Most Christians desire very deeply to be known as gracious, kind, patient, and forgiving. We feel we “owe” it to Jesus to be seen on our best behavior. This is even truer for those of us in “the ministry,” whose lives are publicly attached to...
READ MOREToo many men hide behind reason and logic. A man must grow beyond mere reason, or he will be stunted as a man, certainly as a lover. No woman wants to be analyzed, and many marriages fail because the man insists on treating her as a problem to be...
READ MOREI’m thinking about love this morning.
I’ve been noticing that most mornings I don’t wake up super happy, and I’m not sure why. I’ve also been noticing for some time now that when I first wake up, I find myself racing through the coming day...
READ MOREAs we seek to convert our unconverted places, and take hold of the strength that prevails, we need to bodyguard our faith and our Eden hearts back to Jesus. We turn from all other comforters — even benign things like remodeling projects and...
READ MOREThis is why we accept the false reverence — it’s like having a relationship with someone out of state. It doesn’t intrude into your life like a spouse or a good friend does. There is safety in the distance. We secure ourselves against a fuller...
READ MOREThere is something mythic in the way a man is with a woman. Our sexuality offers a parable of amazing depth when it comes to being masculine and feminine. The man comes to offer his strength and the woman invites the man into herself, an act that...
READ MOREThen from on high — somewhere in the distance there's a voice that calls — remember who you are. If you lose yourself — your courage soon will follow. (Gavin Greenaway and Trevor Horn, Sound the Bugle)
You are going to...
READ MOREAllow me, then, to review what we have encountered. First, our lives are not a random series of events; they tell a Story that has meaning. We aren't in a movie we've arrived at twenty minutes late; we are in a Sacred Romance. There really is...
READ MOREI don’t think we’ve admitted to ourselves just how much belief is a choice.
Some mornings you wake and feel God is near; the day looks hopeful. Next morning God seems far; the day has no color to it. For years I wrote this experience off...
READ MORESpiritual warfare often tries to work like a computer virus — it loves to transfer around to as many people as it can, infecting whole households or even churches. You can witness this with great clarity when you are standing outside of it. You...
READ MOREWho is this God who is so determined that we know His presence that He is willing to allow so much that hinders us to be stripped away, including at times our health and well-being? Where do my beliefs of what well-being actually is not align...
READ MOREAsk Jesus to show you his kingdom.
Sanctify your imagination to him, all your spiritual gifting, and ask him to reveal to you pictures of the coming kingdom. Be specific — if you want to see the city, ask to see the city. If you want to...
READ MOREWhen the religious (spirit) is operating, knowing about God substitutes for knowing God. And therefore, teaching is exalted. Church feels like a seminar — could be intellectual, could be motivational. Good content is what matters. Doctrine is...
READ MOREJesus ran because he wanted to, not simply because he had to or because the Father told him to. He ran "for the joy set before him," which means he ran out of desire. To use the familiar phrase, his heart was fully in it. We call the...
READ MOREThe exodus of the people of Israel and their journey through the Sinai desert is one of the greatest survival stories of all time. More than two million people wandering through a land of sand and barren rock, homeless, looking for the...
READ MOREThere is wisdom, and there is revelation. They go together, hand in hand. “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better” (Ephesians 1:...
READ MOREYou don't need to travel far to find beauty. God has strewn beauty across the globe in such generous portions we have only to stop and notice, paying particular attention to the intimate. Yes, epic beauty is worth traveling to see–the Himalaya,...
READ MOREThe child who cries out in the dark feels very differently when mother comes in and switches on a light. What felt so real and inevitable vanishes. Let us be careful we don’t embrace the pain in such a way that we forbid God to turn on the light...
READ MOREEmasculation happens in marriage as well. Women are often attracted to the wilder side of a man, but once having caught him they settle down to the task of domesticating him. Ironically, if he gives in he'll resent her for it, and she in turn...
READ MOREDuring a long layover at O'Hare, I studied the man who sells popcorn from a little stand in one of the terminal hallways. He sat silently on a stool as thousands of people rushed by. Occasionally, every fifteen minutes or so, someone would stop...
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