philippians on Refining Fire

When I teach on the dynamics of real change and maturation, I often describe a “furnace of transformation” each of us must pass through for the sake of growth and refinement. I’ve never seen real grow...

All true friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of rain or frost. ...Each human soul has in a sense to enact for itself the gigantic humility of the Incarnation. Every ma...

Sisters and brothers, if the torch of your faith is lit right now, it might fizzle out within fifteen minutes of leaving here today. So refill the oil of your faith. Trim the charred ends away from yo...

Lord God, refresh us with living water, Illuminate our path with your light, Speak to us with the still small voice And calm the storms of our lives with your peace.

The wounded gladiator forswears all fighting, but soon forgetting his former wound resumes his arms.

Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out. The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself....

In 2010, an oil rig named “Deepwater Horizon” suffered a catastrophic failure. Due to improper installation of the cement seal, a malfunctioning blowout preventer, and cost-cutting decisions by corpor...

God stretches our faith in order to prepare us to receive his promises. That often requires painful rewiring. We need updating, just as an old house may need rewiring. The old electrical wires might b...

O Lord, you have mercy upon all—take away from us all our sins, and mercifully kindle in us the fire of your Holy Spirit. Take away from us a heart of stone, and give me a heart of flesh, a heart to l...

As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. ...

Holy God, You call us to a passionate, all-consuming faith. Yet, so frequently, we give You half-hearted obedience or distracted, leftover moments of our time. You tell us that we are the salt of the ...

Faith makes all evil good to us, and all good better; unbelief makes all good evil, and all evil worse. Faith laughs at the shaking of the spear; unbelief trembles at the shaking of a leaf, unbelief s...

The more we allow ourselves to personally experience sanctification by faith, the more we also experience healing by faith. These two doctrines walk together. The more the Spirit of God lives and acts...

O Lord our God, who first made light to shine out of darkness and now awakens us again to praise your goodness and ask for your grace: accept now, in your boundless mercy, the offering of our worship ...

Gracious God, forgive us when we fail to look honestly at ourselves. It is easy to minimize and justify our sin, believing we can appease our guilt. We are afraid, thinking it is up to us to remove ou...

Thank you, Lord, for this season of sun and slow motion, of games and porch sitting, of picnics and light green fireflies on heavy purple evenings; and praise for slight breezes. It’s good, God...

The recognition of humanity's flawed nature is not exclusive to Christianity. Aristotle, in his work Ethics , compares human nature to a warped piece of wood. To rectify this warp, a skilled ...

There was once a sculptor who worked hard with hammer and chisel on a large block of marble. A little child who was watching him saw nothing more than large and small pieces of stone falling away left...

It was this…intention that made the primitive Christians such eminent instances of piety, that made the goodly fellowship of the Saints and all the glorious army of martyrs and confessors. And if you ...

As we pour out our bitterness, God pours in his peace.

Henry Rimmer wrote a letter to Charles Fuller when he heard that Fuller was going to preach on the subject of heaven on Sunday night at church. Rimmer was an old man about to die. He wrote to Fuller ...

Save us, Glorious Christ, from every false understanding and motivation Save us from the temptation to just stay on the mountain Save us from the temptation to never engage Save us from the temptation...

O Lord God, You have commanded us to believe in Jesus; and I would flee to no other refuge,  wash in no other fountain,  build on no other foundation,  receive from no other fullness,  res...

Theophan the Recluse…is well recognized in Eastern Orthodoxy, specifically the Russian Orthodox tradition. Theophan was a complex and intriguing personality, but today we know him mostly because of hi...

Jesus, we receive your blessings and pray for the Holy Spirit to make them real in our lives. Renew a right spirit within us, a poor spirit, a spirit that knows our deep need of your grace and deliver...

When we have exhausted our store of endurance, When our strength has failed ere that day is half done, When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, Our Father’s full giving has only begun. His lo...

How shall my heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?

Many years ago a senior executive of the then Standard Oil Company made a wrong decision that cost the company more than $2 million. John D. Rockefeller was then running the firm. On the day the news ...

As we call ourselves to worship, let us remember that our God is an awesome God, who in Jesus Christ has lived in our flesh, faced our temptations, gone to cross for, and lives today in heaven. In thi...

Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, two men burned at the stake for their faith in Oxford in 1555. According to sources, as the flames leaped up, Latimer was heard to say calmly, “Be of good comfort, Mr...