Another way to begin to seize hope with a good, firm grip is to ask yourself, What have I done with my kingdom heart? Where am I currently taking it? You have a heart for joy—where is your hope for joy set right now? You have a heart...
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In the short book of Philippians—only four chapters long—Paul uses the word joy sixteen times. Paul didn’t write this book during spring break. He wrote it from a prison cell in Rome while he was waiting to be executed. In what should...
READ MOREIt’s human nature to want our problems to simply go away. Be honest now—how many of us have heard a troubling tick, tick, tick or thump, thump, thump coming from the general direction of our car’s engine or transmission and not...
READ MOREThe mind takes in and processes information. But it remains, for the most part, indifferent. It is your mind that tells you it is now 2:00 A.M. and your daughter has not returned, for the car is not in the driveway. Your heart wrestles with...
READ MOREThere are many things we need to rename in our lives. Our work. Our relationships. Even our life itself. Rename them. Rename your life. It’s good. Because your life belongs to our good God, and he’s got you. Rename yourself. God has.
My...
READ MOREThis is not to say the heart is only swirling emotion, mixed motives, and dark desire, without thought or reason. Far from it. According to Scripture, the heart is also where we do our deepest thinking. "Jesus, knowing what they were thinking in...
READ MOREIn all of our hearts lies a longing for a Sacred Romance. It will not go away in spite of our efforts over the years to anesthetize or ignore its song, or attach it to a single person or endeavor. It is a Romance couched in mystery and set deeply...
READ MOREJesus enjoyed people. Not everyone does, you know. Many stories find him feasting with a rowdy crowd. He invited twelve men to spend day and night with him for three years. His longing for companionship intensifies to a crescendo in Gethsemane: “...
READ MOREWe 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...
READ MOREWe can have joy, because we can know God’s strength in our weakness. Because God’s mercies are new every morning. Because as we walk through this valley of this shadow of death, we are never abandoned or alone. Our God goes before us, and He is...
READ MOREWhere do we go from here? "This life," wrote Jonathan Edwards, "ought to be spent by us only as a journey towards heaven." That's the only story worth living in now. The road goes out before us and our destination awaits. In the imagery of...
READ MOREAs Jesus steps out from behind those thirty years of almost total obscurity into the task set before him, both men and demons begin to feel his fierce intention:
He went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath began to...
READ MOREAnd now? Now we are living somewhere toward the end of Act Three. We have a future, but this tale is not over yet— not by a long shot. We now live between the battle for Helm’s Deep and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Between the beaches of...
READ MOREHe made you you—on purpose. You are the only you—ever. Becoming ourselves means we are actively cooperating with God’s intention for our lives, not fighting him or ourselves. God accepts us right at this moment, and he wants us to accept...
READ MOREParents will often wonder where their toddlers learned to lie or how they came into the world so self-centered. It doesn’t need to be taught to them; it is inherent to human nature. Paul makes clear in Romans, “Sin entered the world through one...
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