John

I am not what I might be, I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I wish to be, I am not what I hope to be. But I thank God I am not what I once was, and I can say with the great apostle, "By ...

Where love rejoices, there is festivity.

People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To b...

Love keeps no record of wrongs. We keep to-do lists so we don’t forget We check them twice We carry them in our pockets Holding on to the pain The disappointment The failure Re-viewing the wrong Poi...

Even as we eagerly await your return, Lord Jesus, we must confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart, with our entire mind, nor with all of our strength. We have loved our rituals and our...

The grace of God overflows for us through Christ Jesus, who came into the world to save sinners. We therefore, confess, holy and merciful God, our failure to be what you created us to be. You alone kn...

In the old American South (and in many places in the American North) a European American who invited an African American as a guest to an expensive restaurant in a white section of town would subject ...

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...

Living by grace inspires a growing consciousness that I am what I am in the sight of Jesus and nothing more.

Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.

Grace is not simply about pardoning sinful behavior; it’s also about rewiring the sinners themselves. The grace the Bible talks about is power not just for justification but also for transformation.

We are forbidden to take sin more seriously than grace, or even as seriously as grace.

We are suspicious of grace. We are afraid of the very lavishness of the gift.

Repentance, not proper behavior or even holiness, is the doorway to grace. And the opposite of sin is grace, not virtue.

And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily--open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is bett...

Christmas: the Son of God expressing the love of God to save us from the wrath of God so we could enjoy the presence of God.

Grace is God loving, God stooping, God coming to the rescue, God giving himself generously in and through Jesus Christ.

Leader: God of love, when we wander away it is your grace that calls us back to you. All: You receive us with mercy, and we give thanks. Loving Christ, when we are lost and lonely in a far l...

Heavenly Father, You shower Your love on us throughout every stage of life. We praise You for Your steadfast love. Through Your Son we see the extent of that love while through Your Spirit we experien...

We know but little now about the conditions of the life that is to come. But what is certain is that Love must last. God, the Eternal God, is Love. Covet, therefore, that everlasting gift.

“And in the end, we were all just humans.. drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness.”

In His free grace, God is for man in every respect; He surrounds man from all sides. He is man's Lord who is before him, above him, after him, and thence also with him in history, the locus of man...