Afterward 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...
READ MOREWe should expect to encounter Jesus anytime, anywhere, everywhere. The song of a child, a song on the radio—Jesus is infinitely creative. Just let him be himself with you.
Jesus is everywhere.
But let me give you a grace that will...
READ MOREWe are made for intimacy with God, not just knowledge about him. There comes a time in the life of every believer when propositional truth is no longer enough. It will always remain central, the foundation for...
When church actually inoculates people to a true experience of Jesus—or to an experience of the true Jesus—then yes, I am very anti that sort of church. All the men and women I’ve met who have spent decades in church and still do not know God. If...
READ MOREThe Scriptures employ a wide scale of metaphors to capture the many facets of our relationship with God. If you consider them in a sort of ascending order, there is a noticeable and breathtaking progression. Down near the...
Now here is a tough pill to swallow. In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus has thirty-four intimate encounters with an individual—“intimate” defined as when someone in particular is singled out for mention, or receives a word or touch from Jesus, or...
READ MOREThe Philistines went up and camped in Judah, spreading out near Lehi. The men of Judah asked, "Why have you come to fight us?" "We have come to take Samson prisoner," they answered, "to do to him as he did to us." Then three...
The heart-cry of every soul is for intimacy with God. For this we were created and for this we were rescued from sin and death. In Ephesians, Paul lets us in on a little secret: We've been more than noticed. God has pursued...
Our God is a Warrior because there are certain things in life worth fighting for, must be fought for. He makes man a Warrior in his own image, because he intends for man to join him in that battle.
One day the young...
I heard a story just this week of a pastoral search committee interviewing final candidates. They asked one qualified fellow, “Do you drink?” “Well, I have an occasional glass of wine with a meal.” One of the elders walked up to him, hit him in...
READ MOREThere is Christianity, and then there is Christian culture. They are not the same. Loving the culture of church is not anywhere close to the same thing as loving Jesus. The Pharisees loved their religious culture—the long prayers, the solemn...
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