Daily Reading
September 24, 2022
It was to the most religious people of his time that Jesus spoke his strongest warnings about a loss of heart.It is tragic for any person to lose touch with the life of their heart but especially so for those of us who once heard the call in our hear...
Daily Reading
September 23, 2022
It is simply diabolical, despicable, downright evil that the heart should be so misunderstood, maligned, feared, and dismissed. But there is our clue again. The war we are in would explain so great a loss. This is the last thing the Enemy wants you t...
Daily Reading
September 20, 2022
Back to the drama in the Garden of Eden.Remember now, God gave us this story of the first marriage to help us get our bearings. It provides some very essential categories for navigating our marriages — like how gender is so fundamental to our identit...
Daily Reading
September 17, 2022
The madness about grief is you think you’ll feel better in a few days. Certainly in a few weeks. The average bereavement leave in corporate America is four days for a spouse or child and three days for a parent. Three days. That’s complete insanity. ...
Daily Reading
September 15, 2022
When 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 ...
Daily Reading
September 14, 2022
Theodore Roosevelt is thought to have said, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” and boy, was he right. We tend to compare our worst to another person’s best, and we come out poorly. We compare another person’s smile with our inward sadness, and we hide...
Daily Reading
September 13, 2022
The Arrows strike at the most vital places in our hearts, the things we care most about. The deepest questions we ever ask are directly related to our hearts' greatest needs and the answers life gives us shape our images of ourselves, of life, and of...
Daily Reading
September 10, 2022
Why does every story have a villain?It's hard to think of a tale without one. As children, we learned to fear the Big Bad Wolf and the Troll under the bridge. As we grew older, we discovered more serious villains in the Star Wars series — Darth Vader...
Daily Reading
September 9, 2022
We must forgive those who hurt us. The reason is simple: Bitterness and unforgiveness set their hooks deep in our hearts; they are chains that hold us captive to the wounds and the messages of those wounds. Until you forgive, you remain their prisone...
Daily Reading
September 7, 2022
Endurance is what you need now. ... Then you will receive all that he has promised.“For in just a little while, the Coming One will come and not delay. And my righteous ones will live by faith. But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away.” B...
Daily Reading
September 6, 2022
"In this world you will have trouble." No kidding. Jesus, the master of understatement, captures in one sentence the story of our lives. He adds, "But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). Why aren't we more encouraged? (Sometimes we'l...
Daily Reading
September 5, 2022
The next chapter of our story is precisely that — the chapter that follows all the chapters before and fits them perfectly. God is still telling a story; the next chapter is not disconnected from the rest. (I know it feels totally disconnected, but i...
Daily Reading
September 4, 2022
You will not think clearly about your life until you think mythically. Until you see with the eyes of your heart.About halfway through their journey — following a great deal of hardship and facing a good deal more — Frodo's devoted friend and servant...
Daily Reading
September 3, 2022
Jesus points to a field of wheat. Imagine trying to count the number of kernels in one acre. Immeasurable abundance. Turning our gaze to those luxuriant fields, he says, “Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the ...
Daily Reading
September 2, 2022
The book "Killing Lions" is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [Sam] What we want right off the bat is a map of some kind, a plan, a clear path to begin walking down. Something that makes it clear what is ...
Daily Reading
August 17, 2022
The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [John] I believe you young men are the warrior generation this world needs. I believe you will see very trying times, perhaps even the end of...
Daily Reading
August 16, 2022
Personally, I find one of the most startling things Jesus says tucked away at the end of the fourteenth chapter of John. He is preparing his closest friends (and soon-to-be-successors) for his departure. They still don’t believe or don’t want to beli...
Daily Reading
March 30, 2022
After his resurrection, Jesus sends us all out to do what he did: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you" (John 20:21 NRSV). And he gives us his authority to do it: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go" (Matt. 2...
Daily Reading
March 21, 2022
Consider the natural human longing to be loved and admired, how deep it runs in you. It is practically an aching abyss. Remember how rare it is for love and admiration to come to any soul in this jealous world. Now, add to this poverty the insight th...
Daily Reading
March 19, 2022
The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [John] A man faces many forks in the road as he journeys through his life — each choice determining what kind of life he is going to live. Wil...
Daily Reading
March 16, 2022
Francis of Assisi was called “the second Christ” because his life was so totally given over to expressing the life of Jesus. What can we learn from this man devoted like no other? “As Saint Francis did not love humanity but men, so he did not love Ch...
Daily Reading
February 11, 2022
The book "Killing Lions" is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [Sam] I feel like I blunder into success as much as I blunder into downfalls. That Susie really values connection. That I think the world of h...
Daily Reading
February 10, 2022
This is a love story, dear friends. God is love, the apostle John tells us, and then he says it again so that we don’t forget, “God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God” (1 John 4:16). Love is the single most defining quality of his ...
Daily Reading
February 7, 2022
For above all else, the Christian life is a love affair of the heart. It cannot be lived primarily as a set of principles or ethics. It cannot be managed with steps and programs. It cannot be lived exclusively as a moral code leading to righteousness...
Daily Reading
December 29, 2021
What is it that God wants from you? He wants the same thing that you want. He wants to be loved. He wants to be known as only lovers can know each other. He wants intimacy with you. Yes, yes, he wants your obedience, but only when it flows out of a h...
Daily Reading
December 28, 2021
You must understand an important distinction — there is Christianity, and then there is church culture. They are not the same. Often they are far from the same. The personality conveyed through much of Christian culture is not the personality of Jesu...
Daily Reading
December 27, 2021
We feel that God is not only unconcerned with our plight, but that he is actually working against us. And sometimes, we are right… Indeed, in the seventeenth chapter of Acts, Paul gives the Athenians the stunning news that every single thing in the l...
Daily Reading
December 26, 2021
Wisdom is crucial. But wisdom is not enough. Wisdom is essential...and insufficient.Saul of Tarsus was headed to Damascus, "breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples," with official documents granting him permission to arrest all C...
Daily Reading
December 21, 2021
Scripture names hope as one of the Three Great Forces of human existence: Three things will last forever — faith, hope, and love. (1 Corinthians 13:13 NLT) By saying they last forever, God names these three as immortal powers. A life without faith ...
Daily Reading
December 20, 2021
Through his cross he paid for our sin, cleansed us, bought us out of the dungeons of the evil one and brought us back to his Abba. Jesus established a whole new way of relating to God. He often reclined at meals with people; he stopped along the road...