because you are filled with fear about death or your own failings as a person, that doesn’t validate a religion or God...”...Keep Reading
Tags: Gospel, Discipleship
April 20, 2010
by Eric Stillman
‘œYet to all who received [Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband‘s will, but born of God.‘ (John 1:12-13)...Keep Reading
Tags: Gospel
