Christian Living Articles
Learn to pursue the Christian virtues of forgiveness, integrity, humility, and more.
- A Balanced View of Shame
- A Battle for Integrity We all know what the absence of integrity looks like. We see it daily in the news, whether it’s in greedy, dishonest executives, pork-happy politicians, or athletes on steroids. Chuck Swindoll issues a challenge for the Christian to stand apart from the crowd by knowing the lines that can’t be crossed in order to maintain a spotless reputation as a follower of the God of righteousness.
- A Joyful Heart . . . It's Good Medicine! Chuck Swindoll recognizes the ability to laugh and to find the humor in things as a gift from God to every believer. Even though life brings tragic occurrences our way now and then, God desires that we find joy as we rest in His sovereignty over all things. According to Chuck, a Christian who doesn’t laugh much is not taking God’s divine prescription for spiritual health.
- A Reason to Smile
- A Season for Humble Gratitude
- A Sheltering Tree There is a pattern found in Scripture of how God chooses to minister to His servants when they get beaten down by opposition. His method can be described in a word: friendship. Chuck Swindoll gives several accounts of how God provided human relationships to keep people from giving up at their lowest points. We all need to find that kind of support in our lives and be willing to provide it to close friends when they need a place of rest and acceptance.
- A Weekly Furlough for Your Pastor This article includes a tongue-in-cheek job description for the pastor every church desires, which serves to illustrate the kinds of pressures every pastor faces. We sometimes forget that pastors are human and thus imperfect, just like the rest of us. They also need spiritual enrichment, which the author directs them to find in Chuck Swindoll’s pastor’s blog.
- Act Medium Children often grasp the dos and don’ts of getting along together better than grown-ups. Chuck Swindoll uses a kids’ clubhouse rule to illustrate the biblical character qualities of humility and servanthood. We often think we’re being humble when we’re actually focusing too much on ourselves and not taking enough interest in others. This is a convicting article that we could all benefit from reading often.
- Attitude Check
- Battle of the Will
- Becoming Real
- Burning Ourselves: The Tongue’s Hidden Hurt
- Changing Our Minds, Changing Our Lives
- Character: It’s Been Buried Long Enough
- Christ's Return The return of Christ is an event we all know is coming but, according to Chuck Swindoll, one that we don’t dwell on nearly enough. If we knew how much life on earth will be altered by that momentous event, we might totally realign our priorities and see everything in a different light. Read Chuck’s dos and don’ts list for preparing for that day.
- Chuck’s Insights on a Life Well Lived
- Conforming or Transforming
- Confusion
- Contentment Chuck Swindoll notes that the push to achieve and advance in life causes many of us to forgo the roles for which we’re best suited. If we knew the true path to contentment, we would be able to resist these pressures and experience freedom.
- Creating a Legacy of Forgiveness: Cancel the Debt Chuck Swindoll clarifies in this article what true forgiveness must involve to be complete and in obedience to God’s Word. We can’t be expected to erase our memories of offenses against us, but we can and must make the willful choice not to hold a grievance over another’s head and hold him or her captive to the debt owed us.
- Creating a Legacy: Preparing the Stones The pace of life is usually fast and dominated by the tyranny of the urgent. Therefore, Chuck says it’s absolutely essential for parents to record in some physical, visible way the times and events where your family sees God move in a wonderful way, perhaps in answer to a specific prayer. God’s faithfulness during the tough events of life must be remembered for when the next tough events happen. God will be honored and the faith of your children will be strengthened with these tangible reminders.
- Creativity and Tenacity
- Cultivating a Tender Heart and a Tough Hide Anyone who takes a strong stand for God and His truth must learn to withstand harsh criticism. Chuck Swindoll offers the tenacity of the apostle Paul as a great example to follow when enduring false accusations. Chuck lists seven characteristics Paul exhibited that we can all emulate when facing strong opposition.
