Zechariah’s visions are recorded in a short book bearing his name toward the end of the Old Testament portion of your Bible. I want to focus on one mighty, mighty promise found in chapter 2:
Then I looked up, and there before me was a man...
READ MOREEvery man wants a battle to fight. It's the whole thing with boys and weapons. And look at the movies men love — Braveheart, Gladiator, Top Gun, High Noon, Saving Private Ryan. Men are made for battle. (And ladies, don't you love the...
READ MORELife is the offer, friends. Let us not forget that.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
The thief comes...
READ MOREYou do know what God is after in your own life, don’t you? Maybe that’s why we stay so busy — to avoid knowing, so we can avoid dealing with it.
And you do know that the “quick fix” doesn’t ever work. Simply telling myself, “You...
READ MOREEve is given to Adam as his ezer kenegdo — or as many translations have it, his "help meet" or "helper." Doesn't sound like much, does it? It makes me think of Hamburger Helper. But Robert Alter says this is "a notoriously difficult word...
READ MOREWe’ve lived in Colorado now for more than twenty years, but I’ve never really learned to snowboard. I mean, I’ve tried. But it was always a messy, hazardous, hesitant affair. Like a dog on roller skates. There wasn’t a lot of joy in it for me. I...
READ MOREJohn the Beloved, also called John the Seer because of his authorship of the book of Revelation, was taken into the Kingdom of God by the Spirit. He visited the city of God, and there he saw the River:
Then the angel showed me the river of...
READ MOREThe story of Cinderella turns upon an invitation.
Up until the moment that the courier from the palace arrives at her door, Cinderella’s life seems set in stone. She will always be a washerwoman, a cellar girl. Her enemies will...
READ MOREI will go before you
and will level the mountains;
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.
I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I...
Of course we are nearing the end of the age. Jesus seemed pretty frustrated at his contemporaries’ refusal to understand their times. “Fools,” he called them. Because knowing your moment matters. Knowing where you are in the story is...
READ MOREWe must open our hearts to all the other ways God is bringing beauty into our lives. The beauty of a flower garden or moonlight on water, the beauty of music or a written word. Our souls crave Beauty, and if we do not find it we will be famished...
READ MOREEvery great story involves a quest. In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins ran from the door at a quarter till eleven without even so much as a pocket handkerchief and launched on an adventure that would change his life forever...
READ MOREGiving up has always been a struggle for frail humanity. But when Jesus urges us to ask for strength to escape, he has something particular in mind, something he sees coming: “At that time many will turn away from the faith” (Matthew 24:...
READ MOREAs we explore the many beautiful and intimate ways Jesus comes to heal our inner being, keep in mind that whatever the damage may be, in any realm of your inner being, the essence of healing prayer is always to facilitate the presence of Jesus...
READ MOREYour sin has been dealt with. Your Father has removed it from you "as far as the east is from the west" (Ps. 103:12). Your sins have been washed away (1 Cor. 6:11). When God looks at you he does not see your sin. He has not one condemning thought...
READ MOREThe Ephesians passage warns about spiritual strongholds created in our lives when we let “the sun go down” on something. Note that in this case that something isn’t necessarily sin. Paul says, “in your anger do not sin,” so anger does not equal...
READ MOREDoing things for God is not the same thing as loving God.
Jesus loves the poor — so, movements have arisen that make service to the poor the main thing. Even though Jesus never said that being poor was more noble or even spiritual...
READ MOREDown through the ages, followers of Christ have believed that to be able to give God our attention as a regular practice was a very important thing. After vividly recounting the many challenges of faith and character before us, the author of...
READ MOREAny parent or lover knows this: love is chosen. You cannot, in the end, force anyone to love you.
So if you are writing a story where love is the meaning, where love is the highest and best of all, where love is the point, then...
READ MOREI know I’m not alone in having a hard time believing in the love of God for me (we think he loves everyone else), or receiving the love of God, or letting it catch my heart up into life and joy, or, maybe especially, staying there for any...
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