Now the Lord said to Samuel, “You have mourned long enough for Saul. I have rejected him as king of Israel, so fill your flask with olive oil and go to Bethlehem. Find a man named Jesse who lives there, for I have selected one of his sons to be my king.”—1 Samuel 16:1

I wish I could say that throughout my life, I have always had a detailed blueprint of everything I should do. But it hasn’t been like that at all. I have never started a day with the theme from Mission Impossible playing in the background and a voice saying, “Good morning, Greg. This is God. Here is your mission for today.”

For the most part, it has been a matter of taking steps of faith based on what I’ve read in the Scriptures. God has led me one step at a time.

Interestingly, when God told Samuel that He had chosen a new king to reign over Israel, the Lord had not revealed to Samuel exactly whom it was. God basically said to him, “Go to Bethlehem. I will tell you what to do after that.” And that is exactly what Samuel did.

When the Lord told Philip to go to the desert, he had been preaching the gospel in Samaria. People were coming to faith. Revival was breaking out. Yet God told him to go to the desert, and He didn’t tell him anything else. How easily Philip could have asked why: And preach to whom? Camels? Lizards? But Philip did exactly what the Lord told him to do. Philip shared the gospel with the man he found there, and he came to the Lord.

God led Samuel and Philip one step at a time, and that is typical of how God leads us. God’s way becomes plain when we start walking in it. If God already has shown you to do something and you haven’t done it, then don’t ask Him to show you something new to do. Go back and do what you were already supposed to do.

Obedience to revealed truth guarantees guidance in matters unrevealed.

“Not a single person on earth is always good and never sins.”—Ecclesiastes 7:20

No life is without its share of problems.

If you don’t have much wealth, you worry about how to get more. If you have a lot, you always find someone who has more. If you have the most, you worry about how to keep it.

Wealth is a relative concept. Someone wrote, “If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.”

Even the most beautiful, famous, and wealthy people have their hurts and pains.

The American public loves to follow the adventures of the rich and famous. Just look at all the tabloids. I was standing in line at the store one day and saw on the cover of a tabloid: “Cellulite of the Stars.” These people can’t even take off their shirt at the beach without being photographed—it’s brutal.

We take some perverse delight in knowing these people are just like us. And indeed they are.

There is an old legend about people in a certain village who constantly complained about their troubles. Each was invited to throw all of his burdens and problems into one big heap in the middle of town. Then he was given the privilege of choosing other troubles to replace the ones he gave up.

After careful deliberation and consideration, each selected the same problems he had cast aside, feeling his own to be less difficult than those of the others.

People put up a front, and pretend to be happy when they are not. But deep down inside, we are really all the same, with the same hurts and needs. And the answer to these needs is the same for everyone: a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

“Oh, that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end!”—Deuteronomy 32:29

If you were to sum up your life, if you were to write the inscription for your own tombstone, what would it say?

These words appear on the tombstone of a man named John Starkweather: “Here is where friend Starkweather lies. Nobody laughs, nobody cries. Where he goes, how he fares, nobody knows, nobody cares.”

A tombstone belonging to Henry Edsel Smith near Albany, New York, is said to bear this inscription: “Here lies Henry Edsel Smith. Born 1903. Died 1942. Looked up the elevator shaft to see if the car was on the way down. It was.”

For Saul, the first king of Israel, an appropriate inscription would have been his own words: “I have played the fool and erred exceedingly” (1 Samuel 26:21).

We, too, can play the fool. We play the fool when we disobey God, even in what we think are small matters. Spiritual decline is gradual. Saul’s failure was not immediate. At first he was humble, but pride soon set in, and then came envy. He took matters into his own hands and made it worse. We need to obey God in everything He tells us to do.

We play the fool when we attempt to justify the wrongs we have done. On more than one occasion, Saul blamed others for what he had done wrong. He would not own up to his own sin.

We play the fool when we forget that how we finish means more than how we start. A good beginning does not guarantee a good ending. Happy endings are the result of good choices.

We don’t really know who the Sauls of life actually are until much later. We think certain people are doing well. But let’s see how things end up. The outcome is not always what we expect.

So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.”—1 Samuel 15:22

When God commanded Saul to settle accounts with some old enemies, the Amalekites, Saul partially obeyed. As a result, God rejected him as king. Saul’s sin may seem insignificant to us, but who are we to say that something is small if it is a big deal to God? Who are we to say that it doesn’t matter? If God says it matters, then it matters.

God looks at the heart. God sees things that we don’t see. And God could already see that Saul’s heart had turned away.