- Discovering the "Missing Jewel" of the Church Chuck Swindoll points out that the idea of worship has become too vaguely understood in the church today. Many liken worship to a particular style of music or teaching. Many think it has to do with a certain feeling. After recognizing these and other misconceptions, Chuck explains what worship really means and encourages us to focus on it more regularly.
- Erosion Citing the popular boiling-frog example, Chuck Swindoll reminds us that the breaking down of our spiritual vitality is a subtle, slow-moving process, and it requires great vigilance to protect against this breakdown. Having wisdom doesn’t insulate us from this danger, because King Solomon, one of the wisest men ever, eventually gave in to all sorts of vices that turned his heart from God. Let the complacent Christian beware!
- Faith in the Workplace Rare is the workplace environment devoid of challenging personalities who test our spirituality on a daily basis! Chuck Swindoll gives some good suggestions on how a Christian can have a positive witness at work, even among the turmoil and pressures of the average give-and-take work atmosphere.
- Faith or Family
- Famine
- Following God's Plan—Fulfilling Your Purpose David Carl shares his journey of training and preparation that eventually led to the discovery of the ministry God had in mind for him all along. When we’re only partway down that path, it can be hard to see how God is using our gifts right now. But David encourages us to wait on God and be assured that every stop along the way is part of our needed training.
- Forgotten Side of Success Encouraging us to take the narrow road, Chuck Swindoll rejects the whole “you-gotta-get-ahead” mentality of our modern culture. He suggests that true serenity and contentment is found in the willingness to work faithfully in obscurity, with a teachable spirit, while we wait for God to promote or elevate us in His time
- Four Commandments for Graduates
- Funny Truth
- Go for It
- God at Work on the Inside
- God Knows Your Ways
- He's Coming . . . Are You Ready?
- How Do I Respond to Someone Who Has Hurt Me? We’ve all felt the sting of hurt and anger when someone we thought we could trust betrays a confidence or says something insensitive about us. This article helps us process our emotions and work toward a proper response before our anger turns to bitterness and retaliation. Forgiveness doesn’t come naturally, but the peace that follows makes it well worth the effort.
- How to Handle Straying Saints A backslidden Christian, who has fallen into a pattern of sin in one or more areas of his or her life, needs to be approached by just the right person in just the right way. This article gives practical suggestions on how to carry out church discipline. It has just as much to say to the one doing the confronting as it does to the one in need of correction. The attitude and motive of the one correcting is a key component to determining the success of the encounter.
- How to Waste Your Time This Year Many of us are unaware of how our own thoughts can rob us, day after day, of having the joy and peace God wants us to have. Chuck Swindoll brings this point home in a clever yet convicting manner, as he describes to a tee the kinds of thoughts that we can so easily harbor and allow to weigh us down. He suggests that when we can replace those thoughts with the mind of God, we’ll see our productivity and effectiveness soar.
- Humility Has a Selective Memory his is an article for those who have a past that they’re having trouble moving on from, whether it’s because of failures, unjust treatment, or painful loss. Chuck Swindoll states that God has promised to give us the ability to forgive others and ourselves as He fills our lives and our thoughts with His presence and power instead.
- Injustice Chuck Swindoll laments the lack of objectivity and justice in the application of laws in our world today. Courtroom scenes are less about revealing the facts than they are about promoting an agenda or a personality. He gives a tongue-in-cheek example designed to illustrate the absurdity we sometimes see when the truth is distorted.
- It Brought Down a King, It'll Do the Same to You King Saul was someone whose love for God and His Word was lukewarm at best. Using Saul as an example, the author explains his own spiritual journey from self-centeredness and ambivalence toward God to a true love and passion for God. This transition was brought about by watching the obedience and devotion of some men God brought into his life.
- It Takes Courage
- It's Not About You Drawing from the apostle Paul’s example of how he accepted his own weaknesses and hardships, Chuck Swindoll reminds us of what we often don’t want to hear: our life on earth is for the purpose of making us more like Christ. Unfortunately, nothing does that better than the trials and pains we suffer. But if we, like Paul, can keep our eyes on the ultimate goal of letting God work through us, we’ll learn to accept joyfully whatever God brings us and not seek the easy, pain-free life instead.
