Jesus’ manner can be appreciated only in light of a deeper river flowing in him, this fierce intentionality. Otherwise, you get those popular and ridiculous portraits of Jesus as the wandering storyteller, no more controversial or dangerous than...
READ MOREOur hearts long to recover a sense of wonder; it is one of the reasons only the child-heart can receive the kingdom. Remember now — we shall be as children again:“
Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom...
READ MOREI have in my files a copy of a letter written by Major Sullivan Ballou, a Union officer in the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry Regiment. He writes to his wife on the eve of the Battle of Bull Run, a battle he senses will be his last. He speaks tenderly...
READ MORESo much of the journey forward involves a letting go of all that once brought us life. We turn away from the familiar abiding places of the heart, the false selves we have lived out, the strengths we have used to make a place for ourselves and...
READ MORETo make room for God to fill the vessel of our soul, we have to begin moving out some of the unnecessary clutter that continually accumulates there like the junk drawer in your kitchen. Everybody has a junk drawer, that black hole for car keys,...
READ MOREWhen he left Rivendell, Frodo didn't head out with a thousand Elves. He had eight companions. Jesus didn't march around backed by legions of angels, either. He had twelve men—knuckleheads, every last one of them, but they were a band of brothers...
READ MOREThe time has come for us to quit playing chess with God over our lives. We cannot win, but we can delay the victory, dragging on the pain of grasping and the poison of possessing. You see, there are two kinds of losses in life. The first is...
READ MOREWhen God comes to call Jeremiah to be his prophet of hard sayings to Judah, Jeremiah protests, saying, "'Ah, Sovereign LORD ... I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.' But the LORD said to me, 'Do not say, "I am only a child." You must go...
READ MOREToday’s Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's book “Becoming a King”
The first doorway we must travel through on our path toward becoming a king is to choose sonship. It is a choice.
Are we willing to...
READ MOREJoy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. —Henri J. M. Nouwen
When I was young, I thought that following God and being a Christian would lead to a life that was kind of easy, filled...
READ MORETo wait is to learn the spiritual grace of detachment, the freedom of desire. Not the absence of desire, but desire at rest. St. John of the Cross lamented that “the desires weary and fatigue the soul; for they are like restless and...
READ MORENow the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees...
READ MORELately, the surge is toward “justice Christianity” — intervening to prevent human trafficking or slavery, caring for indigenous cultures or for the planet itself. And it is right and it is wrong. My goodness, yes, of course God cares about...
READ MOREWhy don’t I wake with a joyful heart? Joy was just here. Where did it go?
I began to realize that what I’ve done for most of my life is resign myself to this idea: I’m really not going to have any lasting joy. And from that...
READ MOREWe are not what we were meant to be, and we know it. If, when passing a stranger on the street, we happen to meet eyes, we quickly avert our glance. Cramped into the awkward community of an elevator, we search for something, anything to look at...
READ MOREThe book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.
[Sam] Our adolescent culture really does play into our confusion; with so many answers...
READ MOREI’ve come to the place where I have had to stop telling people, “I’ll pray for you.”
I simply know that despite my good intentions — and these promises are almost always spoken with good intent — I know that nine times out of ten I just...
READ MOREThe only person that can satisfy the aching abyss of the human heart is Jesus Christ.
—Oswald Chambers
I hate Valentines Day. There, I said it.
Most of the guys reading this just thought, Yes! I can’t...
READ MOREJohn Wesley was thirty-five when he experienced the now famous "warming" of his heart — not his mind — toward Christ, and knew in that moment he had become not merely a Christian, but something more — a lover of God. Shortly after, he penned the...
READ MOREThere are three desires that I have found essential to a woman’s heart, which are not entirely different from a man’s and yet they remain distinctly feminine. Not every woman wants a battle to fight, but every woman yearns to be fought for...
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