Exodus 3:1-6, Isaiah 6:1-8, Acts 9:1-9, Matthew 4:18-22, 1 Samuel 3:1-10
Sometimes, of course, the sense of God with us becomes much more distinct. My oldest brother, J. I. Willard, served for over thirty years as a minister under the blessing of God. But his entry into th...
Jeremiah 3:13, 1 Peter 5:7, Romans 8:38-39, Matthew 11:28, Isaiah 66:13, Psalm 27:10, Isaiah 49:15-16
In his book The Logic of the Spirit, James Loder talks about a woman with whom he had been in a therapeutic relationship for years. This woman’s underlying issue seemed to be a complete sense of rejec...
Jeremiah 17:9, Proverbs 16:2, Proverbs 21:2, Matthew 7:3-5, Galatians 6:3, 2 Samuel 12:
There is not any thing, relating to men and characters, more surprising and unaccountable, than this partiality to themselves. . . . Hence it is that many men seem perfect strangers to their own chara...
Matthew 16:24-26, Colossians 3:1-3, Romans 8:12-13, Romans 6:18-19, Galatians 2:20, Colossians 3:5, 2 Timothy 2:3-4, 1 Peter 4:1-2, Luke 9:23, Mark 8:34-38, Luke 14:26-28
Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end...
Matthew 6:25-34, Galatians 1:10, Philippians 2:3-4, Matthew 23:1-12, Romans 12:2
In his book, Scary Close , Donald Miller acknowledges that over time he developed a mask, or a persona that kept even those closest to him from experiencing with him. As he began to peel back layers ...
Hosea 1:null, Hosea 2:null, Hosea 3:null, Matthew 16:18, Mark 10:13-16, John 3:16, Romans 5:8, 1 John 4:9-10, Ephesians 2:4-5, Acts 4:9-10, Acts 13:9
Here’s a testimony from Lisa Sharon Harper, author of The Very Good Gospel: Harper grew up as a child of a single mother. After her parents divorced, she and her mother moved from Philadelphia where ...
1 Corinthians 13:, Ruth 1:16-18, 2 Corinthians 11:23-28, Luke 10:25-37, 1 Kings 19:1-18, Matthew 26:36-46, Isaiah 41:10
Adapted from Ch 4 of On Getting out of Bed. Why is Existence Good? Living for the sake of living—doing things so that you can continue to efficiently do things—begs the question, Why live? To live...
1 John 4:7-11, Matthew 22:36-40, 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, John 15:12-13, Romans 5:8, Luke 19:1-10 , Ephesians 3:17-19
All-loving God, we confess our motivations are often not influenced by your love. We act according to what will bring us the best outcome. We love ourselves before we love you. Help us to grow deeper ...
Genesis 11:4 , Ecclesiastes 4:4, 1 Samuel 18:6-9 , Matthew 6:1-2 , Luke 10:38-42, Psalm 127:1-2
I lust after recognition, I am desperate to win all the little merit badges and trinkets of my profession, and I am of less real use in this world than any good cleaning lady.
Proverbs 22:8, Proverbs 26:27, Galatians 6:7, Romans 6:23, Matthew 7:16-20
The author Oscar Wilde once remarked that by the age of forty everyone has the face they deserve. This is a truly profound, if painful, truth. But it really applies to the “within” expressed by the fa...
Genesis 27:18-29, Exodus 3:11-14, Ecclesiastes 2:10-11, Luke 15:11-32, Matthew 23:27-28 , Psalm 139:23-24
Thomas Merton once said, “Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self, This is the man I want myself to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him. A...
James 3:5-10, Matthew 12:34-37, Psalm 141:3, Proverbs 15:1, Genesis 3:12-13, Isaiah 6:5
I actually want to believe that when it comes to communication, my biggest problem is outside of me, not inside of me. I want to think that it’s my kids, my wife, my neighbors, my boss. I want to thin...
Isaiah 43:1, 1 Peter 2:9, Matthew 25:31-46, Isaiah 6:1-8
Heavenly Father, we confess that we have too often forgotten that we are Yours. At times, we live our lives as if there was no God and we fall short of being who You created us to be. We have lived fo...
Matthew 23:27, Isaiah 29:13, Luke 12:2, 1 Peter 3:4, James 5:16
People can say one thing and do something totally different. You see the darkness that is often hidden from polite society. The thing that you see is a widespread insecurity. I think people put on a f...
Galatians 1:10, Philippians 2:3-4, Matthew 23:1-12, 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, James 4:1-10, 1 Peter 5:1-11
All of us struggle with our own desires for accomplishment and ambition. Christians especially find it difficult to discern their own worldly ambitions vs. following Jesus’ comand to seek first the ki...
The challenge each of these faced in their deconstruction—and what we may face—is walking the tightrope between becoming our own person and honoring our past. In The Homeless Mind , sociologist P...
Matthew 23:12, Philippians 2:3-4, Isaiah 2:11, 1 Peter 5:6, Luke 18:14
If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realize that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done befor...
Eternal God, lead me now out of the familiar setting of my doubts and fears, beyond my pride and my need to be secure into a strange and graceful ease with my true proportions and with yours; ...
Matthew 6:24-26, Ephesians 4:1-3, Philippians 2:3-8, James 4:6, Psalm 82:3-4
Almighty God, we take pride in our self-sufficiency while we look down on the weak who cannot provide for themselves. We praise others for their efforts, yet we demand perfection from our own families...
Numbers 13:25-33, Romans 8:38-39, Matthew 10:29-31, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Genesis 1:27, Luke 10:6-7, Ephesians 2:10
My friend Christina, a licensed therapist, tells me that Psychiatry 101 teaches therapists that when you and I choose to believe a lie about ourselves, it’s one of these three lies we believe: I’m he...
Luke 5:1-11, Matthew 4:18-22, Mark 1:16-20, Isaiah 6:1-8, Jeremiah 16:14-21, Jeremiah 16:16
Preaching Commentary Peter's and Isaiah's Confessions Jesus calling the disciples from their fishing appears in Matthew 4:18-22; Mark 1:16-20, and Luke 5:1-11. Yet only Luke makes the beaut...
1 Samuel 16:1-13 , Habakkuk 2:2-3, Matthew 17:20, Romans 5:3-5 , Philippians 4:6-7 , Psalm 42:11
In Circle of Quiet , Madeleine L’Engle describes how her young adult novel A Wrinkle in Time was dismissed by eight publishers before it eventually landed with the publishing house of Farra...
Matthew 6:1-2, John 5:44, Romans 12:2, Galatians 1:10, 1 Thessalonians 2:4, Titus 3:4-7, Psalm 37:4
In her book Invitation to Retreat, Ruth Haley Barton shares some of the many insights she has had since she began intentionally taking inattentional retreats to re-connect with God and her own desires...
Isaiah 55:1–3, Exodus 3:1–12, Proverbs 9:1–6, Matthew 11:28–30, John 1:35–39, Psalm 3:4:8
One of the reasons I love a good invitation is that I get tired of being told what to do. As the very responsible oldest daughter of a pastor and someone who entered vocational ministry at a young age...
1 Kings 19:1-18, Psalm 88:null, Psalm 102:7, Isaiah 53:3, Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 15:11-32
A therapist once told me that the most common complaint he heard from his patients was the feeling that they didn’t belong. The feeling of being an imposter, or of being outside things, of not fitting...