isaiah on Private Faith

Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus.

Not long after the December 2012 Newtown shootings, and all the speeches by civic leaders, memorial services, and funerals were over, Samuel G. Freedman wrote a column in The New York Times titled “In...

As a study assistant to the Anglican pastor and writer John Stott during my early years as a believer, I witnessed John’s faithfulness in public and private, as a highly visible speaker and as a nearl...

Preaching Commentary The context The beatitudes are one of the most well-known aspects of Jesus teaching. As in the more familiar account in Matthew (5:1-12), Luke presents these words as Jesus’ fi...

Lent 2024: Do This in Remembrance Relationship and Ritual AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? Aren’t we doing what you’re asking of us? The people of God are wo...

In grad school, although I was studying to become a clinical psychologist, I started working at a Baptist church. I discovered then that I loved to preach . . . until one weekend when the sermon wasn’...

Who is David Beckham? Is he the self-absorbed, fame-seeking, Calvin Klein underwear model, husband of a former Spice Girl, always looking to be the center of attention? Or is he something else? Were ...

Regarding Ash Wednesday Note: This passage appeared as part of the lectionary for Ash Wednesday. It starts with the gospel passage for that day, but   attends to the other passages and themes, so it...

Excursus on Ash Wednesday The Meaning of Ashes Ashes represent many things. The heaped up ashes in a hearth may indicate the benefit of warmth on a cold winter’s night. The charred remains of a per...

The man of pseudo faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get into a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself...

The Bruderhof is one such Christian community with many locations around the world. Unlike most such attempts to build radical communities, the Bruderhof has not only survived, it is thriving. In 2021...

A common trait of human beings is a fear of failure. Most of us find ways of coping with it, but whenever failure rears its ugly head, it’s difficult not to experience the sting of feeling like we are...

My faith life, like that of every one else, fluctuates. There are ups and downs and hot spots and cold spots and boredom and ennui and all the rest can be there. And so I’m not asked on a Sunday morni...

Faith is a free surrender and a joyous wager on the unseen, unknown, untested goodness of God.

Faith is a voluntary anticipation.

Someone once said that faith is not a personal possession until you have suffered. That person understood that the very nature of faith requires the grit and courage to be in the dark so you can event...

Faith isn’t a feeling; it’s a choice to trust God even when the road ahead seems uncertain.

Faith is the centerpiece of a connected life. It allows us to live by the grace of invisible strands. It is a belief in a wisdom superior to our own. Faith becomes a teacher in the absence of fact.

The foundation of faith is a firm conviction regarding three things about God—his perfect love, wisdom and power. Like a three-legged stool, no combination of two will do. There must be all three for ...

People...think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross...You arrive at enough certainty to be able to make your way, but it is making it in darkness. Don’t expect faith to clea...

Writing about ministering to postmodern skeptics, Don Everts and Doug Schaupp share a helpful insight into the mystery of God's movement: The first lesson they have taught us about the path to f...

Unless there is an element of risk in our exploits for God, there is no need for faith.

What are you doing right now that requires faith?

I am one of those who would rather sink with faith than swim without it.

Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.

We confess, “I believe in God.” That confession is not an expression of a creative imagination or an instance of projection, but a response to the One who manifests himself in creation, in history, in...

Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind—these are all a dr...

Faith is the gift of God. So is the air, but you have to breathe it; so is bread, but you have to eat it; so is water, but you have to drink it.

If we desire our faith to be strengthened, we should not shrink from opportunities where our faith may be tried, and therefore, through trial, be strengthened.