christian living on Common Vision

Emerson once observed, Do you love me? actually means Do you see the same truth? Or at least . . . Do you care about the same truth?”

God of the common and of the uncommon. You meet us in the ordinary routines of life–when we play and when we rest, while we work and while we worship. And You reveal yourself in the extraordinary, too...

Vision is the ability to see God’s presence, to perceive God’s power, to focus on God’s plan In spite of the obstacles….Vision is the ability to see above and beyond the majority. Vision is perception...

God’s vision for his people is not for the elimination of ethnicity to form a colorblind uniformity of sanctified blandness. Instead God sees the creation of a community of different cultures united b...

O God our Father, who sent your Son to be our Savior: renew in us day by day the power of your Holy Spirit; that with knowledge and passion, with courage and love, with gratitude and hope, we may stri...

Imagine making the shape of a valentine heart with your hands and holding it up to your face. That’s the posture of seeing with compassion. You might picture yourself looking through the heart at a pe...

Amazing grace How sweet the sound. That saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, But now am found. Was blind, but now I see. Lord of all, you have called us toward a new way of life. Give...

Let’s state it clearly: One great idea of the biblical revelation is that God is manifest in the ordinary, in the actual, in the daily, in the now, in the concrete incarnations of life, and not throug...

God, source of all light, by your Word you give light to the soul. Pour out upon us the spirit of wisdom and understanding that, being taught by you in Holy Scripture, our hearts and minds may be open...

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.

Humility rests upon a Holy blindedness, like the blindedness of him who looks steadily into the sun. For wherever he turns his eyes on earth, there he sees only the sun. The God-blinded soul sees naug...

God’s grace is present in all people and cultures. As we submit ourselves to learning from other cultures, we catch glimpses of God’s grace that would be unavailable in our own culture.

Relational congruence is the ability to be fundamentally the same person with the same values in every relationship, in every circumstance and especially amidst crisis. It is the internal capacity to ...

We are what we believe we are.

R.W. DeHann wrote of a missionary who, shortly after arriving on the field, was speaking for the first time to a group of villagers. He was trying to present the gospel to them. He began by describing...

God of glory, you sent Jesus among us as the light of the world, to reveal your love for all people. We confess that our sin and pride hide the brightness of your light. We turn away from the poor; we...

The solid facts about the future hope of Christians are a powerful motivation for constant faith and costly love in the present.

Listen to your life. All moments are key moments. I discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it…Taking your children to school and ki...

Brandon and Faith Lee, who started Bird and Branch Coffee, are what faithful witnesses look like. When they sat down across from my wife and me, they had a dream to start a coffee shop that would serv...

Far too many people, especially within evangelicalism, think that the individual is all that matters, and that the corporate dimension is a distraction or diversion. Of course Christianity is deeply p...

Gracious God, we ask for Your forgiveness and receive it with joyful hearts. Renew our minds so that we may discern what is good. Fill us with Your Spirit so that we may be Your witnesses in the world...

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 ...

I begin with humility, I act with humility, I end with humility. Humility leads to clarity. Humility leads to an open mind and a forgiving heart. With an open mind and a forgiving heart, I see every p...

The voice we should listen to most as we choose a vocation is the voice that we might think we should listen to least, and that is the voice of our own gladness. What can we do that makes us the gladd...

In his excellent little book, A Testament of Devotion , written almost a hundred years ago, Thomas Kelly describes the tension that all ministries must live in; the focus on this world or the wor...

All: Gracious God, we have become callous to those in need, holding back compassion yet unsparing with judgment. We defend our motivations, rather than using all you have given us to love and care for...

Identities—what makes us who we are, the kind of people we are—is what we love. More specifically, our identity is shaped by what we ultimately love or what we love as ultimate—what, at the end of the...

God, be all our love, all our hope, all our striving; let our thoughts and words flow from you, our daily life be in you, and every breath we take be for you. Amen.

Living God, help us so to hear your holy Word that we may truly understand; that, understanding, we may believe and believing, we may follow in all faithfulness and obedience, seeking your honor and g...

If your salvation does not include living with God in beauty, truth, and goodness, it’s going to be a very dry haul. And so much of our difficulty today for Christians in this world, and for the world...