A few years ago I was in my prayer cabin at The Altar — the place where I spend my mornings — when a picture opened up in my spirit. I saw a Christian businessman. Sharp suit, nice watch, the whole package. He loved the Lord. He'd given his life to Christ, and now it was time to be baptized. He was stepping down into the water where I was standing, waiting to baptize him in the name of the Lord. I started lowering him into the water. And halfway down, he remembered his wallet

A couple of years back, I was driving to Edmonton on a Sunday morning to preach for my friend Rodney Forton at Church in the Vine, and I spent most of the drive repenting. It was March. If you work in the patch, you know what March is. We were understaffed, I was driving constantly, and I'd been putting in strings of eighteen- and twenty-hour days for weeks. I had not prepared one thing. Not a note, not an outline, not a verse. I hadn't prepared mentally, I hadn't prepared sp

On March 29, 2025, at forty-nine years old, I got my first tattoo. It isn't much to look at. A little grasshopper on my hand. My friend did it. It took no time at all. I got it because I knew myself well enough to know that if I didn't put something where I'd have to look at it, I would break my word to God again. I'd already done it for seven years running. To explain that, I have to take you back. In 2018 I was on day thirty-nine of a forty-two day fast. If you've never don

In 2018, my wife wanted to move. You need to understand what that sentence does to me. I hate moving. The word by itself raises my blood pressure. My wife, on the other hand, would move every year if I let her. She loves making a home. She loves design, she loves decorating, and she is so good at it that people keep buying our houses out from under us for more than we paid. She has never once been wrong about a house. I still hate moving. So when she started asking me to go l

July 24, 2014. I was out for a run. The Holy Spirit said, You're gonna quit smoking today. And I said, "No. I don't think I will." He said, Yes, you will. Now understand, I wasn't being rebellious. I was being reasonable. So I started making my case, the way you do when you've got a good one. I said, "I love You, Lord. And You know I've been drinking a lot less than I used to. You know I haven't looked at pornography in a very long time. I've given You a lot of ground. But le

I know a man, and so do you, because some mornings he is you and most mornings he is me. He has been asking God for one thing for about two years. And he has worked at it. He has a prayer list in a black notebook and a second copy in his phone in case the notebook goes missing. He has read the books. The one on breakthrough. The one on the courts of heaven. The one his buddy swore by that he never got past chapter three of. He keeps a book of declarations beside the bed and a

If you’ve ever opened your Bible, stared at the page, and thought, “I don’t even know where to start”—you’re not alone.