Jesus is more impressed with the cunning of “the people of this world” than he is the naïveté so common to “the people of the light.” And then — back to the doves and snakes analogy — he urges us to be cunning: “I want you to be smart in the same...
READ MORELook again at the story — when God gave us the earth, he gave us a mission. God blessed them:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for...
READ MOREI shudder at how easily my heart can be divided. I do love God, I really do. I know you do too. The double-mindedness is revealed when we only sort of want God. Our longing for life to be good again becomes the test we hold up against...
READ MOREAbiding in the love of God is our only hope, the only true home for our hearts. It's not that we mentally acknowledge that God loves us. It's that we let our hearts come home to him, and stay in his love. MacDonald says it this way:
...
READ MOREWe do need more of God, much more. Little sips between long droughts will not sustain us. We need more of God in our bodies, our souls, our relationships, our work, everywhere in our lives. But when you live in a culture of the incessant...
READ MOREIn our own times of severe testing, we want to be made “holy in every way,” our entire “spirit and soul and body ... kept blameless” (1 Thessalonians 5:23 NLT). Let me be quick to add, I think much of the testing and the Falling Away takes place...
READ MOREDo we form no friendships because our friends might be taken from us? Do we refuse to love because we may be hurt? Do we forsake our dreams because hope has been deferred? To desire is to open our hearts to the possibility of pain; to shut down...
READ MOREThe most essential gift you have to give is yourself. When you aren’t entirely true about that, you aren’t true. But we’ve all grown accustomed to committing dozens of little white lies about ourselves every day.
Except this man. He is...
READ MOREWho is this God who is so determined that we know His presence that He is willing to allow so much that hinders us to be stripped away, including at times our health and well-being? Where do my beliefs of what well-being actually is not align...
READ MOREAsk Jesus to show you his kingdom.
Sanctify your imagination to him, all your spiritual gifting, and ask him to reveal to you pictures of the coming kingdom. Be specific — if you want to see the city, ask to see the city. If you want to...
READ MOREWhen the religious (spirit) is operating, knowing about God substitutes for knowing God. And therefore, teaching is exalted. Church feels like a seminar — could be intellectual, could be motivational. Good content is what matters. Doctrine is...
READ MOREJesus ran because he wanted to, not simply because he had to or because the Father told him to. He ran "for the joy set before him," which means he ran out of desire. To use the familiar phrase, his heart was fully in it. We call the...
READ MOREThe exodus of the people of Israel and their journey through the Sinai desert is one of the greatest survival stories of all time. More than two million people wandering through a land of sand and barren rock, homeless, looking for the...
READ MOREThere is wisdom, and there is revelation. They go together, hand in hand. “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better” (Ephesians 1:...
READ MOREYou don't need to travel far to find beauty. God has strewn beauty across the globe in such generous portions we have only to stop and notice, paying particular attention to the intimate. Yes, epic beauty is worth traveling to see–the Himalaya,...
READ MOREThe child who cries out in the dark feels very differently when mother comes in and switches on a light. What felt so real and inevitable vanishes. Let us be careful we don’t embrace the pain in such a way that we forbid God to turn on the light...
READ MOREEmasculation happens in marriage as well. Women are often attracted to the wilder side of a man, but once having caught him they settle down to the task of domesticating him. Ironically, if he gives in he'll resent her for it, and she in turn...
READ MOREDuring a long layover at O'Hare, I studied the man who sells popcorn from a little stand in one of the terminal hallways. He sat silently on a stool as thousands of people rushed by. Occasionally, every fifteen minutes or so, someone would stop...
READ MOREThe book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.
[Sam] “We live in the age of information,” says the old recording of an announcer in my head;...
READ MORELest we overlook the obvious, let me take a moment’s pause here to suggest that in your search for more of God, do remember to ask for it.
Such a simple thought, but so helpful. Sometimes we get so caught up in the process we forget to ask...
READ MORE