Some people say, “What’s wrong with having a little fun? I’ll know when to stop.”

But sin is sin, and “little” sins always lead to “big” sins. That’s where it starts.

I read about a Malaysian man who holds the world record for kissing venomous snakes. He has kissed a king cobra 51 times. We can have that attitude toward sin: I can handle this. It will never bite me. It will never get me. Then one day, that little kiss will prove to be your undoing. It will become a kiss of death.

As the prophet Samuel told Saul, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry” (1 Samuel 15:23).

Sometimes people who blatantly sin think they can make it up to God. They think, I’ll give more in the offering. . . . I’ll sing louder at church. . . . I’ll go to a midweek Bible study.b But obedience is better than sacrifice. It is not a matter of obeying God whenever we find it easy or convenient or popular. Jesus said, “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you” (John 15:14).

God wants us to obey Him. He is more interested in our actions than our words.

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” —Genesis 2:24

Our smoke alarm went off the other night at 4:00 A.M. I jumped out of bed and was ready to take action. Turns out the unit malfunctioned. (Why does it always go off at 4:00 A.M. and not P.M.?)

Because of incidents like this, we tend to tune out alarms. Who even looks when a car alarm goes off in a parking structure? We assume it’s just someone trying to find their car.

One alarm you do not want to ignore is the fuel light in your car. If you do, you will come to a complete stop. You can’t run on fumes.

Many marriages today are “running on empty.” They have not taken hold of the power that’s available; they’re not operating by the principles given in the User’s Manual. Remember, God invented marriage. And there is a right and wrong way to do it.

Happy, strong, and lasting marriages don’t happen by accident. Marriage is something that to be good and fulfilling takes the right ingredients. It is the result of effort on the part of the partners involved.

Marriage is not so much finding the right person as it is being the right person. But all of this is to be done with God’s help. A strong and happy marriage is the result of obedience to God and His Word and laying aside this world’s distorted “take it or leave it” concept of marriage.

If we want to have the closest thing to “heaven on earth” apart from Christ’s return—if we want a marriage and family that succeeds, we must do it as He tells us to.

It’s all in the “User’s Manual of Life,” the Bible.

Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. —Philippians 3:12

On more than one occasion, the Bible compares the Christian life to running a race. The apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3:13–14, “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Paul’s focus was the end of the race, because the key is not just to start the race; it is to finish it well. Things don’t always turn out the way we think they will. Take, for example, the 2013 Super Bowl. It was not a close game during the first half. But after a power outage in the stadium, the San Francisco 49ers began making an amazing comeback, right up to the last moments of the game.

In the race of life, it doesn’t matter whether we hold first place for nine-tenths of the race. We have to finish. Sometimes in the Christian life, people leave the starting blocks with a bang, with a lot of passion and zeal. Then they lose their speed and energy, and the next thing you know, they have effectively crashed and burned. We have to pace ourselves in the race of life.

You may be just starting the race of life, you may be at the midway point, or you may be in your last laps. We naturally assume that at a young age, we have just started the race, and when we have lived a long time, we are finishing it. But we don’t know when our lives will end. We don’t know when our race will be over. This is why we always want to run well.

You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth?—Galatians 5:7

One thing I have found in life is that it’s full of surprises. I have been greatly surprised by the way people’s lives have turned out. I think of people I went to school with who seemingly had no potential whatsoever, and they have clearly proven otherwise. Then there are those who seemed to have so much promise, but when I look at the trajectory their lives took, it is another story altogether.

I have been a pastor for more than four decades now, and I have seen a lot of people come and go through the years. I’ve seen some individuals who were gifted as musicians, preachers, or in some other way effectively crash and burn. I have also seen some who I thought would go out and change the world basically self-destruct instead.

As time goes by, I find myself being less impressed with things I was once more impressed by and more impressed with things I was once less impressed by. Nowadays, I am far more impressed by character than charisma. I am more interested in personal integrity than in mere talent. (Will this person stand the test of time?) I am impressed not by a person who has a huge ministry, but by someone who is still married to the same person they started out with. That impresses me, because so many things change as time goes by.

If God has gifted you, then you need to take that gift and use it for His glory. You not only want to start this race well, but you also want to finish it well. You can hold on to first place in a race for a while, but if, at the end, you break the rules or don’t cross the finish line, it doesn’t count. Finish well.

“Can a man scoop a flame into his lap and not have his clothes catch on fire?” —Proverbs 6:27

I have often said that it is not the bait that constitutes sin; it is the bite. For temptation to be effective, there must be a desire on our part.

