For over twenty years we have guided Bible study tours to Israel. There is nothing that compares to a visit to the Holy Land. As my daughter once remarked, "It turns your black-and-white Bible into living color."

Over the last two months we have been exploring the four attitudes or predispositions that we must have "on" each day in order to be willing to do God's will on a moment-by-moment basis.

Several months ago, we began a new series entitled The Key, which explores how we give ourselves or surrender ourselves to the Lord on a moment-by-moment basis. Understanding this principle is an essential foundation block for a blessed walk with the Lord. Maturity in Christ is simply recognizing our self-life and knowing how to give it over to the Lord.

Many of us who have visited Israel regard the visit to the "Garden Tomb" as one of the major highlights of the trip.  It invariably ranks highest on our feedback surveys. The people in charge of the British trust that manages the site always present it as simply "representative," rather than insisting that it is the actual tomb.

Recently, we began a new series entitled The Key, which explores what I believe is the most important principle in our Christian walk - how we surrender ourselves to the Lord on a moment-by-moment basis. Over the last several months, I shared my own story of how this basic principle has impacted my life more than anything else. As I mentioned, it has become the "bread and butter" of my Christianity.

The shocking events of the past few months have dramatically impacted every one of us. Across our land we see an almost universal openness and searching for meaning. In reviewing this amazingly changed horizon, I was startled to recall an event that had occurred in the early days of our relocation to Coeur d'Alene.

Two months ago, we began a new series, entitled The Key- how we surrender ourselves to God on a practical and moment-by-moment basis. In the first two articles, I shared portions of my own story in order to show how this principle has radically changed my life.

The new year is always a perfect time to review our priorities - personal, professional, family, and community - and make a renewed commitment to those things which we determine, with careful deliberation, to be the most fruitful paths toward growth and fulfillment.

All of us at K-House want to wish you and yours a most blessed and joyous holiday season. Christmas is often a very emotional and sensitive time of year (and this Christmas will be no exception), especially for those of us who have lost loved ones, those who are struggling with financial burdens and those who are facing difficult horizons ahead.

What would you say has affected your life more than anything else as a Christian? What has made the greatest impact on your walk with the Lord?

As kids around the world anxiously await the fall opening of Warner Bros.' film "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," an occult expert has released a documentary video, "Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged, Making Evil Look Innocent," claiming the Harry Potter phenomenon is incompatibile with Christianity.

After over two years of sharing the series, Faith in the Night Seasons, this will be my final article on this critical subject. I have been so blessed by your wonderful letters saying how much the articles have helped you weather your own night seasons. And for that, I praise God!

In our next two articles, we will be wrapping up our series on Faith in the Night Seasons. I pray this series has been a blessing and has helped you understand a little more clearly some of God's ways. Even though an intimate relationship with the Lord often comes through trials and brokenness, nothing in all the earth compares to it.

In our series called Faith in the Night Seasons, we've been talking about intimacy with Godwhat intimacy is, how we get it and what we must do to maintain it.

Over the last several months, we have been talking about faith-faith in the "night seasons." Faith, we said, is accepting a situation that we cannot fully understand, and no longer being troubled by it. This kind of "naked" faith is developed through night seasons-times where God teaches us by depriving us of the natural light we have always been used to (our seeing, feeling and understanding), so that we will learn to walk by faith.

The whole purpose of the "dark night of the soul and spirit" is to bring us to an intimacy with our Lord that we have never before experienced.

Continuing our series on the Dark Night of the Spirit, this period of confusion and darkness has often been described in a variety of emotional ways.

This month we celebrate Easter. Whoops! Why do we label our most holy holiday with its pagan obfuscation? It is at this time that we celebrate the very Gospel itself: "...how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; that He was buried; and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures."

Last month we began a series of articles on the dark night of the spirit - what it is, how it differs from the dark night of the soul and what we must do to get through it.

Over the last several months we have been exploring the dark night of the soul, and how God wants us to surrender everything in our lives that is unholy or unrighteous - anything that we put first other than Christ.

Our goal as Christians should be to become Christ-like - to be instruments of God's Love. The Bible says we are ambassadors of Jesus Christ and that God personally makes His appeal to the world through us. The only way we can ever properly represent Jesus Christ to the world is to let His character show through our attitudes and actions.

God tells us in the Bible that we are to glorify Him, not only outwardly in our bodies, but also inwardly in our spirits. (1 Corinthians 6:20) It's impossible to do this, however, if we don't really understand what our spirit is. So, last month we tried to define our spirit, how it differs from our soul and the critical importance of separating the two.

Over the past year or so, we have been exploring "night seasons" - what they are, why God allows them, and what we are to do to get through them.

Two thousand years ago, a governor in an obscure eastern province of the Roman Empire asked a condemned prisoner what his definition of truth was. At the time it was a sarcastic response to his prisoner's absurd claim that he was the way, the truth and the life.

A very Merry Christmas to you and to all your family. My prayer is that God will bless you with His presence this Christmas more than you've ever experienced before.

It's December 26, the day after Christmas, when the death of the church's first martyr, Stephen, is traditionally commemorated. Trivial, yes, but most Christians can't give me the correct answer.

The dark night of the soul often comes upon us suddenly and without advance warning. This night can end in one of two ways. If we understand what God's basic will is and we relinquish ourselves to Him, we can experience the glorious presence of the Lord even in the midst of our trial.

One of the strangest episodes recorded in the Word of God is King Saul's consulting a witch (after having ostensibly cleansed the land of Israel from this occultic practice). The Halloween holiday seems like an appropriate time to review the implications of this puzzling tale.

The Harry Potter novels have created a new idol for millions of children around the world.  To some of them the fictional Harry seems almost real. But concern is growing among some Christian segments that the Potter series, replete with lessons in practical witchcraft, is opening a door to an occult reality for the world's children.

How do you react when your dreams, your plans and your hopes blow up in your face? What is your response when you were so sure you had heard from God and you thought He had encouraged you to move ahead, and then all of a sudden everything crumbled?