One of the deepest ways a woman bears the image of God is in her mystery. By mystery we don't mean "forever beyond your knowing," but "something to be explored." "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter," says the book of...
One of the deepest ways a woman bears the image of God is in her mystery. By mystery we don't mean "forever beyond your knowing," but "something to be explored." "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter," says the book of...
When God creates Eve, he calls her an ezer kenegdo. "It is not good for the man to be alone, I shall make him a [ezer kenegdo]" (Gen. 2:18 Alter). This phrase is notoriously difficult to translate. The...
Being unable to defeat God through raw power, Satan's legions decide to wound God as deeply as possible by stealing the love of his Beloved through seduction. And having "seduced them to his party," to ravish them body and...
The Phoenix rises from the ashes. Cinderella rises from the cinders to become a queen. The Ugly Duckling becomes a beautiful swan. Pinocchio becomes a real boy. The frog becomes a prince. The Cowardly Lion gets his courage,...
All his wildness and all his fierceness are inseparable from God's romantic heart. That theologians have missed this says more about theologians than it does about God. Music, wine, poetry, sunsets . . . those were his...
In an attempt to secure the sovereignty of God, theologians have overstated their case and left us with a chess-player God playing both sides of the board, making all his moves and all ours too. But clearly, this is not so....
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my...
So I find myself dreading the approach of Valentine’s Day.Can I pull it off? Will she be happy?And now we’ve got a culture crazed with the upgrade of everything. Dinner and a card used to be a home run. That sounds so blasé these days,...
READ MOREJesus came to reveal God to us. He is the defining word on God—on what the heart of God is truly like, on what God is up to in the world, and on what God is up to in your life. An intimate encounter with Jesus is the most transforming experience...
READ MOREAfterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias. It happened this way: Simon Peter, Thomas (called Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. “I’m going out to...
READ MORESuffering is flooding the earth like a rising tide. This isn’t merely something we behold on the news. In the past six months nearly everyone dear to me has passed through a dark valley of suffering; so has our family. I’ll bet if you think of...
READ MORELove Jesus. Let him be himself with you. Allow his life to fill yours. Every day, give him your life to be filled with his. This is part of what I now pray, every morning:
Lord...
READ MOREThe blossom of your humanity is the life of Jesus in you. You get to live his life! Or what is salvation after all?
Jesus stands first in the line of humanity that God is...
READ MOREOne more of my all-time favorite films—Shakespeare's Henry V. King Henry's loving courage has captured the hearts of his people, and he has led them into battle against the enemy, just as our Captain has done. Late in...
Your suffering is neither pointless nor isolated. Somehow, Jesus’ sufferings overflow into our lives; somehow ours are linked to his. This is a great honor. It grants our sorrows an incredible dignity; it invites us to know an intimacy and...
READ MOREWhen we speak about the essence of a woman - her beauty - we don't mean "the perfect figure." The beauty of a woman is first a soulish beauty. We know - it's a harder jump to make. We've lived so long under the...
Oh, Jesus—why do we doubt you so? Why do we place so many limits on you? Forgive us.
Would you like to see his eyes? His smile? Ask him! Let Jesus be who he is with you. Take off the limits you or others have put on him. Oh—one more thing...
READ MOREWhen we recover the humanity of Jesus, it helps us find him in the messy parts of our own humanity, of humanity at large. We discover for ourselves the vast richness and beauty of his heart. If his heart is such, in whose image we are made and...
READ MOREFirst, where does Jesus Christ now reside, in the life of the believer? Inside us; more precisely, in our hearts: “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of...
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