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The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

Loving and faithful God, You save and sustain us. What marvelous good news You give us through Jesus!Yet we are oblivious to opportunities to share Your grace and love. We fail to see, as Your Word sa...

[Beauty] “is goodness made manifest to the senses.

Apologetics (from apologia in Greek) is a “word back,” a reasoned defense mounted on behalf of the one we love who is innocent but has been falsely and unfairly accused. Faith desires to let God be Go...

Leader: "Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me...

God our Father We confess to you and to one another That we have been quick to anger And slow to mercy We have paid back abuse with abuse Hatred with hatred And violence with violence The world does n...

Some years ago, the syndicated newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris shared an interesting anecdote from one of his friends. Each evening, this friend would stop at the same newsstand to buy a newspape...

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you w...

Leader: As you go through your week, may you remember that not only is God for you, God is with you. And just as you can trust Jesus’ death and resurrection for your eternal life, you can trust God wi...

But what will not Ambition and Revenge Descend to? Who aspires must down as low As high he sor’d, obnoxious first or last To basest things.

In any polarized situation, the overriding human tendency is to draw a line with oneself and one’s allies on the good side and the opposing party on the wicked side, with very little attempt made by e...

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope...

By forgiving another, I am trusting that God is a better justice-maker than I am.

Father, as we go to our homes and our work this coming week we ask you to send the Holy Spirit into our lives. Open our ears- to hear what you are saying to us in the things that happen to us and i...

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence…. Faith, being belief that isn...

I love the following story because it illustrates both our natural defensiveness when we are attacked and the potential for transformation. As the illustration demonstrates, this is only possible when...

Indeed, those who become disciples of Christ, instead of fighting each other, stand arrayed against the demons by their lives and deeds of virtue, putting them to flight and mocking their prince, the ...

In his book, A Peculiar Glory , John Piper provides an illustration of the kind of faith we are called to. This is no “blind faith,” in which we are supposed to simply believe without using our minds...

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the lin...

Humility is so shy. If you begin talking about it, it leaves.

A friend of mine who is an entrepreneur was listening to a CD of a series of messages I had given on the Beatitudes. When he came to meekness, he told me, he skipped over it. He wasn’t interested in b...

This week our lectionary text ( This article was published a few weeks late! ) is on 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, that well-known passage that describes scripture as "θεόπνευστος," or "God-bre...

In his book, Soul Keeping, pastor John Ortberg describes his mentorship by Dallas Willard early in his ministry. The following vignette occurred while Willard was teaching a philosphy course at the Un...

Goodness is beauty in the best estate.

A person who suffers bitterly when slighted or insulted should recognize from this that he still harbors the ancient serpent in his breast. If he quietly endures the insult or responds with great humi...

To tell someone what you believe may be to answer the wrong question—better to say, instead, what the church believes, better to use the language the church has bequeathed to us to shape our experienc...

When we are bitter, we delude ourselves into thinking that those who hurt us are more likely to be punished as long as we are set on revenge. We are afraid to let go of those feelings. After all, if w...

Lord of Hope and God of all that’s new—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: We’re filled with wonder, gratitude, and joy inspired by the gifts of new life You freely give us. There’s the joy and wonder of eve...

A successful Irish boxer was converted and became a preacher. He happened to be in a new town setting up his evangelistic tent when a couple of tough thugs noticed what he was doing. Knowing nothing o...

The victory of God in our time over this deathly idolatry is hidden from us, as God’s decisive victory is always hidden from us. We do not know exactly when and where the victory has been wrought. It ...