Heaven is the beginning of an adventure in intimacy, "a world of love," as Jonathan Edwards wrote, "where God is the fountain." The Holy Spirit, through the human authors of Scripture, chose the imagery of a wedding feast for a reason. It's not...
READ MOREThe book of Hebrews describes the prayer life of Jesus in the following way: “While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could deliver him” (5:7 NLT). That doesn’t sound like the way...
READ MOREI (John) just let out a deep sigh. That we even need to explain how beauty is so absolutely essential to God only shows how dull we have grown to him, to the world in which we live, and to Eve. Far too many years of...
Our false self demands a formula before he'll engage; he wants a guarantee of success; and mister, you aren't going to get one. So there comes a time in a man's life when he's got to break away from all that and head off...
The religious technocrats of Jesus' day confronted him with what they believed were the standards of a life pleasing to God. The external life, they argued, the life of ought and duty and service, was what mattered. "You're dead wrong," Jesus...
READ MORELet's come back for a moment to original glory, the glory of God given to us when we were created in his image. So much light could be shed on our lives if we would explore what we were meant to be before things started going wrong. What...
READ MOREWhen Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee, noticing that Jesus did not first wash before the meal, was surprised. Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you...
READ MOREIt was to the most religious people of his time that Jesus spoke his strongest warnings about a loss of heart.
It is tragic for any person to lose touch with the life of their heart but especially so for those of us who once heard the call...
READ MOREIt is simply diabolical, despicable, downright evil that the heart should be so misunderstood, maligned, feared, and dismissed. But there is our clue again. The war we are in would explain so great a loss. This is the last thing...
READ MOREToday’s Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's book “Becoming a King”
The narrow way is filled with story after story of God unearthing a man’s desire—and then hiding him. David was told he’d be king, then spent the next...
READ MOREOf 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 MORE"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." (2 Cor. 3:18)
I know, I know—most days it sure doesn’t feel...
READ MOREThe madness about grief is you think you’ll feel better in a few days. Certainly in a few weeks. The average bereavement leave in corporate America is four days for a spouse or child and three days for a parent. Three days. That’s complete...
READ MOREWhen my boys were teenagers, we badgered them into cleaning the windows one day. Come dinnertime, our family seated round the table, the brothers began—as all brothers do—to give each other grief about the day’s work. Sam and Luke had each taken...
READ MORETheodore Roosevelt is thought to have said, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” and boy, was he right. We tend to compare our worst to another person’s best, and we come out poorly. We compare another person’s smile with our inward sadness, and we...
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