Daily Reading
August 27, 2025
When Neo is set free from the Matrix, he joins the crew of the Nebuchadnezzar — the little hovercraft that is the headquarters and ship of the small fellowship called to set the captives free. There are nine of them in all, each a character in his ow...
Daily Reading
August 26, 2025
“Love your neighbor as yourself,” Jesus taught (Mark 12:31), implying a direct link between one and the other. Loving our neighbor is clearly an essential to Christian faith; I think we all get that one. But the qualifier “as yourself” is lost upon m...
Daily Reading
August 25, 2025
Every woman is in some way searching for or running from her beauty and every man is looking for or avoiding his strength. Why? In some deep place within, we remember what we were made to be, we carry with us the memory of gods, image-bearers walking...
Daily Reading
August 24, 2025
The longing for things to be good again is one of the deepest yearnings of the human heart. It has slumbered in the depths of our souls ever since we lost our true home. For our hearts remember Eden.Most of the time this beautiful, powerful longing f...
Daily Reading
August 23, 2025
The constant push in Western Christianity to “make it practical” betrays our favorite apostasy—it exposes how utterly fixated on the present moment we really are. Yes, we need to embody God’s love in the world today. The human race is not well; thing...
Daily Reading
August 22, 2025
Human beings need oxygen in order to live. Lots of it. So our loving God provided us a world completely engulfed in oxygen; we swim in life-giving air like fish swim in water. Put your arm out — it’s surrounded with oxygen. Look down at your feet — t...
Daily Reading
August 21, 2025
In this world where we find ourselves living, having joy often feels both crazy and out of reach. To have joy in the midst of sorrow — or the current news feed — can seem impossible. And all on our own, it is impossible. But just as the angel Gabriel...
Daily Reading
August 20, 2025
On the day Adam and Eve fell from grace, they ran off and hid in the bushes. And God came looking for them. He called to Adam, "Where are you?" (Gen. 3:9). Thus began the long and painful story of God's pursuit of mankind. Though we betrayed him and ...
Daily Reading
August 19, 2025
Yes, dear friends, we are already God's children, and we can't even imagine what we will be like when Christ returns. But we do know that when he comes we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. (1 John 3:2 NLT)We have an expression th...
Daily Reading
August 18, 2025
But there’s something deeper that calls to me, something richer I have tasted which compels me to let go of the life I keep rebuilding in order to learn how to love. I want God. Can you name a better reason? There is simply no other fountain of life;...
Daily Reading
August 17, 2025
One of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alab...
Daily Reading
August 16, 2025
What do all the great stories and myths tell us? What do they have in common? What are they trying to get across? Wherever they may come from, whatever their shape might be, they nearly always speak to us Three Eternal Truths. First, these stories ar...
Daily Reading
August 15, 2025
The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [John] You have entered the Warrior Stage of a young man’s life. Young men have been at the center of most of history’s revolutions. Deep in ...
Daily Reading
August 14, 2025
The loss of personality confounds our imitation of Christ. What happens is, our particular brand of church seizes upon one or two of his virtues as the essence of Christ for us to follow. Justice. Mercy. Righteousness. Whatever. You cannot live a lif...
Daily Reading
August 13, 2025
There is an overlooked passage late in the New Testament that is going to begin to connect some dots for us in a wild way. It comes from the book of James, and he brings us back around to the old man, Elijah, praying on the mountain: “The prayer of a...
Daily Reading
August 12, 2025
How quickly do betrayal and slavery fall upon Joseph after his father gives him the coat of many colors, the symbol of his delight. We don’t know exactly how much time has passed, but those events are told in the same chapter in Genesis, barely verse...
Daily Reading
August 11, 2025
There is nothing like stepping out your door into a bright and beckoning world. This is why people vacation in beautiful places. It is also the secret to the stories you love — that magical moment when the hero or heroine steps into a "brave new worl...
Daily Reading
August 10, 2025
Let’s name the “levels” of our being:You have fleeting thoughts throughout the day, most of which are insignificant.You also have longings, hopes, and dreams that are far more important.Deep within you, you have experienced the cry for love, hope, an...
Daily Reading
August 9, 2025
In order to learn who we really are, we must have a place in our lives where we are removed from the materialism, entertainment, diversion, and busyness that the Vanity Fair of our society and culture immerse us in. The things sold at the booths in t...
Daily Reading
August 8, 2025
Be very careful how you interpret “unanswered prayer.” Our hearts are so vulnerable in these moments. It’s just too easy to lose heart. The conclusions come rushing in — God isn’t listening; he doesn’t care; I’m not faithful enough; prayer doesn’t re...
Daily Reading
August 7, 2025
You shall know them, Jesus said, by their fruit. The principle holds true for anything in life. It is especially helpful in diagnosing what the enemy might be up to. What is the fruit of what you’re experiencing? What is its effect? If it continues, ...
Daily Reading
August 6, 2025
We’re going to want our souls strong and ready for the days ahead, filled with God, not fried and empty. So we must practice soul care.I’m not suggesting you go on a witch hunt for every neglected place in your soul. There’s way too much loss in ther...
Daily Reading
August 5, 2025
It seems that much of what Christians believe they are called to these days is a cluster of activities that include regular church attendance, Bible study, prayer, giving, concern for justice, and attending the annual men or women’s retreat. Now — wh...
Daily Reading
August 4, 2025
If you want to get to know someone, you need to know their story. Their life is a story. It, too, has a past and a future. It, too, unfolds in a series of scenes over the course of time. Why is Grandfather so silent? Why does he drink too much? Well,...
Daily Reading
August 3, 2025
We are now in the late stages of the long and vicious war against the human heart. I know — it sounds overly dramatic. I almost didn't use the term "war" at all, for fear of being dismissed at this point as one more in the group of "Chicken Littles,"...
Daily Reading
August 2, 2025
If the way to avoid the murderous rage and deceptive allures of desire is to kill it, if deadness is next to godliness, then Jesus had to be the deadest person ever. But he is called the living God. "It is a dreadful thing," the writer of Hebrews say...
Daily Reading
August 1, 2025
We come into the world with a longing to be known and a deep-seated fear that we aren't what we should be. We are set up for a crisis of identity.And then, says Frederick Buechner, the world goes to work: Starting with the rather too pretty young wom...
Daily Reading
July 31, 2025
Mental resilience begins when we decide to take hold of our thought life. Navy SEAL training includes teaching the recruits positive self-talk. Apparently we say something like three hundred to one thousand words to ourselves every minute. You know f...
Daily Reading
July 30, 2025
What makes the Day of Judgment so unnerving is that all our posing and all our charades will be pulled back, all secrets will be made known, and our Lord will "expose the motives of men's hearts" (1 Cor. 4:5, emphasis added).This is the point of the ...
Daily Reading
July 29, 2025
It’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 done a thing about i...