colossians on Separation from God

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 ...

God of the Nations We stand apart from you We stand apart from each other We stand with our tribe Hiding behind walls Throwing our stones Our divisions dishonor you We harm instead of heal You weep Of...

Being saved always involves being both saved from something and saved for something. We are saved for shalom—a flourishing life with God. What are we saved from? Salvation as described in the Bible is...

Gracious God, we are sorry for withholding good things. We have offered judgment and held back mercy. We have kept comfortable and withheld justice. We have ignored cries for help. God we cannot love ...

Out of the depths of darkness and despair we have cried out for your mercy, O God. Instead of marking our iniquities with the just weight of our condemnation, you have forgiven us, breathed new life i...

Think of your own experiences as a human being: your body is not just a “shell” in which you dwell. Your body is not just a body. Your body is not just any body. Your body is somebody—you! Through the...

You don’t turn from sin to get saved. You get saved to turn from sin.

Dealing with sin, saving humans from it, giving them grace, forgiveness, justification, glorification-all this was the purpose of the single covenant from the beginning, now fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

In her book Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home , Jen Pollock Michel reflects on the nature of home in a transient age. In this short excerpt, Michel reflects on the Biblical doctrine...

Salvation in the New Testament is consistently portrayed not as escape from creation but as the redemption and transformation of creation.

O God, who looked on fallen humanity and planned to redeem us by the coming of your only-begotten Son, we ask that you ensure that all who confess his glorious incarnation will have fellowship with hi...

Thus says your Lord, the Lord, your God who pleads the cause of his people: “Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more. Live in the freedo...

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 ...

Christians are often accused of two wrong-headed views of the body. One is that we ignore the body in favor of a disembodied, spirits-floating-on-clouds spirituality. The other is that we are obsessed...

Faith is seeing the invisible, but not the nonexistent.

Holy Spirit, you have come to reconcile us to each other, but we resist your work to bind us together. We hold onto grudges. Even though we know God has forgiven us in Jesus Christ, we are slow to for...

In Christ as sacrifice, God our judge is judged in our place, reveals our perpetration of and collaboration with sin, ends our rebellion, forgives our guilt, cleanses us, makes us righteous, and estab...

God just doesn’t throw a life preserver to a drowning person. He goes to the bottom of the sea, and pulls a corpse from the bottom of the sea, takes him up on the bank, breathes into him the breath of...

Jesus Christ became Incarnate for one purpose, to make a way back to God that man might stand before Him as He was created to do, the friend and lover of God Himself.

We bring before God those times when God’s Kingdom and love have not shaped our lives, asking to be forgiven and made new. Lord Jesus, too often this week you have only been a small part of our live...

Preaching Commentary a brief introduction I would like to start with a rather big question. How do we know that we are, in fact, Christians? We find some direction from Jesus on this subject in Mat...

Eternal God, we praise You for stepping out of eternity to enter this world through Your Son, Jesus. In so doing, You gave us the perfect example for Christian life. You gave of Yourself so that other...

Our sins had taken root deeply, down to the deepest soils of our hearts. Know that Christ has uprooted our sins to the last fiber, planting His Word of forgiveness that can never wither.

By misinterpreting the Enlightenment and the corresponding rise of empiricism as an existential threat to Christian faith, many frightened Christians sequestered themselves into rooms of certitude.

You have wonderfully created us, O God, and yet more wonderfully restored the dignity of human nature. Allow us to share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesu...

When we don’t meet Christ in Scripture and are not regularly being discipled by or discipling others, it is impossible to discern what being a Christian means or to cultivate a relationship with God. ...

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...

Note from TPW: Kara Martin addresses life in the secular workplace, sharing insights to help you lead your congregations to understand their faith and work and also to bring the Kingdom into your o...

In The Good and Beautiful God , James Bryan Smith describes a new Christian he happened to know who came to him one day feeling dejected. He was so excited to be a follower of Jesus, but he just co...

This impotence of “systems” is a main reason why Jesus did not send his students out to start governments or even churches as we know them today, which always strongly convey some elements of a human ...