Author: Texas Gospel

When the inside does not match the outside

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TEXAS GOSPEL VOLUNTEER

There is a kind of suffering that is invisible to the eye. A person can stand before a crowd leading worship, pouring out music and energy and apparent vitality, while something deep within them is quietly crumbling. One singer knew this experience all too well. To every observer, she appeared healthy and capable. Physically, she was doing well. But inwardly, she describes herself as little more than a shadow of a person, hollowed out by postpartum depression.

What brought her back was not a programme or a technique. It was biblical counsel that consistently pointed her toward Jesus Christ. Through that process, she arrived at a realisation that became the foundation of her recovery: without his presence, she is nothing. Without the daily, tangible expressions of his grace and mercy over her life, she cannot function as she was created to function.

That realisation, far from being discouraging, became a source of profound hope. And hope is not a small thing. We live in bodies that are prone to weakness, subject to illness, and susceptible to sin. Jesus himself acknowledged this reality. He never promised his followers a life without trouble. What he promised instead was something far more durable: courage in the midst of trouble, and a peace that is rooted not in favourable circumstances but in a personal relationship with him.

That overcoming is not merely a past event. It is a living reality available to you today. You do not have to win your battles alone. Whatever weight you are carrying, there is one who has already conquered it.

 These things I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33

The rare and righteous gift of keeping a secret

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TEXAS GOSPEL CANADA VOLUNTEER

In an age when every moment of every day can be published to an audience of thousands in seconds, the ancient virtue of confidentiality feels almost countercultural. We have grown so accustomed to disclosure, to the assumption that experience exists to be shared, that the deliberate choice to hold something in private requires an almost conscious act of will.

Proverbs 11:13 presents this choice in moral terms. The one who goes about spreading what was shared in trust is not merely indiscreet; they are a slanderer. The one who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered. This is presented not as social courtesy but as a matter of character.

Confidentiality, practised rightly, is a form of discipline. It means restraining the impulse to announce what need not be announced. There is a particular temptation that attaches to being the first with news, the one who knows before others. It feeds something in us. The discipline of confidentiality names that temptation clearly and refuses it.

Those who are known as trustworthy keepers of confidences carry something rare and valuable. People trust them with what they cannot share anywhere else. That is a sacred responsibility, and it begins with the simple choice to be silent when silence is the most righteous response available.

 Therefore, ridding yourselves of falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, because we are parts of one another.

Ephesians 4:25

When dreams disappoint and hope goes silent

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TEXAS GOSPEL VOLUNTEER

There is something deeply human about the desire to leave a mark. We are creatures of ambition and longing. We carry dreams inside us from our earliest years, visions of what we hope our lives will become and what we hope to contribute to the world. And yet, for so many people, the story of those dreams is not one of fulfilment but of quiet disappointment. The ambitions that once burned brightly have been slowly extinguished. The hopes that sustained us have been deferred until they ache.

This is not a modern condition. It is as old as humanity itself. The sense of futility, the feeling that one’s efforts amount to nothing, that one’s life is running out before it has ever begun, these are among the heaviest burdens a person can carry.

But here is what is equally true: this longing is itself a signpost. The very fact that we were made to desire meaning suggests that meaning exists to be found. And it is found not in the achievement of our personal ambitions, but in the one who created us with purpose.

When Christ enters a life, he does not simply add a layer of religious activity to an already cluttered existence. He reorients the entire structure. He gives back what disappointment has taken away. Even in seasons when the clouds are thick overhead and the horizon is obscured, a heart that holds Christ can perceive the sunlight on the other side. Hope returns. A settled confidence in God’s sovereign goodness takes root where despair once lived.

Your unrealised dreams do not have to be the final word on your life. There is one who makes all things new.

For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11

The two words that altered the course of history

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TEXAS GOSPEL CANADA VOLUNTEER

There are moments in scripture when two small words carry the weight of everything. The late theologian Martyn Lloyd-Jones identified just such a moment in Ephesians 2:4, calling the word “but” in that verse the mightiest adversative in all of human history. It is a bold claim, but it bears examination.

The verses that precede Ephesians 2:4 constitute one of scripture’s most thorough and unflinching assessments of the human condition. All of humanity is declared to be dead in trespasses and sins, unresponsive to God, shaped by the influence of the prince of darkness, enslaved to the passions of the flesh, and deserving of righteous wrath. There is no softening here, no room for the comfortable reassurance that things are not quite as bad as they seem.

And then: but God.

Two words. And in those two words, the entire direction of human possibility reverses. Not because humanity found within itself some unrealised resource, not because we improved or repented on our own initiative, or earned a second look. But because God, rich in mercy, moved toward us out of the great love with which He loved us. Even in our rebellion. Even in our darkness. Even when every inclination of our hearts had turned away from the One who made us.

Those two words changed everything. They changed the verdict. They changed the destination. They changed what it is possible for human beings to become.

But God. Two words upon which eternity turns.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

How you treat your animals reveals your character

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TEXAS GOSPEL CANADA VOLUNTEER

It would be easy to pass over Proverbs 12:10 as a minor verse, a footnote tucked between weightier pronouncements. “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel.” At first reading, it might seem like a charming sidebar about animal welfare. Look more closely, and it becomes a surprisingly penetrating measure of the human heart.

Righteousness has many visible expressions: prayer, the reading of scripture, generosity with resources, honesty in dealings, love offered consistently over time. These are the markers we readily recognise and rightly honour. But Solomon observes something we might not think to include on the list: the way a person treats the animal in their care.

The reasoning runs deeper than sentiment. God is the creator of all living things, not merely of human beings. To have right relationship with what God has made means extending something of His regard to the creatures He fashioned. The person who cares gently for the animal entrusted to them is expressing, in that small and often unobserved corner of life, a righteousness that is genuine. The person who abuses or exploits creation is revealing something about their relationship with the Creator Himself.

The same principle extends outward. To exploit the earth, to contaminate the waters, to treat the natural world as raw material for consumption without care, these are not merely environmental concerns. They are reflections of a heart that has lost sight of who made it all and why.

Character does not compartmentalise. The cruelty or the kindness that lives in us finds its way into everything we touch.

For the eagerly awaiting creation waits for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God.

Romans 8:19