James 1:14 says, “Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away.” For the Devil to succeed at tempting us, we must first listen, yield, and most importantly, desire what he offers.

We can be walking along, minding our own business, when all of a sudden, some horrible thought or temptation comes to mind. We’re shocked that we could even think such a thing. It doesn’t mean we’ve done something wrong because we have been tempted. But it does mean we need to resist and recognize that it isn’t from God.

I have seen intelligent people who know the Bible make the worst decisions imaginable under the power of sin. That is why the Bible warns us about the allure and trickery of sin.

When I hear of someone who has run from God, my prayer is, “Lord, help him come to his senses. May it even happen at this moment, wherever he is, whatever he’s doing.”

Sin is like a form of temporary insanity, although sometimes it isn’t so temporary. We rationalize our way though it and say the things that have been said so many other times: “I will just go so far and then stop. . . . I’ll never do it again.”

The Bible asks, “Can a man scoop a flame into his lap and not have his clothes catch on fire?” (Proverb 6:27). People think, I will get out of this. I always find a way out. Then one day, they don’t find a way out. They realize it’s over, and they are going to reap the consequences of their sin.

Now Samson went down to Timnah, and saw a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines.—Judges 14:1

When I was a brand-new Christian, I had a great burden to share the gospel exclusively with really cute girls. I thought, Why would I want to talk to just anyone? I’ll talk to cute girls. They need the Lord, too. But God got my attention, and I changed my way of thinking.

The problem with being involved with a nonbeliever is that most often, a nonbeliever will pull a Christian down spiritually—not the other way around. There are exceptions. But generally that is the case. It is miserable, and it is not God’s plan for a believer.

We see this played out in the life of Samson, whom God raised up to be a leader over Israel. Apparently Samson didn’t care much about what God’s plan was, because he got involved with an unbelieving woman. One thing led to another, and things escalated. The Devil caught the mighty Samson hook, line, and sinker.

Samson’s problem was that he had power without purity and strength without self-control. For twenty years, Samson experienced the thrill of victory. Not once had he been defeated. He should have been so thankful to God. We could say that God gave Samson a lot of rope, and Samson ended up hanging himself.

Any step away from God is always a step down. After God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, the Bible says that “Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord” (Jonah 1:3).

When you are going away from God, you are always going down—never up.

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.—James 1:2–3

Jesus was very popular early on in His ministry, especially after performing His most popular miracle to date: the feeding of the five thousand. Now we’re talking—a guy who gives us free lunch! This is awesome! The crowds swelled. Huge multitudes followed Him. So Jesus turned to them and challenged them, and the result was that many turned away. They weren’t following Jesus for the right reasons.

Some people say they are Christians, but then, when a little hardship comes their way, they say they don’t believe anymore. They claim to have lost their faith. Their faith was worthless in that case, because the faith that can’t be tested is the faith that can’t be trusted.

If you were to tell me that you’ve lost your faith because of a hardship or difficulty, then I would tell you that I’m glad you lost that faith—because it wasn’t real faith at all. If you have real faith in God, then it won’t be weakened by calamity; it will be strengthened by it. If you have real faith, then it will grow through hardship. That is what the Bible teaches.

Tragedy, hardship, and trials don’t produce faith as much as they reveal it. If your faith is really in Jesus, then you will get through the storms of life. If you tell me that you turned away from God because of something that happened in your life, then my question is do you even have faith? Maybe it’s time to get some.

Jesus thinned out the ranks of His so-called followers. Gideon did the same when God called him into battle against the Midianites. Why? Because God can do more with three hundred committed people than with ten thousand halfhearted people. And He is still looking for committed people today.

So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.—Ephesians 5:15–16

I spent my whole life (or so it seemed) praying for my mom. She was an alcoholic and had been married and divorced seven times. After my conversion, I preached complete sermons to her. I gave her both barrels of my gospel gun. Yet she didn’t believe. It wasn’t until twenty-five years later that she finally made a commitment to Christ—a month before she died. It took a long time to reach her.

The most difficult people to reach for Christ are in your own family—and you will never reach them through compromise. We need to live the message we are preaching. It is tempting to give everyone a sermon. We want to preach to that unsaved husband or wife or those nonbelieving parents. But there comes a point when we have preached enough sermons. There comes a point when we need to live the sermon. We need to be good examples.

