Daily Reading
February 3, 2024
We have no idea who we really are. Whatever glory was bestowed, whatever glory is being restored, we thought this whole Christian thing was about ... something else. Trying not to sin. Going to church. Being nice. Jesus says it is about healing your ...
Daily Reading
February 2, 2024
Finding more of God, growing strong in soul and spirit, requires creating space in your day for God — to intentionally put yourself in a place that allows you to draw upon and experience the healing power of the life of God filling you. Over the ages...
Daily Reading
February 1, 2024
Our enemy is the angel Lucifer, son of the morning, one of the first and highest angels God created. He is the antagonist in the Sacred Romance—the great villain. All other villains are only a shadow of him. He is the one God gave a place of honor an...
Daily Reading
January 31, 2024
Love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. Jesus said this was the first and greatest commandment. So let’s keep this simple: Do you love God? It all starts there. Make a practice of loving God. “But how?” a friend as...
Daily Reading
January 30, 2024
In the end, it doesn't matter how well we have performed or what we have accomplished—a life without heart is not worth living. For out of this wellspring of our soul flow all true caring and all meaningful work, all real worship and all sacrifice. O...
Daily Reading
January 29, 2024
Above all else, guard your heart. We usually hear this with a sense of "Keep an eye on that heart of yours," in the way you'd warn a deputy watching over some dangerous outlaw, or a bad dog the neighbors let run. "Don't let him out of your sight." Ha...
Daily Reading
January 28, 2024
The renewal of all things is meant to be the center of our view of the world, our hopes, and our tangible expectations as we plan our lives going forward. The phrase bucket list comes from the expression “kick the bucket,” the day we give it all up. ...
Daily Reading
January 27, 2024
God gives Adam some instructions on the care of creation and his role in the unfolding story. It's pretty basic, and very generous (see Gen. 2:16-17). But notice what God doesn't tell Adam. There is no warning or instruction over what is about to occ...
Daily Reading
January 26, 2024
Why did Nicodemus visit Jesus at night? Fear of what his peers would do if they found out. He wasn’t alone in this; John says that “many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear ...
Daily Reading
January 25, 2024
I realize that many dear followers of Christ have been taught that God only speaks to his sons and daughters through the Bible. The irony of that theology is this: that’s not what the Bible teaches! The Scriptures are filled with stories of God speak...
Daily Reading
January 24, 2024
I love the story of a certain man whom Jesus interfered with, much to his initial chagrin. Remember when Jesus met the man possessed with many demons in Luke 8? So they arrived in the region of the Gerasenes, across the lake from Galilee. As Jesus wa...
Daily Reading
January 23, 2024
Now, you wouldn’t think that morality would ever become popular in the world, but there is a certain kind of “goodness” that is actually quite hip these days. Issues such as the size of your carbon footprint (and therefore the car you drive), where y...
Daily Reading
January 22, 2024
You can’t save the world. You can’t even carry it. “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?” (Luke 12:25–26). Jesus is quite serious about turning everyth...
Daily Reading
January 21, 2024
The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [John] Do you feel that you can handle life? A woman? Your finances? Crisis when it hits? “I can handle this,” is the practical daily expr...
Daily Reading
January 20, 2024
Today’s Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's book Becoming a King: How we arrange our days and spend our time is central to becoming the kind of king to whom God can entrust his creative power. It is this slow and steady exercise — or be...
Daily Reading
January 19, 2024
We, too, live in a world that triggers our souls into vigilance far too often. The complexity of modern life is mind-boggling. Thanks to the smartphone and the web, you are confronted on a daily basis with more information than any previous generatio...
Daily Reading
January 18, 2024
Hearing from God flows out of our relationship. That relationship was established for us by Jesus Christ. “Therefore, since we have been justified [made right with God] through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom...
Daily Reading
January 17, 2024
The warrior is hardwired into every man. This is true because he is made in the image of God, who is the Great Warrior. Like Father, like son. It is also true because it constitutes a great part of man’s mission here on earth — to join the Great Warr...
Daily Reading
January 16, 2024
The story that is the Sacred Romance begins not with God alone, the Author at his desk, but God in relationship, intimacy beyond our wildest imagination, heroic intimacy. The Trinity is at the center of the universe; perfect relationship is the heart...
Daily Reading
January 15, 2024
Today’s Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's book, Becoming a King Today’s headlines are replete with stories of dethroned monarchs, religious or secular. Scripture is as well. Though the characters change, the story line remains the same...
Daily Reading
January 14, 2024
When the apostles needed the help of some good men to shepherd the exploding new church, they chose men "full of the Spirit and wisdom" (Acts 6:3). The two go together; we need them both. We need to walk by the inspiration of the Spirit, and we need ...
Daily Reading
January 13, 2024
All masculine initiation is ultimately spiritual. The tests and challenges, the joys and adventures are all designed to awaken a man’s soul, draw him into contact with the masculine in himself, in other men, in the world, and in God, as Father. I mak...
Daily Reading
January 12, 2024
Our acts of remembering must therefore involve both essential truths and dramatic narrative. I believe we need to hold the creeds in one hand and our favorite forms of art in the other. There are films, books, poems, songs, and paintings I return to ...
Daily Reading
January 11, 2024
There is a widespread belief in the church that to be a Christian somehow satisfies our every desire. As one camp song has it, “I’m inright, outright, upright, downright happy all day long.” What complete nonsense! Augustine emphasized, “The whole li...
Daily Reading
January 10, 2024
I am loved. Deeply and truly loved.“I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3). If all the pain of the world were gathered together, and sorted by cause into great basins, the vast majority of tears would fill an ocean entitled, “Un...
Daily Reading
January 9, 2024
Once more, lend a mythic eye to your situation. Let your heart ponder this: You awake to find yourself in the middle of a great and terrible war. It is, in fact, our most desperate hour. Your King and dearest Friend calls you forth. Awake, come fully...
Daily Reading
January 8, 2024
Does God have a good heart? When we think of God as Author, the Grand Chess Player, the Mind Behind It All, we doubt his heart. As Melville said, "The reason the mass of men fear God and at bottom dislike him is because they rather distrust his heart...
Daily Reading
January 7, 2024
A friend of mine wanted to teach English as a second language in an Asian country, as a way of becoming a sort of undercover missionary. A beautiful dream, one that I'm sure she would have been excellent in fulfilling. But she rushed to the field unp...
Daily Reading
January 6, 2024
First, where does Jesus Christ now reside, in the life of the believer? Inside us; more precisely, in our hearts: “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his g...
Daily Reading
January 5, 2024
Many people have the vague but ominous idea that God destroys the current reality and creates a new “heavenly” one. But that is not what Scripture actually says. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his chi...