- It's Time to Embrace Grace by Embracing the Unlovely Although Jesus has given us the perfect example of extending grace to the unworthy, we as Christians are often slow to learn from His example when it comes to showing grace to each other. In this article, Chuck Swindoll gives a beautiful example of grace extended to one who needed it and challenges us to look for ways to do the same.
- Journal
- Joyful Generosity If you have trouble fitting the words cheerful and giver into the same sentence, this is a valuable article for you to read. Chuck Swindoll gives four suggestions on how we can add joy to our giving and join the ranks of those believers who regularly and willingly give sacrificially of their time and financial resources.
- Let’s Be Thankful for Angels
- Living with a Kingdom Mentality
- Losing Our Training Wheels Drawing from an experience he had with his young daughter, the author reminds us that we cannot always see God’s perspective on the hardships we face in this life. At those times, just like David, we can express our honest feelings to God. Wayne Stiles assures us that our heavenly Father is always working in the context of His love for us and only causes events to come our way that will work to our spiritual advantage and His glory.
- Morality Is Not the Point Christians tend to spend a lot of time focused on our activities and the spiritual disciplines that draw us toward holiness, but we don’t spend nearly enough time talking about the motives behind these activities. Why do you read your Bible? Why are you involved in the particular ministries you’ve chosen? This convicting article can help you discern if your emphases in your spiritual activities are from proper motivations or from those that may lead you to burnout.
- Morality Is Still Not the Point In a previous article, Dave Carl concluded that loving God is more important than living a moral life and must be the motive behind all our spiritual activities. In this “sequel,” he explores how to love God more—what it does and does not look like. Reading his simple yet profound suggestions, we can reflect on whether or not we’re on the right track in our relationship with God and whether or not we’re steering our kids down the path toward loving God more.
- Peace That Exceeds Understanding Is it possible to have peace and calmness when the events all around you are telling you that you can’t? Chuck Swindoll states that the way to this peace—shalom—is through a simple but complete trust in God’s promises of support. That’s why the world cannot understand this kind of inexplicable peace. It can’t be manufactured apart from a willingness to release our cares into God’s loving care.
- Pharisaism Chuck Swindoll looks at some of the very harsh words that Jesus directed to the Pharisees during His classic Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of Matthew. Chuck interprets Jesus’s points using modern-day examples, lest any of us think we’re not prone to pharisaic thinking. Chances are every one of us can find areas to work on as we read this hard-hitting, straightforward appeal to treat others with grace and live a genuine life.
- Ragged-Edge Faith and Reckless Generosity Chuck Swindoll reflects on the strong faith of his older brother, Orville, and on Orville’s ability to trust in Jesus to meet the needs of his family. We live in a materialistic society, where our security seems to come from what we own and have stashed away. Chuck suggests that whether we have abundance or are seeing lean times, our security must come only from God and His promise to provide for all of our needs. Only then can we be truly generous.
- Redeeming the Seasons of Life Instead of always looking ahead to the way we want things to be in the future or looking back to how things used to be, Wayne Stiles encourages us to live in the present and take hold of the opportunities given to us today. After all, that’s really all we have and the only place where we can have an impact.
- Sancti-fried Anyone who’s been a Christian for any length of time can relate to the believer’s ongoing fight to resist his or her own fleshly desires and the pull of the world we live in. Sometimes we get discouraged when we see other Christians walking the Christian walk seemingly without effort or fallbacks. However, comparing our growth to another’s is neither productive nor realistic, because our Father has a unique plan and timeline for each of us.
- Sanctity of Life
- Seeing Above the Clouds Chuck Swindoll recognizes that there are plenty of things going on in the world today to weaken our optimism and energize the worrier inside us. But he gives us, in this article, the prescription we need to counteract the constant negativity and pessimism. We must remind ourselves of just how powerful God is and spend time in His calming presence.