If you are a husband with a nonbelieving wife, then be a good husband. If you are a believing wife with a nonbelieving husband, then be a godly woman. If you are a child with nonbelieving parents, then do the things your parents ask you to do. Be responsible. Apply yourself. That will speak volumes to them.

Even Jesus had a hard time reaching His siblings, and who was a better example than Jesus? He was God. He was perfect. Yet the Bible tells us that prior to His crucifixion and resurrection, His own family did not believe in Him. So if Jesus had a challenge reaching His family, then you will have a challenge as well.

But know this: no one is reached through compromise. God is looking for men and women today that He can use—men and women who will make a stand.

“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.” —Luke 16:10

When God told Gideon to tear down the altar his father had built to a false God, Gideon would have to risk his life to obey. In Gideon’s day, the patriarchal figure of a family in Israel was the law. So to oppose your father was to take a significant risk.

Gideon did it anyway. He “took ten men from among his servants and did as the Lord had said to him. But because he feared his father’s household and the men of the city too much to do it by day, he did it by night” (Judges 6:27).

Gideon took a big risk here. He took a stand, and he tore the altar down. Yes, he did it at night, but at least he obeyed God.

A lot of people will criticize those who go out and do things. We don’t like the way you do that. . . . We don’t agree with this. . . .We don’t agree with that.

My question for them would be, “What are you doing besides critiquing? What is your plan?”

There are a lot of people who are armchair quarterbacks and professional critics, yet they do little to nothing themselves. Then there are others who go out and get the job done. Some people are setting the world on fire while others are still looking for a match. I like people who go out and take risks. Even if they don’t always do things perfectly, even if they make a mistake here and there, I would rather try and fail than never do anything.

Some people start off weak, but they end up strong. Yet it is better to start weak and end strong than to start strong and end weak. It is better yet to start strong and end strong.

“Listen to Me, you who know right from wrong, you who cherish My law in your hearts. Do not be afraid of people’s scorn, nor fear their insults.”—Isaiah 51:7

“Greg, don’t talk about those issues. They’re too political.” That’s one of the reactions I receive when I speak about the movement in our country to “normalize” homosexuality, and redefine the concepts of marriage and family. Are these political issues? Maybe. But more to the point, these are moral and biblical issues. And what I have said before I say again: We tamper with God’s order at our own great peril.

When it comes to homosexual marriage, we hear people say, “I don’t understand. If two people of the same sex love each other, why can’t they get married?”

Here is the simple answer: Homosexuality is outside of God’s order, and no amount of emotional arguments or political spin can change that precept of Scripture. It’s the same with a man and a woman living together outside of marriage: That is not in His order, either. God isn’t “anti-gay”; He is anti-sin, no matter how it is expressed. Does that make the person who opposes gay marriage “homophobic”? We could just as easily say that the person who denies the timeless truths of the Bible is bibliaphobic.

If you dare to speak out against any sin in today’s world, someone will brand you as “something-phobic.” Well, so be it. I will admit to being a sinaphobic. And here is what God says about sinners not entering His kingdom: “Don’t you know that those who do wrong will have no share in the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, who are idol worshipers, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, abusers, and swindlers—none of these will have a share in the Kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9–10 NLT).

How clear that is! There is nothing confused or ambiguous about the way the Bible speaks to this topic. In fact, there is no confusion on this issue, unless your confusion is with the Bible itself. If you still have your doubts, read Paul’s words in Romans 1:22–27. In no uncertain terms, the apostle lays out truth that the passing of millennia and the morphing of culture cannot change: homosexuality is sexual impurity, and goes directly against the Creator’s established order. What is that order? Marriage is to be between a man and a woman. Period. “Well,” someone might say, “my God would never say that.” The fact is, there is only one God, who has revealed Himself in the pages of Scripture. Any other “god” isn’t a god at all, but an idol.

Someone else will counter, “But aren’t gay people born that way?” I don’t accept that. I believe that all people are born sinners, and every one of us came from the womb with a sinful nature. As sinners, some of us are drawn to certain temptations and some are drawn to others. The fact is, some may be attracted to those of the same sex. But that doesn’t mean that a person should act on those temptations any more than a person who is tempted to steal, lie, lust, or murder. We must respect the marriage of a man and woman, and give it the honor that it deserves. How I thank God for the couples who have stayed together through difficult times, and raised their children to know and love God.

Homosexual marriage is more than a debatable, negotiable “election issue” in a contentious political cycle. It is a moral, biblical issue. Elections and candidates may come and go, but God will hold our nation accountable for how we confront this and other sins in our time.