Daily Reading
November 21, 2021
The things that have happened to us often suggest that the real script of the play we're all living in is "God is indifferent" rather than "God is love." Deep down in our hearts, in the place where the story is formed, this experience of God as indif...
Daily Reading
November 11, 2021
Creation sometimes screams a confusing message — fear, pain, grief. Fire burns, rivers flood, winds go hurricane, the earth shudders so hard it levels cities. But you must remember — this was not so in Eden. Mankind fell, surrendering this earth to t...
Daily Reading
January 5, 2019
We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline. (Hebrews 6:18–19 The Message)The hope and promise of the restoration of all things has bee...
Daily Reading
January 4, 2019
God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart. (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT)The thing you are made for is the renewal of all things. God has given you a heart for his kingdom—not the wispy vagaries of a clou...
Daily Reading
January 3, 2019
You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. (Psalm 139:5)At the Fall, why did God curse Adam and Eve with an emptiness that nothing would be able to fill? Wasn’t life going to be hard enough out there in the world, banished from t...
Daily Reading
January 2, 2019
Long before [God] laid down earth’s foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love. (Ephesians 1:4 The Message) We exercise because we want to grow stronger; we take vitamins in the h...
Daily Reading
January 1, 2019
Is anything too hard for the Lord? (Genesis 18:14)January 1. A brand-new year. It’s the time of year we start thinking about making changes. This year, rather than writing a quick list of resolutions that we’ll likely forget before February, maybe we...
Daily Reading
December 31, 2018
He who testifies to all these things says it again: “I’m on my way! I’ll be there soon!” Yes! Come, Master Jesus! (Revelation 22:20 The Message)There’s nothing like stepping out your door into the beckoning world. This is why people vacation in beaut...
Daily Reading
December 30, 2018
Out of that terrible travail of soul, he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it. Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, will make many “righteous ones,” as he himself carries the burden of their sins. (Isaiah 53:11–12 The...
Daily Reading
December 29, 2018
“After a long absence, the master of those three servants came back and settled up with them. ... His master commended him: ‘Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.’ ” (Matthew 25:19–21 The Message)You are created to accomplish a...
Daily Reading
December 28, 2018
“Come!” say the Spirit and the Bride. Whoever hears, echo, “Come!” Is anyone thirsty? Come! All who will, come and drink, drink freely of the Water of Life! (Revelation 22:17 The Message)Two ideas are absolutely basic to a Christian understanding of ...
Daily Reading
December 27, 2018
What is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? Indeed, you are our glory and joy. (1 Thessalonians 2:19–20)Where is this supposed coming? The current expression of that is often: “But e...
Daily Reading
December 21, 2018
Then I looked, and, oh!—a door open into Heaven. The trumpet-voice, the first voice in my vision, called out, “Ascend and enter. I’ll show you what happens next.” (Revelation 4:1 The Message)The dreams I have about the kingdom only started this year....
Daily Reading
December 20, 2018
“Look, I am coming soon, bringing my reward with me.” (Revelation 22:12 NLT)Reward—it fills the pages of both Testaments. C. S. Lewis writes: “If you consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the ...
Daily Reading
December 19, 2018
“Look ahead with joy. Anticipate what I’m creating.” (Isaiah 65:18 The Message)Certainly storytelling is one of the great pleasures in the kingdom. Would you like to write? Illustrate? Act? Produce? These are not obliterated when you step into the li...
Daily Reading
December 17, 2018
They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. (Isaiah 35:10)What will it be like to be crowned with everlasting joy? To be “overtaken” with gladn...
Daily Reading
December 16, 2018
“God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.” (Matthew 5:8 NLT)According to the Scriptures, the heart can be troubled, wounded, pierced, grieved, even broken. How well you know that. Thankfully, it can also be cheerful, glad, joyf...
Daily Reading
December 15, 2018
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)There’s an expression that is used to describe someone w...
Daily Reading
December 14, 2018
The child-heart wants to know, “Will there be animals in heaven?” The calloused heart dismisses this as theologically unworthy. Friend, the whole debate ends when you realize that heaven comes to earth. How could your creative God renew his precious ...
Daily Reading
March 27, 2027
Your suffering is neither pointless nor isolated. Somehow, Jesus’ sufferings overflow into our lives; somehow ours are linked to his. This is a great honor. It grants our sorrows an incredible dignity; it invites us to know an intimacy and connection...
Daily Reading
March 26, 2027
Jesus of Nazareth was sentenced to death by a vain puppet of the Roman government acting as district governor of Jerusalem. He was nailed to a cross by a handful of Roman soldiers who happened to be on duty, and left there to die. He died sometime ar...
Daily Reading
August 31, 2026
You are not your sin; sin is no longer the truest thing about the man who has come into union with Jesus. Your heart is good. "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you" (Ezek. 36:26). The Big Lie in the church today is that you are not...
Daily Reading
August 30, 2026
Prayer sets up a terrible dilemma for us. We want to pray; it’s in our nature. We desperately want to believe that God will come through for us. But then ... he doesn’t seem to, and where does that leave us? I believe God is in the dilemma; I believe...
Daily Reading
August 29, 2026
Twice, in the famous chapter of Romans 7, where Paul presents a first-person angst about our battle against sin, he says, "But this is not my true nature. This is not my heart."As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but sin living in me. I kno...
Daily Reading
August 28, 2026
Jesus is a fierce, intentional man to be sure. But his passions are neither reckless nor momentary.Could a small, unintimidating figure accomplish such a sustained riot? To pull off driving “all of them out of the temple” would require more than a fe...
Daily Reading
August 27, 2026
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, 2026
“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, 2026
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, 2026
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, 2026
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...