christian living on Rescue

In sixteenth-century Holland, the Mennonites were outlawed and, when caught, often executed. One of them, Dirk Willens, was being chased across an icefield when his pursuer broke through and fell in. ...

It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses.

Love that reaches up is adoration. Love that reaches out is affection. But love that stoops is grace.

Jesus reassures us that every effort to love ourselves and others more faithfully, however imperfectly we are able to do this, is a response to God's call to love as he loved. It is a response to ...

If you want to impact someone’s life, love them when they least expect it and least deserve it.

O God, your mercy is infinite and in your will is our peace. We learn your way so slowly; we choose your will so reluctantly. In this season of learning the limit­lessness of your love, help us throug...

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...

In 1878, when William Booth’s Salvation Army was beginning to make its mark, men and women from all over the world began to enlist. One man, who had once dreamed of becoming a bishop, crossed the Atla...

He drew a circle that shut me out— Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in!

In his book, The Enormous Exception, Earl Palmer tells about a pre-med undergrad at the University of California, Berkley, who became a Christian after a long journey through doubts and questions. A b...

Free us, Lord, from our obsession with ourselves long enough to care for others; to be so concerned about the well-being of the human community that me don’t have to worry about our place, our church,...

To accept this [Jesus' self-humiliation in washing the disciples' feet] is to be converted. And nothing can be added to this. If you imagine that you can add something to what is given in the ...

The final word is love.

It is possible also to come at Christianity from a rather different point of view as well, seeing it as something not too difficult but too simple for us, too basic, something to be apprehended theref...

When I was growing up, my dad was a farmer, not a Christian. He had little interest in faith, having been told by his father that the Bible was a fairy tale. But then a local pastor took an interest i...

Grace must find expression in life, otherwise it is not grace.

The way most of us serve keeps us in control. We choose whom, when, where and how we will serve. We stay in charge. Jesus is calling for something else. He is calling us to be servants. When we make t...

The Swiss-German novelist Hermann Hesse published a short story in 1932 called "Journey to the East." In it, a group of men go on a long journey. Throughout their trip, they are accompanied ...

What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. Th...

Loving and forgiving God, we want to answer your invitation to experience a Christ-centered life. Yet all too often, our lives are much more centered around our ourselves than around Jesus. Jesus send...

I am more or less ready to wash someone’s feet, but, like Peter, I discover I am not prepared to have my feet washed. I am willing to play like I am a servant and wash the feet of someone else. When I...

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...

Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it—because it does.

How many prodigals are kept out of the kingdom of God by the unlovely characters of those who profess to be inside!

Once, while on vacation, on our way to church, Terri and I got into a disagreement over something. When I felt I was losing, to make my point, I stopped the car and got out. We were on a country road....

Creator of all things, Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, Father, Shepherd, Servant, Brother, Priest and King. Whose love poured out mends broken hearts. Whose wounded hands reach out to all. Whose S...

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

[Humility is] to become like Jesus in his willingness to choose the hidden way of love rather than the way of power.

Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else.

Several years ago, a radio DJ in my home state of Tennessee was interviewing a friend of mine, Jim Wallis. This DJ was an interesting cacophony of things: he was a Jewish country music DJ who didn’t s...