Let me say this again. Let suffering be the door you walk through that draws you to deeper intimacy with Jesus. Let it play its sanctifying role.
Because though God doesn’t cause all the trials in our lives, he does use them. He does work...
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...
More of God comes to us as we love God. The more that we love God, the more we are able to experience him. Part of this has to do with the nature of God, and part of it has to do with our own human nature.
You understand from your own...
READ MOREA word about honesty. The Scripture exhorts us to speak the truth in love. Speak the truth in love. Which means, don’t speak the truth in anger or resentment or with the desire to wound. We need to be careful to check our motives underneath our...
READ MOREThe kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. Then he sent some more servants and said, "Tell...
READ MOREI'm simply sitting on my back porch. Warm summer evening, cool breeze, beautiful sky now turning that deep navy blue just before dark.
That's when the carnival started.
Some agitated place in me started clamoring for relief. Even...
READ MOREOur 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...
Church is not a building. Church is not an event that takes place on Sundays. I know, it's how we think of it. "I go to First Baptist." "We are members of St. Luke's." "Is it time to go to church?" Much to our surprise, that is not how the Bible...
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 MOREYou are the son of a kind, strong, and engaged Father, a Father wise enough to guide you in the Way, generous enough to provide for your journey, offering to walk with you every step.
This is perhaps the hardest thing for us to believe—...
READ MOREA basic tool for recognizing if you are under spiritual attack or dealing with foul spirits is to judge the fruit: “By their fruit you will recognize them” (Matt 7:16). Is misunderstanding coming against your friendships? Pray against that. I...
READ MOREI 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....
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 MOREHenri Nouwen once asked Mother Teresa for spiritual direction. Spend one hour each day in adoration of your Lord, she said, and never do anything you know is wrong. Follow this, and you’ll be fine. Such simple yet profound advice. Worship is the...
READ MORE