1 corinthians on Separation

Maleness and femaleness is the fundamental way we carry our relational design. Interestingly, the English word sexuality comes from the Latin word sexus, which means “being divided, cut off, separated...

Thus the whole death is not the biological phenomenon of death but the spiritual reality whose "sting... is sin" (1 Cor. 15:56) - the rejection by man of the only true life given to him by G...

All: Lord God So often our love feels shallow We act out of love But then expect something in return We are impatient We envy We boast We are slow to forgive Fill us with your Holy Spi...

Jesus – You rose before we did today. You met us at the door to lift burdens, sins and hurts from our shoulders and replace them with Your strength, forgiveness and healing. The word seems so small c...

Christianity Does Not Reject the Body The “spirit-good / body-bad” dualism that often passes for Christianity is actually an ancient gnostic error called “Manichaeism,” and it couldn’t be further from...

O God, who through your Son has taught us that a house divided against itself must fall: Save us, we beg you, from the danger of a divided allegiance; unite our hearts to fear your name; and grant tha...

Scripture also speaks of “discernment of spirits” and encourages us to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” This aspect of discernment helps us to distinguish the real from the phony, ...

Christian disunity is and remains a massive impediment to the gospel itself—the proclamation of which is and should be evangelicalism’s strong suit.

Grace to you—grace that crosses every boundary. And peace to you—peace that dismantles every wall. May grace and peace settle in your bones, may they calm your heart and mind, and may they spill out f...

We may have more disagreements with nonbelievers, but our disagreements with fellow believers are more problematic and more emotionally charged.

Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else.

Indeed, those who become disciples of Christ, instead of fighting each other, stand arrayed against the demons by their lives and deeds of virtue, putting them to flight and mocking their prince, the ...

The first step in backsliding is to put one's service for Christ ahead of one's love for Christ.

Long since on Mars and more strongly since he came to Perelandra, Ransom had been perceiving that the triple distinction of truth from myth and both from fact was purely terrestrial-was part and parce...

As a stranger walked down a quiet residential street, he noticed a man struggling with a washing machine at the doorway of his house. The homeowner was clearly having a hard time, so the passerby, wan...

A true relationship is two unperfect people refusing to give up on each other.

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.

Jesus You are our peace You proclaim it You create it You bring us near Without you there is No safety No belonging No nurturing No identity rooted beyond this dust Without you we are Anchorless St...

Quite often the absence of immediate success is the mark of a genuine call., My Creator, My friend.

Your torture puts hostility to death Your broken body breaks down every dividing wall Your blood makes us blood What wondrous truth What dazzling grace Bring us near again, Jesus Help us remember an...

Nothing can stand against You Nothing No sin, no death No prejudice, no division Nothing can stand against our God You’re making us whole and holy in your mercy and grace Standing together in truth an...

Nothing can be more cruel than that leniency which abandons others to their sin.

As two pieces of wax fused together make one so he who receives Holy Communion is so united with Christ that Christ is in him and he is in Christ.

In the Christian story God descends to reascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still, if embryologists are right, to reca...

The Great Wall of China was an immense and costly project, built with tremendous effort and resources, designed to provide security and protection. Yet, within a few years of its completion, it was br...

Lord Almighty, you tell us that if we have a quarrel with another, we are to make amends before coming to worship. We seek your mercy today – for all of us live at odds with others to varying degrees....

We have seen some gatekeeping or fencing-the-table language already beginning to rear its head in this context. One needed to be baptized to take the meal; one needed to repent to take the meal; one n...

For "Church" is a name of harmony and concord, not of division.

Sharan Merriam and Carolyn Clark, in their fine study Lifelines , effectively show that life is fundamentally about two things—our work and our relationships. And maturity is found in having the c...

How many prodigals are kept out of the kingdom of God by the unlovely characters of those who profess to be inside!