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
April 4, 2025
I think if we could recover a vision of what holiness actually is, we would be absolutely captured by it. I think we would see it as not only completely desirable, but attainable as well. King David was a man who knew well his character flaws, felt t...
Daily Reading
February 11, 2025
It might help you to ask, How is my hope these days? Where is my hope these days? To shepherd your first hope for the treasure it is, you need to be aware of what you are currently doing with hope right now. Have you attached precious hopes to causa...
Daily Reading
February 10, 2025
Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”Mark 9:23–24 NKJV Faith has always been a fragile thing in th...
Daily Reading
January 3, 2025
Communion with God is replaced by activity for God. There is little time in this outer world for deep questions. Given the right plan, everything in life can be managed ... except your heart. The inner life, the story of our heart, is the life of the...
Daily Reading
December 11, 2024
It seems at times that God will go to any length to thwart the very thing we most deeply want. We can’t get a job. Our attempt to find a spouse never pans out. The doctors aren’t able to help us with our infertility. Isn’t this precisely the reason w...
Daily Reading
December 2, 2024
It's better to stay in the safety of the camp than venture forth on a wing and a prayer. Who knows what dangers lie ahead? This was the counsel of the ten faithless spies sent in to have a look at the Promised Land when the Jews came out of Egypt. On...
Daily Reading
November 7, 2024
The awakening of his heart is essential if a man would truly love a woman. Look at things from her point of view. What does she long for in a man? Every little girl dreams of the day her prince will come. Look at the movies women love — the hero is a...
Daily Reading
November 1, 2024
Have we forgotten that God relocated the temple? In a stunning shift of geography, God changed the playing field. He moved the temple from a physical building to the hearts of his people: Don’t you know you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’...
Daily Reading
July 6, 2024
Early on in the fanfare of his public appearances, Jesus gives what will become known as the famous Sermon on the Mount. This is a “big moment” for Jesus. He has laid out in detail his understanding of a life that pleases God; he has, so to speak, dr...
Daily Reading
July 1, 2024
Guys are unanimously embarrassed by their emptiness and woundedness; it is for most of us a tremendous source of shame, as I've said. But it need not be. From the very beginning, back before the Fall and the assault, ours was meant to be a desperatel...
Daily Reading
June 30, 2024
Now Peter was sitting out in the courtyard, and a servant girl came to him. “You also were with Jesus of Galilee,” she said. But he denied it before them all. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. Then he went out to the gateway, where a...
Daily Reading
June 29, 2024
God interferes with us a lot. He interferes with our inner diatribes; He interferes with our style of relating; He blocks the paths we wrongly think will lead to life. He interferes to bring us up short so that we might see where we are taking the wr...
Daily Reading
June 28, 2024
Denial is a favorite method of coping for many Christians. But not with Jesus. He wants truth in the inmost being, and to get it there he's got to take us into our inmost being. One way he'll do this is by bringing up an old memory. You'll be driving...
Daily Reading
June 27, 2024
The Evil One has basically two ploys. If he cannot get us to kill our hearts and bury our desire, then he is delighted to seduce our desire into a trap. Once we give over our desire for life to any object other than God, we become ensnared. Think of ...
Daily Reading
June 26, 2024
We are looking for more of God. You’re far more likely to find him in a walk through an orchard or a sit by a pond than you are in a subway terminal. Of course God is with us and for us wherever we are, but in terms of refreshment, renewal, restorati...
Daily Reading
June 25, 2024
Love Jesus. Let him be himself with you. Allow his life to fill yours. Every day, give him your life to be filled with his. This is part of what I now pray,every morning: Lord Jesus, I give my life to you today, to live your life. Of course, this ass...
Daily Reading
June 24, 2024
The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [Sam] Obviously we’ve been told to chase our dreams. Over and over again every high school and college graduation speech challenged us to reac...
Daily Reading
June 23, 2024
The question is not, Are we spiritually oppressed, but Where and How? Think of it — why does every story have a villain? Little Red Riding Hood is attacked by a wolf. Dorothy must face and bring down the Wicked Witch of the West. Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi...
Daily Reading
June 22, 2024
In C. S. Lewis's novel The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, of The Chronicles of Narnia series, four children, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, pass through the wardrobe's portal to find the kingdom of Narnia imprisoned under the spell of the White ...
Daily Reading
June 21, 2024
The mistake folks are making in this rough hour is trying to figure out how to fit a little more of God into their crowded lives.We need to do the opposite. Start with God, center your life on him, and work outward from there. Our spirituality moves ...