John 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...
READ MOREWhat we call “Christianity” is an invasion.
The Kingdom of God is advancing into the kingdom of darkness, a campaign to ransom people and the earth God intended us to rule. For the Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost...
READ MOREYou have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven. You have...
READ MOREOur hope is meant to be the anchor of our souls, to keep us steady in the middle of the storms of life. It is set firmly within the truth that Jesus is trustworthy. He has promised us that He is returning and that, when He does, He will make all...
READ MOREGod heals the earth, and he heals us. We are restored to one another. The earth waits for our healing, and we wait for the earth’s healing. I believe our healing brings about something of the healing of the earth, and I’m certain the healed earth...
READ MOREThe book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.
[John] Paralysis (masquerading as “confusion”) haunts every man when a looming decision will...
READ MOREWhen Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick … So they set out and went from village to village,...
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