Daily Reading
December 19, 2024
On a visit to London, I had the opportunity to visit the National Gallery. Loving art, and being with two of my sons — one of whom was an art major — I was excited to spend hours there. I loved the Van Gogh, the Monet, the Rembrandt paintings and mor...
Daily Reading
December 18, 2024
I had an old desk lamp with a wiggly switch, picked up for spare change at a garage sale. It had this annoying habit of turning on and off without rhyme or reason. One moment the room would be lit; next moment I’d be sitting in total darkness. Now th...
Daily Reading
December 17, 2024
I’ll let you in on a little secret: your heart is made for the kingdom of God. This might be the most important thing anyone will ever tell you about yourself: your heart only thrives in one habitat, and that safe place is called the kingdom of God. ...
Daily Reading
December 16, 2024
Something has gone wrong with the human race, and we know it. Better said, something has gone wrong within the human race. It doesn't take a theologian or a psychologist to tell you that. Read a newspaper. Spend a weekend with your relatives. Simply ...
Daily Reading
December 15, 2024
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 man Moses, prince of Egypt, went ou...
Daily Reading
December 14, 2024
I saw Heaven and earth new-created. (Revelation 21:1 The Message)What if? A large golden eagle in this world can carry a sheep. What load can a renewed eagle bear? I would love to ride a golden eagle, with their permission of course. And friend—what ...
Daily Reading
December 13, 2024
We begin our journey into sonship by looking backward, to what our lives as boys were like, and, more important, what they were meant to be. For so much of the way we now approach life as men was set in motion in our youth — some of it for good, and ...
Daily Reading
December 12, 2024
For what shall we do when we wake one day to find we have lost touch with our heart and with it the very refuge where God's presence resides? Starting very early, life has taught all of us to ignore and distrust the deepest yearnings of our heart. Li...
Daily Reading
December 11, 2024
It seems at times that God will go to any length to thwart the very thing we most deeply want. We can’t get a job. Our attempt to find a spouse never pans out. The doctors aren’t able to help us with our infertility. Isn’t this precisely the reason w...
Daily Reading
December 10, 2024
We must come to face our style of relating, of course. As men, we look to where we are passive, and where we are domineering or harsh or violent. As women, we face where we are controlling, and where we are desperately clingy. And as God reveals thes...
Daily Reading
December 9, 2024
The Sermon on the Mount is a revolution in holiness. Jesus takes all the external issues and makes them first and foremost internal. He begins with a few examples of the most egregious sins: murder and adultery. This is a crowd that congratulates its...
Daily Reading
December 8, 2024
Notice that all the great stories pretty much follow the same story line. Things were once good, then something awful happened, and now a great battle must be fought or a journey taken. At just the right moment (which feels like the last possible mom...
Daily Reading
December 7, 2024
God gives us dozens of encounters every day, opportunities to be honest about what motivates us. What we do with them is up to us. This is how he honors us. When God created each of us, he gave us a will, and that beautiful and mysterious inner life ...
Daily Reading
December 6, 2024
Against the flesh, the traitor within, a warrior uses discipline. We have a two-dimensional version of this now, which we call a "quiet time." But most men have a hard time sustaining any sort of devotional life because it has no vital connection to ...
Daily Reading
December 5, 2024
Then the Kingdom of Heaven will be like ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. The five who were foolish didn’t take enough olive oil for their lamps, but the other five we...
Daily Reading
December 4, 2024
I think even a quick read of the Old Testament would be enough to convince you that war is a central theme of God's activity. There is the Exodus, where God goes to war to set his captive people free. Blood. Hail. Locusts. Darkness. Death. Plague aft...
Daily Reading
December 3, 2024
You will appreciate the mastery of Jesus only to the degree that you understand the minefield he walks. He is advancing against the prince of darkness in a bid for the human heart. The whole situation is booby-trapped. Satan already has the upper han...
Daily Reading
December 2, 2024
It's better to stay in the safety of the camp than venture forth on a wing and a prayer. Who knows what dangers lie ahead? This was the counsel of the ten faithless spies sent in to have a look at the Promised Land when the Jews came out of Egypt. On...
Daily Reading
December 1, 2024
Some prayers just happen; they are “the Cry of the Heart.” No training is needed when it comes to this kind of prayer. I’ve uttered it thousands of times; I’m confident you have too. Like when the phone rings and the bad news starts to spill and all ...
Daily Reading
November 30, 2024
We were meant to remember together, in community. We need to tell our stories to others and to hear their stories told. We need to help each other with the interpretation of the Larger Story and our own. Our regular times of coming together to worshi...
Daily Reading
November 29, 2024
Of course, small groups have become a part of the programming most churches offer their people. For the most part, they are disappointing and short-lived — by the very admission of those who try them. There are two reasons. One, you can't just throw ...
Daily Reading
November 28, 2024
Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. (Rom. 8:34)Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is ...
Daily Reading
November 27, 2024
“Life,” as a popular saying goes, “is not a dress rehearsal. Live it to the fullest.” What a setup for a loss of heart. No one gets all he desires; no one even comes close. If this is it, we are lost. But what if life is a dress rehearsal? What if th...
Daily Reading
November 26, 2024
When the curtain goes up on the story of humanity, we see God in a flurry of breathtaking, dramatic actions that we rather blandly call “creation.” Remember, we’re looking for the motives of his heart. Why is he doing all this? We know he already had...
Daily Reading
November 25, 2024
I am deep in the jungle of the assault, and the only verse I can even remember to hang on to is, “Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). I repeat it to myself. Over and over. It gives me strength to fight the di...
Daily Reading
November 24, 2024
God begins our courtship with a surprise. Taking the blindfold off, he turns us around and reveals his handmade wedding present. “Here,” he says. “It’s yours. Enjoy yourselves. Do you like it? Take it for a spin.” A lavish gift indeed. What’s he up t...
Daily Reading
November 23, 2024
The family is … like a little kingdom, and, like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a state of something resembling anarchy.Chesterton could have been talking about a little fellowship (our true family, because it is the Family of God). It i...
Daily Reading
November 22, 2024
We know a time will come for us to look back with our Lord over the story of our lives. Every hidden thing shall be made known, every word spoken in secret shall be uttered. My soul shrinks back; how will this not be an utter horror? The whole idea o...
Daily Reading
November 21, 2024
We exercise because we want to grow stronger; we take vitamins in the hope of being healthy; we attend language classes expecting to learn a new language. We travel for adventure; we work in the hope of prospering; we love partly in the hope of being...
Daily Reading
November 20, 2024
Life is not a list of propositions, it is a series of dramatic scenes. As Eugene Peterson said, “We live in narrative, we live in story. Existence has a story shape to it. We have a beginning and an end, we have a plot, we have characters.” Story is ...