christian living on Acceptance

The word “acceptance” has an interesting origin. It comes from the Latin ad capere, which means to “take to oneself.” What does that mean? It’s a paradoxical truth, but in order for us to accept other...

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!

One saint used to say that she was the type of woman who advances more rapidly when she is drawn by love than when driven by fear. She was perceptive enough to know that we are all that type of person...

Here’s a testimony from Lisa Sharon Harper, author of The Very Good Gospel: Harper grew up as a child of a single mother. After her parents divorced, she and her mother moved from Philadelphia where ...

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

In the Second World War, a group of soldiers were fighting in the rural countryside of France. During an intense battle, one of the American soldiers was killed. His comrades did not want to leave his...

Christianity is a rescue religion. It declares that God has taken the initiative in Jesus Christ to rescue us from our sins. This is the main theme of the Bible. You are to give him the name Jesus, be...

…there are two ways to fail to let Jesus be your Savior. One is by being too proud, having a superiority complex—not to accept his challenge [to accept what the gospel says about our unworthiness]. Bu...

The invitation of love is not a proposal for self-improvement or any other kind of achievement. Love is beyond success and failure, doing well or doing poorly.... