2 Corinthians 1:3-4, James 5:14-15, Matthew 11:28, Psalm 34:18, Isaiah 9:6
Jesus–our Lord, Savior and Friend: Come into our hearts to save us and to rule. Come into your Church to direct and empower us with Your Gospel and Your Spirit. Come into your World to redeem the Lost...
Ephesians 4:31-32, Hebrews 12:14, James 3:17-18, Romans 12:18, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, Matthew 5:9
After the fall of apartheid in South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu led his country in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC rejected the two extremes normally implemented after such...
Psalm 121:1-2, Isaiah 41:10, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Philippians 4:6-7, Matthew 11:28-30, Mark 4:35-41
God of wonder and strength, compassion, grace and love–all of which we see revealed through the power of a storm and its aftermath: You’re so big–and we’re so small. Your might is unlimited–ours is fi...
Addiction goes deeper than obsession and compulsion. It is worship. It is giving my heart and soul over to something that I believe will ease my pain and provide an outlet for my fury at being out of ...
The word resilience derives from the Latin term resilire , which means “to recoil or rebound,” and made its debut in the English language in 1627. The first entry in the Oxford English Dictionary...
If you could reduce the gospel to one word, most scholars would choose metanoia—the Greek word translated “repentance” in the New Testament… Most of the time we translate both “meta-noeo” and “meta-no...
The bad news was that a friend’s leg was severed in a gruesome automobile accident. The good news was that it was surgically reattached. A few months later she asked if I wanted to see her scar. I swa...
John 9:1-7, Mark 8:22-25, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Psalm 146:8, Isaiah 55:8-9, Luke 24:13-32, Acts 9:1-19
God of healing, we look for you in all the wrong places. We assume we have figured out how you are at work. Because of this, we miss out on seeing your glory, and we fail to join with you as partners ...
Heavenly Father: You know all about us – our weakness, our failing, our sin; And you still love us enough to give your Son to redeem us. Hear the cries of our hearts today. There’s someone for who...
Mending is an act that requires courage. To mend can be to repair a relationship, as described in the line above from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing . In this splendid play, Benedick and Be...
Philippians 1:6, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 12:2, Isaiah 40:31, 1 Peter 1:6-7, James 1:2-4
God stretches our faith in order to prepare us to receive his promises. That often requires painful rewiring. We need updating, just as an old house may need rewiring. The old electrical wires might b...
James 5:15, Philippians 2:12-13, Galatians 2:20, Romans 8:11, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 Peter 1:2
The more we allow ourselves to personally experience sanctification by faith, the more we also experience healing by faith. These two doctrines walk together. The more the Spirit of God lives and acts...
R. C. Sproul recounts an unusual healing by Jesus. In Mark 8, when Jesus visits Bethsaida, a blind man is brought to him to be healed. Jesus leads him out of the village, puts saliva on his eyes, and ...
Matthew 11:30, Matthew 11:28-30, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Romans 8:18, Hebrews 12:1-2, James 1:2-4
Paradoxically…healing means moving from your pain to the pain…When you keep focusing on the specific circumstances of your pain, you easily become angry, resentful, and even vindictive. You are inclin...
I can’t help but recall here a scene from The West Wing. White House chief of staff Leo McGarry reaches out to his deputy, Josh Lyman, who is struggling with PTSD. Leo tells him a parable: This guy’...
Hope remains possible even amid our failures—whether we disappoint God, let down our families, or fall short of our own expectations—because divine compassion operates like an inexhaustible well. Each...
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was one of my favorite shows for a while, mainly because I loved to see the before and after shots. The water damage in the bathroom, the rotting ceiling beams, and the ...
Brothers and sisters, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. We know this to be true, that the word of the ...
1 John 1:9, John 10:10, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 Peter 2:24, Ephesians 1:7
Leader: As Jesus healed the afflicted and restored those who have died, he also forgives our sins and gives us new life. Friends, believe the good news of the gospel. People: In Jesus Christ we are f...
Colossians 2:13-14, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, 1 Peter 1:18-19, Psalm 49:7-8, 2 Corinthians 5:15, John 8:36
Suppose I sell you a piece of commercial property on which I am already behind in my mortgage payments. You not only pay me a fair price for the property but also pay my overdue payments. Now the prop...
Paul described his work as a ‘ministry of reconciliation’ and his gospel as a ‘message of reconciliation’. He also made it quite clear where this reconciliation comes from. God is its author, he says,...
Colossians 1:13-14, Psalm 103:12, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Romans 5:8, Titus 3:5, 1 John 1:9
Holy Father, You are perfect and just, but we are sinful and unworthy. We intend the best in how we live our lives, Yet sin remains in us. Through Your Son, we are able to have redemption and a reconn...