Faith, love and hope, and the most human of these is hope: a girl hopes to be loved and to share a full life; a fellow hopes to find himself usefully employed in the world; a teacher has more hopes for their students than you can imagine; a suffering, displaced or disabled person hopes for the night of darkness to end in a new day — Hope that is hope in God shall without a doubt be fruitful, says the... Read more
We who are Christians do read Isaiah, listen to psalms and the prophets who command and foretold the appearance of the holy way of life and truth, and we would make earnest with it, becoming single-minded before the LORD who holds everything and everybody in God’s eternal hand. To do less is to be a christian mirage; the world at large will still buy compromised righteousness. But to do less, to think and act as if this world is some... Read more
I read a familiar story today and saw something new in it. I was reading Luke 14:16-24. That is where Jesus tells the parable about a man who organizes a magnificent dinner party and all the important people he invited send their regrets because they were too busy to attend. Since plans had already been made and the food had already been prepared, the man invited the all the unimportant people, the dirty people, the outcasts, the undeserving. This is, as... Read more
Today morality is more like wine tasting than banking. In banking, there is a right and wrong answer. If you deposit a thousand dollars in a new bank account and a week later try to withdraw eighty dollars, you would not be willing to agree to disagree when the teller says your account is empty. But we don’t see morality like banking anymore. Instead, we see it more like wine tasting. In wine tasting, everyone has their favorite blends and... Read more
..if God is your Father you can start enjoying right now that which shall — unbelievable, but true — be completed later; if God is your Father you can see the groaning creation of Romans 8 gloriously clapping its hands now and then, as in the morning after the first icy snow storm of a year, or when a woman has given birth in pain to a new-born child; if God is your Father the sweetness of having been given... Read more
Every conversation can be an opportunity to love someone on behalf of the Lord. Every conversation can be a chance to either edify a person in the body of Christ, or to communicate the love we know from the Lord to non-Christians, always with the hope that we can speak the Gospel to them, remembering Paul’s words, “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” -Donna... Read more
What would it look like if we treated our spouses and friends the way we treat God? What if we gave them 10 percent of our money, talked to them a lot on Sundays, told everyone we were dating or married to them, but in exchange, asked if we could do whatever we wanted on all the other days? How would that work for us? If we did a few good things for them during the week, would we be... Read more
I was particularly convicted by my devotional reading this morning. Calvin Seerveld was discussing Isaiah 1:10-20. “We Christians” he says, that is me, born and raised in something like a Christian home. Going to church most Sundays, reading our Bible methodically, praying before we eat — It is horribly easy to become accustomed to the routine and end up sleepwalking through our so-called worship. I go to church on Sunday, seeing it more of a mandatory social event then coming... Read more
We met Jesus at the cross, but it’s foolishness for us to remain there, never moving forward in our relationship with Him. He wants to change us, to transform us one day at a time, increasingly reflecting His likeness. Sanctification. Cherie, over at Neue Thing, identifies some red flags to keep us vigilant in our fight against our own folly in her post, You Know You’re a Fool If. There are a couple aspects she pointed out that I recognize... Read more
If we sing praises to the Lord on Sunday, but repeatedly sing tunes of worry and doubt throughout the week. Read the whole exhortation, A Few Things Well, over at GraceLaced. Read more
Mere Breath
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