One of my continual battles is the one that happens in my own heart and mind. I continue to discover and fight negative patterns of thought and emotion that are shaped less by Jesus and more by the wo...
2 Corinthians 10:5, Matthew 6:22-23, Luke 11:34-35, Psalm 19:14, Matthew 15:18-19, Mark 7:20-23
In the first chapter of her book, Get Out of Your Head , author Jennie Allen shares a vulnerable and honest moment from her own life about just how hard it can be to focus in a world of distraction...
Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake u...
The Pew Research Center study showed that millennials had far more negative views of their generation compared with Generation Xers, baby boomers or other age groups. More than half of millennials, 59...
The mind in all its intricate beauty can be a place of great anguish. Thoughts can both grip us for the good and plague us for that which is not. In Dickens’ Christmas novella, The Chimes, he describe...
It’s not just what you eat that matters, it’s what eats you. You can have all the right macrobiotics and organic food, but if your body is filled with resentment, worry, fear, lust, guilt, anger, bitt...
To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you...
A Psalm with a Thesis Statement Some psalms begin with a thesis statement, which is quite a gift to the reader. This is true of Psalm 139: God knows the psalmist because God made him, and God even k...
Preaching Commentary A Psalm with a Thesis Statement Some psalms begin with a thesis statement, which is quite a gift to the reader. This is true of Psalm 139: God knows the psalmist because God m...
Romans 8:6-11, Psalm 130:, John 11:1-41, Ezekiel 37:1-14
Ancient Lens When Paul writes to the church about struggles between body and spirit, he is not the first to join this discussion. Even if you limit the conversation to just the Mediterranean world,...
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, Matthew 16:18, Ephesians 2:3, Romans 5:10, Luke 5:31, Matthew 10:30, 1 Peter 5:8, Psalm 73:4-7, 13, 18-20
Preaching Commentary Preaching Angle: Wheat and Weeds Grow Even in the Church God’s good creation grows food for all living creatures. God made the Earth, God made all the plants, and God made all ...
By Bill Gaultiere Many Christians are stunted in their spiritual growth because they don’t understand or express their deep emotions and desires. As pastors, ministry leaders, caregivers, or parents...
In this tragic world, we are surrounded by discontented people. Every minute of the day, it is possible to see evidence of this restless discontentment in the way people respond to circumstances. Peop...
Genesis 4:6-7, 1 Samuel 1:6-8, 18 , Luke 15:28-32, Jonah 4:1-4 , Ephesians 4:31-32, Psalm 55:22
Sometimes we have to “step over” our anger, our jealousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there...
Uncontrolled temper is soon dissipated on others. Resentment, bitterness, and self-pity build up inside our hearts and eat away at our spiritual lives like a slowly spreading cancer.
In a study conducted by Timothy Wilson, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, researchers discovered what most of us already know: people do not like to be left alone with their own tho...
I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent. Curiosity, obsession, and dogged endurance, combined with self-criticism, have brought me to my ideas. Especially strong thinking powers (...
Faith according to our Lord’s teaching in this paragraph is primarily thinking; and the whole trouble with a man of little faith is that he does not think. He allows circumstances to bludgeon him. . ....
Leviticus 19:15, Proverbs 18:17, 1 Kings 3:9, Matthew 7:1–5, John 7:24, Psalm 141:5
At a recent gathering of seminary professors, one teacher reported that at his school the most damaging charge one student can lodge against another is that the person is being “judgmental.” He found ...
Fear is a “mighty wind” indeed. The wreckage left by the toxic wind of fear is evident everywhere. We are afraid of the unknown, afraid of one another, afraid of poor health, afraid of death, and afra...
All day long, all of us are framing and reframing our lives. We talk about the memory of our adorable but sexist grandpa. We label ourselves as movie critics or introverts or justice-lovers. We say th...
Lord and God, you know what we are about to say in prayer, you know what we ought to say, and even what we need to say but cannot. Our sins trouble us, though they don’t trouble us as much as they sho...
Perhaps the greatest irony in the life of continual comparison is that while it involves so much attention to the attributes and gifts of other people, it’s actually quite self-focused. From that hype...
Isaiah 40:22, Romans 1:28, Psalm 73:, Mark 9:14-29, Matthew 14:22-33
Doubt is really the felt tension that exists between a belief you have and a contrary claim you do not yet believe…Simply put, doubt is that experience of one of our beliefs seeming like it might be f...
Everydayness is my problem. It’s easy to think about what you would do in wartime, or if a hurricane blows through, or if you spent a month in Paris, or if your guy wins the election, or if you won th...