- Seven Ways to Cultivate Joy Some may think that joy is an emotion that you either feel or you don’t. Chuck Swindoll suggests that joy is more of an intentional attitude that we have a lot of control over. He lists seven practical principles that, when practiced regularly, will be sure to help us put negativity and worry behind us and develop the joyful, steady character God desires of us.
- Shake It Up a Little
- Sharing Your Testimony Swindoll explains the persuasive power and impact of an individual Christian’s conversion story. He provides us with specific pointers for composing an effective, genuine, and articulate account of how we met the Savior and recognized our need for a relationship with Jesus. No believer should be without this effective evangelism tool—a heartfelt, genuine testimony!
- Sins That Stifle Love and Unity
- Solitude: A Vital Factor in Growing Closer to God Few people have a schedule any more demanding than Jesus did. People sought Him everywhere He went. Because of this, He had to make time alone with the Father a priority and could often only find that time very early in the morning. Chuck Swindoll encourages us to build the same discipline into our schedule in order to find or maintain our closeness to the heart of God.
- Tenderness
- The Devil Made Me Do It? In this age of entitlement, personal responsibility isn’t often discussed. Neither is the concept of sin. But just how many of our wrong choices can we blame on outside influences? In this hard-hitting, convicting article, we are reminded to humbly acknowledge our sins so we can learn to resist them, while also experiencing the cleansing from them that we have received through the person and work of Jesus Christ.
- The Gift for the Person Who Has Everything Christians should naturally be known for their selfless acts of service and compassion to others but, as Chuck Swindoll points out, believers can get just as caught up in the distractions of our material world as anyone else. The list of suggested ways to give of yourself to others is a refreshing reminder of what really ministers to people and of what exhibits God’s supernatural love in ways that are becoming increasingly rare.
- The Joys of Generosity In this article, Chuck Swindoll makes a strong correlation between godly contentment and joyful generosity. He describes four benefits that will result for a person who can remember that God is the author of divine resources and gives generous gifts to His children.
- The Problem with Prayer Most of us have struggled at times with our prayer life and with understanding how and when God answers prayer. This article gives a unique and valuable perspective to keep in mind when we aren’t seeing the results we’d like from our times of prayer. The three suggestions made here may help you pinpoint any errors you may have in your own thinking when it comes to prayer.
- The Three-Second Pause
- The Winsome Witness A joyless Christian, according to Chuck Swindoll, is an ineffective Christian. The best advertisement we can make for the cause of Christ may just be the smile on our faces—or the best jokes we can tell. Chuck gives examples of great Christian leaders who were known for being lighthearted. And he then gives three pointers on how we can cultivate joy in our lives and in our homes.
- Tightwads Using a rather extreme example, Chuck Swindoll illustrates the pointlessness of being stingy with our wealth and possessions in this life. He asserts that whoever is reluctant to part with some of his or her assets is also one who doesn’t dare to dream big dreams or attempt great things for God. This article challenges us to evaluate our generosity and our vision of what God can accomplish through our faith.
- Time with God Chuck Swindoll asserts that spiritual strength and fortitude can come only as a result of regular times of stillness before God, waiting for Him to speak in His way and in His timing. Both David and Job modeled the benefits of solitude. Read this article if you need a gentle “push” to help you schedule that valuable slot of time to be alone with God.
- Unearthing Our Walk with Christ What does it mean to walk where Christ walked? Chuck Swindoll answers this question both with a literal and a figurative answer. Although many travel to Israel to physically walk where Jesus walked, Chuck reminds us of the only way to walk with Him on a daily basis.
- Weeds
- What Does “Trusting God” Mean?
- When God Says “No” . . . Pray
- Ya Gotta Have Heart! Citing both good and bad examples from history, Chuck Swindoll shows that the difference between victory and defeat isn’t always a matter of whether or not the odds are in your favor. It also doesn’t seem to depend on a leader’s natural abilities or popular support. Read this article to discover the one essential ingredient that will help you overcome the odds and persevere where others would concede defeat.