2 corinthians on Uniqueness

Each one of us is called to live the truth of our unrepeatable uniqueness. We are not meant to model ourselves after others, however wonderful they may be. A delightful Jewish parable makes this point...

Christmas in May I’m pretty sure it was Stephen Covey, back in the day ( The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People ) who originally said, “The main thing is to let the main thing be the main thing...

Love to be unknown.

This separateness from sinners is not a little, but a stupendous thing; it is the presupposition of redemption; it is that very virtue in Christ without which he would not be qualified to be a Saviour...

The pyschologist Carl Rogers, a person who would know quite well the interior lives of others, has this to say of our inmost thoughts: I have most invariably found that the very feeling which has see...

I searched for guidance on how to combat the problem of constant comparison. I found that well-meaning teachers sometimes addressed the topic, but their advice usually ran along these lines: “You sho...

In an early Christian document known as the Epistle to Diognetus (c. A.D. 120-200), the author wrote a response to some propaganda circulating in the Roman Empire. People had spread false rumors about...

Thou hast but two rare cabinets full of treasure, The Trinity, and Incarnation: Thou hast unlockt them both, And made them jewels to betroth The work of thy creation Unto thy self in everlasting pleas...

Relational congruence is the ability to be fundamentally the same person with the same values in every relationship, in every circumstance and especially amidst crisis. It is the internal capacity to ...

I would later learn that these are two characteristics of beauty: it never stays, and it never fully satisfies.

Paradox has been defined as “Truth standing on her head to attract attention."

The framework of seven days is rich with divine intention. Certainly, in biblical numerology, the number seven symbolizes divine perfection. But perhaps it goes deeper than that. Echoing church father...

As for Christians, well, we really have just one thing going for us. We have publicly declared… that we are desperately in need of Another to give us his righteousness, to complete us, to live in us. ...

The word eccentric comes from a combination of the Greek terms ex (out of) and kentron (center). When combined, ekkentros means “out of center.” The term gained currency in the late Middle Ages, when ...

In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas codified beauty as being directly connected to Jesus Christ with three characteristic features. He wrote, “Species or beauty has a likeness to the property of...

Only at the cross of Christ does man see fully what it is that separates him from God; yet it is here alone that he perceives that he is no longer separated from God. Nowhere else does the inviolable ...

That which distinguishes Christianity has not been stolen. For what makes Christianity absolutely distinct is the identity of our God. Which God we worship: that is the article of faith that stands be...

We have been created and redeemed for the eternal ecstasy of an interpersonal immersion in the triune God, seeing infinite Beauty face to face.

If the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light—yet perhaps the . . . unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar...

In his book Flesh: Bringing the Incarnation Down to Earth , Hugh Halter opens with an unlikely scenario: taking his teenage daughter to get her first tattoo. While watching his daughter get “inked...

The mystery of perfection as an aspect of beauty is its transcendence. It points to a glory beyond itself. I knew that when I held my children, I didn’t simply cradle flesh and blood. I held a living ...

God uses the nobodies to show himself to be somebody. God uses the nothings to show himself to be something. And maybe you feel like a nobody, a nothing. My friend, you're the one God's chosen...

Far too easily we settle for holiness rather than wholeness, conformity rather than authenticity, becoming spiritual rather than deeply human, fulfillment rather than transformation, and a journey tow...

The holiness of God teaches us that there is only one way to deal with sin- radically, seriously, painfully, constantly. If you do not so live, you do not live in the presence of the Holy One of Israe...

To make suggests making something out of something else the way a carpenter makes wooden boxes out of wood. To create suggests making something out of nothing the way an artist makes paintings or poem...

There is a great difference between successfulness and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control, and respectability. A successful person has the energy to create something, to keep control o...

I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent. Curiosity, obsession, and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas. Especially strong thinking powers (...

A real Christian is an odd number, anyway. He feels supreme love for One whom he has never seen, talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see, expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another, ...

Less is more. Coined by Robert Browning and popularized by the German-born American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, nothing could be further from the literal truth. But when people use this exp...

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.