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Who’s Your Helper?

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History turns on small hinges and there has been no greater turn than the fall of man as recorded in Genesis 3. Everything that is wrong with the world – war, disease, death, genocide – can be traced back to man’s rejection of God. So we might say the saddest verse in the Bible is […]

How to Cultivate Hope

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Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. (1 Pet 3:15) We Christians ought to be a hope-filled people but a mixed-up gospel has made us a wishful people. We ought to be strong in the faith but religion has weakened us […]

Seven Ways Religion Damages Hope

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You can learn a lot about hope from watching the movies. When I was a kid I saw The Neverending Story, and for some reason one scene has endured in my memory. It’s the scene where Atreyu is confronted by Gmork, the wolf-like servant of the Nothing. Atreyu asks Gmork why he is helping the […]

The Gospel of Hope

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Someone once told me that Christians are in the business of hope, which is ironic since many Christians don’t know what hope is. Do you know what it is? For some hope is little more than wishful thinking. “I hope I win the lottery.” “I hope the Cubs win the World Series.” “I hope he’ll […]

No More Lonely Love Songs

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Union with Christ is the number one reason why we have it better than those who lived before the cross. Back then they wrote love songs about yearning and absence. “I looked for the one my heart loves but I could not find him” (Song of Songs 3:1–2). “I opened to my beloved, but my […]

10 Ways Religion is Bad for You

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Every story needs a villain and the villain I most often employ is religion. Grace is good, but religion is bad. Grace promotes trust in God, but religion is all about trusting self. Grace says, “God helps you,” but religion says, “God helps those who help themselves.” Some have said that I’m giving religion a […]

Happy Sixth Birthday (and a Free Book for You!)

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Escape to Reality is six years old today – hooray! – so this seems like a good opportunity to take a moment to reflect on the past and future of the blog. Since our last birthday I have published 58 new articles. The most popular was “The 9 lies of religion.” That one was fun to […]

Pure Religion (James 1:27)

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Religion is bad. By definition, religion is a kind of bondage, which means there’s no such thing as good religion. But what about James who said this: Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. […]

Examine Yourselves (2 Corinthians 13:5)

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  In my country every car has to pass an annual road-worthiness test. As a poor student with a cheap car, I used to dread this test. Would the inspector say something about my dodgy brakes, the missing tail-light, or the cloud of black smoke coming out of the tailpipe? Would my car fail the test and […]

Your Unbreakable Union with Christ

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Some Christians understand their union with the Lord but only half way. “Sure, God is with us, but sometimes he isn’t. He comes and he goes.” It’s true that in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit came upon certain people at certain times, but that was then and this is now. Jesus said the Holy […]

Patient Endurance (Revelation 14:12)

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A reader asked for my thoughts on the following passage: This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God’s commandments and remain faithful to Jesus. (Rev 14:12, NIV) When I was a younger man I might’ve preached a message on this verse that went something like this: “You gotta hang […]

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