John 2:15-16, Romans 12:2, Ephesians 2:1-2, John 15:18-19, James 4:4
The world, though, is protean: each generation has the world to deal with in a new form. World is an atmosphere, a mood. It is nearly as hard for a sinner to recognize the world’s temptations as it is...
God of grace and mercy, how often we choose to set our eyes on things below rather than things above. We allow ourselves to be ruled by our calendars rather than our King. We honor our own comfort bef...
A lesson often learned the hard way in each of our spiritual journeys is mistaking goodwill for vocation. Sometimes we feel deeply about an experience we have, whether it be on a mission trip or even ...
God's Kingdom is "present in its beginnings, but still future in its fullness. This guards us from an under-realized eschatology (expecting no change now) and an over-realized eschatology (ex...
Far too many people, especially within evangelicalism, think that the individual is all that matters, and that the corporate dimension is a distraction or diversion. Of course Christianity is deeply p...
James 1:22-25, Philippians 2:3-4, Romans 12:2, Ephesians 4:22-24, Colossians 3:12-14, Galatians 5:22-23, Matthew 25:21
The kingdom of God manifests itself in the modest changes in our attitudes and in the little improvements in our behavior that no one may notice, including ourselves. These are the mighty works of God...
Romans 12:1, Romans 13:11-14, John 17:14-16, Ephesians 5:1-5
In view of all that God has accomplished for his people in Christ, how should his people live? They should present themselves to God as a ‘living sacrifice’, consecrated to him. The animal sacrifices ...
2 Corinthians 10:1, Ephesians 4:2-3, Romans 12:3, Colossians 4:6, Matthew 23:11-12, Proverbs 11:2, James 1:19
In a statement created by Christian leaders across the world, the Lausanne Willowbank Report calls for church leaders to return to the humility and servanthood that Jesus manifested in His earthly min...
Luke 18:10-14, Matthew 6:1, Ephesians 2:8-9, James 4:10, Galatians 6:4, Micah 6:8, Romans 12:3
In the Christian subculture, there is an unspoken standard, a notorious goal to “win the contest.” It’s there, the contest. We don’t say it out loud, because it sounds ludicrous spoken into the open a...
LORD, too often we live for ourselves instead of how You have called us. Please forgive us for the times when we don’t strive to bring about Your kingdom here and now. Forgive us for the lack of imagi...
I wasn’t raised in a Christian family. I only entered the “Christian bubble” of a Southern Baptist youth group in junior high, where I pledged myself to abstinence before marriage at a True Love Waits...
If the phrase “theology of the body” seems odd, perhaps it’s because we haven’t taken the reality of the incarnation as seriously as Scripture does. There’s nothing surprising about looking to the hum...
In his excellent book on the desert fathers, Where God Happens , former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams tells of an encounter between two monastic fathers. The first was Macarius, famous in...
The kingdom is present not in grandiose accomplishments, but in showing practical love in humble ways, day after day, and in refusing to allow our failures and disappointments to hide God’s love from ...
1 Peter 3:9, Ephesians 4:32, Colossians 3:12-14, Luke 6:36, Romans 12:21, Matthew 5:7, Micah 6:8
The victory of God in our time over this deathly idolatry is hidden from us, as God’s decisive victory is always hidden from us. We do not know exactly when and where the victory has been wrought. It ...
Don’t over-spiritualize. You can serve the Lord in a thousand different jobs. We need missionaries and we need pastors. But we also need entrepreneurs who create jobs so people can make money so they ...
Proverbs 3:5-7 , Luke 15:11-32 , Isaiah 55:8-9, James 4:6-10, Romans 12:3, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 , Ephesians 2:8-9
All-knowing God, we often believe our way is the best way. In our arrogance, we ignore your will and your ways. We confess our dependence on knowledge and our independence from you. Thank you that you...
Culture is like gravity. We never talk about it, except in physics classes. We don’t include gravity in our weekly planning processes. No one gets up thinking about how gravity will affect their day. ...
Holy Trinity, Community of Love, Draw your children together Across human boundaries Across denominations Draw us together in your creative light Awaken us to collaboration and mutual callings Quick t...
John 15:13, Romans 12:1, Matthew 10:39, 1 John 3:16, Ephesians 5:25
While written well over a century ago, this excerpt (from the great Princeton theologian) B.B. Warfield’s sermon “imitating the Incarnation continues to inspire the kind of life Christ calls us to: ...
Writing to his parents while imprisoned on the day of Pentecost, the German Dietrich Bonhoeffer said this: At the tower of Babel all the tongues were confounded, and as a result men could no longe...
Isaiah 2:4, Matthew 5:9, Romans 12:18, Ephesians 2:14
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks tells a true story in one of his books about peacemaking in what is arguably one of the world's most difficult places to achieve it: the Middle East. One evening in the early ...
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 ...
Matthew 7:21, Ephesians 2:10, Titus 1:16, Matthew 25:40, Romans 12:21, Isaiah 1:17, Micah 6:8
There is something profoundly hypocritical about praising God for God’s mighty deeds of salvation and cooperating at the same time with the demons of destruction, whether by neglecting to do good or b...
Background to the Letter and Passage Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was probably intended for wider distribution and use among the various churches around Ephesus. As such, there is no particular cri...
Warren Robinson Austin was an American politician and diplomat serving both in the U.S. Senate and the United Nations as a U.S. ambassador. During a debate, Austin was asked how he would approach the ...