We've exchanged that great hymn "Onward, Christian Soldiers" for a subtle but telling substitute, a song that is currently being taught to thousands of children in Sunday school each week, which goes something like this (sung in a very happy,...
READ MOREThe only fatal error is to pretend that we have found the life we prize. To mistake the water hole for the sea. To settle for the same old thing. Christopher Fry called such a life “the sleep of prisoners.” The most tragic day of all is to prefer...
READ MOREI am letting you in on a wonderful secret.
What happens when God comes and releases us from long-held fears or fears that have long held us? What happens when we surrender fear to God and invite his love to overwhelm it? What is on the...
READ MORELate into the night, early in the morning, walking down the road, in the middle of his supper, at home, abroad, Jesus offers. His time, his words, his touch, flowing like the wine at Cana. To appreciate the reality of it all, remember, this is...
READ MORE“Nothing dangerous is happening here.” Incredible. What a self-indictment. Those men have already been taken out because they’ve swallowed the Enemy’s first line of attack: “I’m not here—this is all just you.” You can’t fight a battle you don’t...
READ MOREWe all—men and women—were created in the image of God. Fearfully and wonderfully made, fashioned as living icons of the bravest, wisest, most stunning Person who ever lived. Those who have ever seen him fell to their knees without even thinking...
READ MOREWill we do it perfectly? Of course not. Friends, let’s set perfection aside. We are on our way, we are being transformed, but the moment we insist on total perfection we set ourselves up for bitter disappointment. Sin shall not be our master,...
READ MOREI remember a conversation I had as a therapist with a young mother. She came to see me not because of some crisis, but in tears nevertheless over the passage of her children’s childhood right before her eyes. “These are such precious, precious...
READ MOREThere are few things more crucial to us than our own lives.
And there are few things we are less clear about.
This journey we are taking is hardly down the yellow brick road. Then again, that's not a bad analogy at all....
Christians have been told over and over that God is almighty. And indeed he is—the God of four hundred billion billion suns. We have been told he is also sovereign. And indeed he is. Perhaps out of respect, we have adopted the notion that if he...
READ MORELet’s come back to something very basic to our pursuit of God and the transformation he is always after in our lives—everything we do has a reason behind it, a motive.
Within the Christian community we tend to focus on behavior, and that...
READ MOREThere is a civil war waged between the new heart and the old nature. Romans 7–8 describes it quite well. Part of me doesn’t want to love my neighbor—not when his son just backed his car into my Jeep and smashed it up. I want to take the little...
READ MOREWhen you think of what Desolation looks like, picture a barren desert. Desolation wants to make everything a wasteland.
So what is the opposite of a wasteland?
Eden! The paradise of God, our first home, with all its lush...
READ MOREFor some reason we keep forgetting that Jesus, in the Gospels, is operating in enemy territory. We project into the Gospel stories a pastoral backdrop, the quaint charm of a Middle Eastern travel brochure—picturesque villages, bustling markets,...
READ MOREWe take folks through a discipleship program whereby they master any number of Christian precepts and miss the most important thing of all, the very thing for which we were created: intimacy with God. There are, after all, those troubling words...
READ MORELife has a way of wearing on a person. Under the weight of losses, pressures, failures, and endless demands, something in our souls begins to wither. Passions dry up. The zeal of a beginning turns into a despairing end. A stone falls heavily down...
READ MOREDear friends, I hope you see clearly that more of God is our greatest need, our greatest joy, our only rescue. This isn’t optional. He’s the source of the strength and resiliency we need for this hour, the Life that allows us to enjoy everything...
READ MORESimone Weil was absolutely right—beauty and affliction are the only two things that can pierce our hearts. Because this is so true, we must have a measure of beauty in our lives proportionate to our affliction. No, more. Much more. Is this not...
READ MOREGod says our latter glory will exceed our former. To our great loss, in our society we no longer value the wisdom and expertise that comes through living well through many years. Silver hair and wrinkles are earned.
I have learned that...
READ MOREEither we wake to tackle our “to do” list, get things done, guided by our morals and whatever clarity we may at the moment have (both rather lacking to the need, I might add); or we wake in the midst of a dangerous Story, as God’s intimate ally,...
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