christian living on Signs

In Silence, Shusaku Endo writes of the journey of Portuguese Jesuits journeying to Japan. It is a conversation about those who intend to take the path of Jesus, only to find they are on the path of Ju...

Go, as God’s own people and proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light: Once you were not a people,             but now you are God’s people; once you had...

When I think of masterpieces, I think of art. But what is art? I like the way that Thomas Hoving, who was the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, put it: “Art happens when anyon...

Every cross adorning a church is in itself a sermon—a sermon proclaiming that if Christ can transform the Roman instrument of execution into a thing of beauty, there is hope that in Christ all things ...

Never doubt in the dark what God showed you in the light

If we do anything to further the kingdom of God, we may expect to find what Christ found on that road - abuse, indifference, injustice, misunderstanding, trouble of some kind. Take it. Why not? To tha...

The only significance of life consists in helping to establish the kingdom of God.

Jesus doesn’t just use the shepherd metaphor when he refers to himself as the door. Over and over in the Bible, we are compared to sheep. Some people think it’s heartwarming. But I hate to tell you, i...

Jesus describes his followers as being “salt” and “light” in the world in Matthew 5. When you think about salt, it doesn’t really have a whole lot of value when it’s just sitting in a salt shaker. Si...

Astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson taught me why space is dark. Why does our sun not light up space? The answer is fairly simple: light needs something to reflect off of. Sunlight from our sun and oth...

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...

Leader: Arise! Shine! Christ’s Church has assembled. People: We are one body, with Christ as our head. Leader: What kind of body is this? People: The Body of Christ, brought together not by huma...

In the New Testament sin is not merely an individual, privatized transgression of a moral standard (sins is typically used for specific transgressions). It is far more radical than that. Sin is a mist...

Jesus, our Great Physician, our sins have brought wounds on ourselves and others. Heal our hearts first, that we would no longer desire the sins that have only brought us and others pain. Go on to hea...

O God, you are the sure foundation and the certain cornerstone. Building on you brings life, yet we often turn away and try to find hope by building on other foundations. Self-esteem, money, career, f...

Now I could see in my dream that the High-way Christian was to travel on was protection on either side by a Wall, and the Wall was called Salvation. Burdened Christian began to run up the High-way, bu...

“You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you,” said the Lion.

Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.

Father–Father of the Lord Jesus and our Father: You’ve blessed us beyond imagination. You redeem us, forgive us and lavish Your gifts on us: Thank You. You choose us, when we wouldn’t choose ourselves...

We affirm the good news that this saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He personally bore our sins in His body on the cross, s...

I am not perfect, and I will struggle with the “old Jim,” who was and is influenced by American culture, narratives and values. But the key is that identity comes before behavior. We almost always do ...

We are what we believe we are.

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once told a parable to illustrate the urgency of the gospel message—and the need for all believers, not just clergy, to share it. A traveling circus in Denm...

Leader: As Jesus healed the afflicted and restored those who have died, he also forgives our sins and gives us new life. Friends, believe the good news of the gospel. People: In Jesus Christ we are f...

Churches are not the kingdom of God, but are primary and inevitable expressions, outposts, and instrumentalities of the presence of the kingdom among us.

Meister Eckhart, the late 13th century German Christian theologian and mystic, reminds us that "If the only prayer you said in your whole life was,"thank you," that would suffice."...

What self denial! What self abasement! What self emptying! He, whom no infinitudes can hold, is contained within infant’s age, and infant’s form. Can it be, that the great ‘I AM THAT I AM’ shrinks int...

The cornerstone was a critical element of ancient architecture, the anchor that the rest of the building relied on. The cornerstone was the stone that set the alignment of the entire building. Every o...

Those in whom the Spirit comes to live are God's new Temple. They are, individually and corporately, places where heaven and earth meet.

The Lord is our Shepherd. He is aware of our wanton hearts. He has rooted out our sin and reversed its dire consequences upon His cross. The tree of life has become the cross of Christ. Although we ha...