Daily Reading
July 13, 2023
Teaching is exalted. Church feels like a seminar — could be intellectual, could be motivational. Good content is what matters. Doctrine is fiercely defended. Members can explain to you theories of the atonement, or seven steps to success, but can’t n...
Daily Reading
July 12, 2023
If joy is a fruit of the Spirit (and it is), then we are meant to experience and enjoy it, regardless of our circumstances. Whatever may be swirling around us, the eye of the storm is joy. But how do we get there? The simple answer is we need to come...
Daily Reading
July 11, 2023
Jesus needs to disciple these fishermen, tax collectors, and political revolutionaries who dropped their careers to follow him. I’m not sure we’ve understood the ramifications of his decision. We just think, Oh, yeah, the disciples, and forget what w...
Daily Reading
July 10, 2023
Name one thing in the entire created world more precious than a human heart.It can’t be done.You might say “love,” but that would be silly because we cannot love without a heart. You might point to some immortal work of art, or breathtaking sacrifice...
Daily Reading
July 9, 2023
When Isaiah promised that the Messiah will come to heal the brokenhearted, he was not speaking poetically. The Bible does use metaphor, as when Jesus says, "I am the gate" (John 10:9). Of course, he is not an actual gate like the kind you slammed yes...
Daily Reading
July 8, 2023
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 relationships, y...
Daily Reading
July 7, 2023
Resting in Jesus is not applying a spiritual formula to ourselves as a kind of fix-it. It is the essence of repentance. It is letting our heart tell us where we are in our own story so that Jesus can minister to us out of the Story of his love for us...
Daily Reading
July 6, 2023
“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. (Mark 10:51)Recovering your true heart’s desire may involve facing some deep disappointment. Undoubtedly, it will require painful self-examination. But you do not need to fear what you will find.M...
Daily Reading
July 5, 2023
From the place of our woundedness we construct a false self. We find a few gifts that work for us, and we try to live off them. Stuart found he was good at math and science. He shut down his heart and spent all his energies perfecting his "Spock" per...
Daily Reading
July 4, 2023
God has a battle to fight, and the battle is for our freedom. As Tremper Longman says, "Virtually every book of the Bible — Old and New Testaments — and almost every page tells us about God's warring activity." I wonder if the Egyptians who kept Isra...
Daily Reading
July 4, 2023
The spirit of our day is a soft acceptance of everything — except deep conviction in anything. This is where Jesus will suddenly confront the world as a great rock confronts the river flowing ever downhill. He is immovable. The cry used to be for “to...
Daily Reading
July 3, 2023
Can it really happen? Can things in our lives be green again? No matter what our creeds may tell us, our hearts have settled into another belief. We have accepted the winter of this world as the final word and tried to get on without the hope of spri...
Daily Reading
July 2, 2023
For today's Daily Reading, we encourage you to listen to a podcast on praying with passion, confidence, and authority. Click here to listen. We also invite you into other rich podcast conversations we've had in the past several months. The topics sp...
Daily Reading
June 4, 2023
There are actually only a handful of accounts of Jesus’ getting good and mad in the Gospels, which is surprising given how much provocation he was provided. In fact, the specific Greek word for “angry” is used only once to describe him, and where doe...
Daily Reading
June 3, 2023
Today's Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's Becoming a King In the masculine journey, our early years of manhood often begin as a season of exploration and discovery. In youthful exuberance, we tend to view the world with ourselves at it...
Daily Reading
May 2, 2023
Today's Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's book Becoming a KingThe desire to be powerful transcends both social constructs and our boyhood dreams of becoming firefighters, policemen, NFL football players, Olympic athletes, fighter pilot...
Daily Reading
April 20, 2023
As one of my mentors put it, the interpretation you use to understand your reality and your role in it will be the single greatest force in shaping what becomes of your next decade. In the words of Dan Baker in What Happy People Know, “The stories we...
Daily Reading
March 13, 2023
Today’s Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's book “Becoming a King”What is the Enemy’s plan for your life? It’s an important question for each of us to ask and keep asking.There are daily strategies, cultural strategies, and geographical ...
Daily Reading
March 7, 2023
Eternal life — we tend to think of it in terms of existence that never comes to an end. And the existence it seems to imply — a sort of religious experience in the sky — leaves us wondering if we would want it to go on forever. But Jesus is quite cle...
Daily Reading
March 6, 2023
How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame?" (Ps. 4:2). These blows aren't random or incidental. They strike directly at some part of the heart, turn the very thing God created to be a source of celebration into a source of shame. And so you ...
Daily Reading
March 5, 2023
It is a matter of the heart, my brothers. There are many offices a man might fulfill as a king — father of a household, manager of a department, pastor of a church, coach of a team, prime minister of a nation — but the heart required is the same. “Th...
Daily Reading
March 3, 2023
God knows the danger of ignoring our hearts, and so he reawakens desire. You see a photo in a magazine, and pause, and sigh. You see someone with a life that reminds you of the life you once thought you would live. You’re channel surfing one night an...
Daily Reading
March 2, 2023
Life, you'll notice, is a story.Life doesn't come to us like a math problem. It comes to us the way that a story does, scene by scene. You wake up. What will happen next? You don't get to know — you have to enter in, take the journey as it comes. The...
Daily Reading
March 1, 2023
Jesus will return. Swiftly, unexpectedly. Any moment. His return will usher in the renewal of all things. That includes the execution of justice, rewards, the feast, your “estates,” your appointed role in his great kingdom — along with the restoratio...
Daily Reading
February 28, 2023
Our God has provision for us!I know, I know — most of you think that what you need right now is three months at the coast. Walking on the beach, drinks on the deck, and with all my heart I hope you find that. But for most of us, a sabbatical in some ...
Daily Reading
February 27, 2023
“Healing prayer,” said Leanne Payne, “is not the ‘instant fix,’ nor the bypassing of slow and steady growth. It is that which clears the path and makes such progress possible.” This type of prayer is beautiful and indispensable in our journey toward ...
Daily Reading
February 26, 2023
Another way to begin to seize hope with a good, firm grip is to ask yourself, What have I done with my kingdom heart? Where am I currently taking it? You have a heart for joy — where is your hope for joy set right now? You have a heart for redemption...
Daily Reading
February 25, 2023
When our hopes are in their proper places, attached to the right things, not only do we flourish better as human beings, but we are rescued from a thousand heartbreaks. For not all hopes are created equal; there are casual hopes, precious hopes, and ...
Daily Reading
February 24, 2023
This may come as a surprise to you: Christianity is not an invitation to become a moral person. It is not a program for getting us in line or for reforming society. It has a powerful effect upon our lives, but when transformation comes, it is always ...
Daily Reading
February 23, 2023
Several years ago I went through one of the most painful trials of my professional life. The story involves a colleague whom I will call Dave, a man I hired and with whom I had labored several years in ministry. We spent many hours on the road togeth...