The term white washed tombs was part of the only warning that Jesus gave us is found in Matt 16:6 and the parallel gospels in Mark 8 and Luke 12. Although the application of the teaching is different today than it was during the era that Jesus walked the earth, the motivational drive behind the teaching still exists. It is my hope that by sharing with you what I have learned over the 32 years I have been a believer will help you heed the warning Jesus gave us about the teachings of the Pharisees and Sadducees so we do not become white washed tombs as well. What was the primary belief of the Pharisee's? Matt: 23:13 36 As you can see in this passage, Jesus spoke pretty harshly to the Pharisees. The Pharisees were primarily motivated by a performance mentality. They believed that God would be pleased with them if they performed up to a certain standard. In their drive to reach that standard, they made laws and edicts that went beyond the heart or purpose of the laws of Moses and in doin… [more]

In praying and contemplating doing a post on Bible verses about family I struggled with the knowledge that many of the people who will read this post come, like I do, from broken families or have a broken family. I did not want to come across as presenting some type of ideal that is either unrealistic or harsh when our realities are that we have not had the perfect family that we would all like to have. However there is an ideal, a goal that all of us can work towards meeting that will have great benefits both here on earth and when we get to heaven. You see, in these Bible verses about family, God's heart is revealed that He wants the family to be whole and healthy and has a plan to see that it is that way. Not because He is some type of ogre that would force us to fit into some type of mold, but because He is a loving father that has an eternities worth of experience that knows what works best. So I present to you the heart of God for the Christian family revealed in His word. May we… [more]

In this final post on Christian blogging tips I want to spend a moment about on page optimization. On page optimization is where you make your blog and blog post optimal for search engines. Again I am no expert but I have learned a few things that will help you rank better for search engines and also some tips that will help your readers enjoy the experience better. Google Panda Update. Last winter around February, Google instituted an algorithm change that messed with a whole bunch of people and websites. It was called the Panda update. They were attempting to weed out websites that were weak in original content and were designed to just be enticements for advertising and making money. This update has caused many people to have to make changes to the way they design their websites and the placement of their content on their pages. There is a general consensus that your content needs to fill approximately 50% of the space above the fold now minus the header. I am probably a little s… [more]

As most of you know, my blog is the way I supplement my income as a pastor. I am privileged to be the pastor of a great church in rural Wyoming. It has about 30 people who call it their spiritual home. Unfortunately 30 people are not able, nor do I expect them, to pay a full-time salary. For many years I worked bi-vocationally as a pastor and truck driver. Last winter it became apparent that the hours I was putting in was having a detrimental effect on my physical health. So I stopped driving truck and started blogging. It has been an interesting experience learning how to make money with a Christian blog. Google Adsense and Christian Blogging When I first started out blogging I signed up for Google Adsense. The blogger platform encouraged it and so I signed up. I had no idea how much of a nightmare it was going to be or how in the end it would not be an option that was very profitable. It seriously caused me to do a lot of research and soul-searching. The first thing I noticed was t… [more]

The biggest reason that most Christian bloggers do not do well and get rankings in the search engines is because they do not understand the importance of backlinks. All of the search engines take backlinks into consideration when deciding how to rank your blog post or website in their search results. If you want to get traffic from the search engines it is a must that you understand backlinks and make a concerted effort in building backlinks to your home page and your individual blog posts. What is a backlink? A backlink is when another website has a link that leads to your website or blog post. The most common type of backlink in Christian blogging is when you make a comment on another blog and leave a backlink to your blog. However there are many different types of backlinks that will help your blog and you need a balanced amount of different type of backlinks. To understand backlinks you need to understand how the search engines look at backlinks. I like to compare backlinks to vo… [more]

Ok in yesterdays post on How to Promote your Christian blog, I left you guys with checking out the keyword tool that Google provides. I hope you all played with it a little bit and found a few key words that look interesting to you. I hope you didn't run right out and post a new blog post based on just that little bit of research. You have 2 other factors to consider before you choose which keywords you are going to target. So let me go over all 3 factors you need to consider. Is there demand for what I want to talk about? Using the google keyword tool you can find out how many people per month search for your certain subject. You can also get ideas from the results that it brings back for new blog posts. The first time I used a keyword tool I found the keywords "Bible verses about Strength". That page today brings me almost 600 visitors a day but there has been a lot more to getting to page 1 of google than just choosing a keyword. More on that later. Second you need to check … [more]

I have been wanting to do a series for a while on Christian blogging tips. To me Christian blogging is an awesome way for everyday people to reach the world for Jesus. Part of what I do as a pastor is to equip people for the work of the ministry. Now before you get all religious on my about the word ministry, let me say that it only means giving people what you have been given. I am not talking about seminary, bible college, or some paid staff position with the title "Rev." before your name. Each and every one of us has a ministry we can give to the world because each and every one of us has the Spirit of Jesus living on the inside of us. So to me, helping you promote your Christian blog is something that fits right in with my calling to equip people. I am no expert on Christian blogging. Let me start off by saying that I am no expert. I am just a pastor who wanted to help people so I did hours upon hours of research to figure out how to get my blog noticed by Google. I have made man… [more]

Jesus made it a special point to call children to Himself and He used them as an example of how we are to have childlike faith. A few Sunday’s ago I shared a message on having childlike faith and I thought I would share it with the readers here on this blog. There is much to be learned by observing and watching children and then applying it to our spiritual life. Jesus demonstrated more than once that children are important to Him and to His kingdom. In fact I have told my own local church that children are not the “future church” but in fact they are just as much part of the church as we are and that they are our brothers and sisters in Christ as well. So let’s look just a moment at this passage and learn some things about having childlike faith.  Watch this Video of Childlike Faith  Why is it important to have childlike faith? First we see that Jesus called a little child to him. Jesus has a special place in His heart for children and taught that childlike qualities… [more]

Why do we have spiritual desert experiences? We all want to be on the mountaintop. No one likes the spiritual desert. We feel that we are on top of everything and that nothing can stop us. Jesus was not immune to spiritual deserts but He was tempted just like the rest of us and Satan tried to use that temptation against Christ just like he tries to use it against us. However, just as God used the temptation of Christ in the desert, it is in our own spiritual desert times that God works in us the deep things of life. In Mark 1:9-13 we see Jesus having what could only be a mountaintop experience. He went to be baptized by John in the Jordan river. When He came up out of the water He saw the Spirit of God descend upon him like a dove. The audible voice of God was heard and God the Father himself spoke and said that He was well pleased with Jesus. Now I don’t know about you but if any one of those 3 things were experienced by me, I would be on a spiritual mountaintop like none other! … [more]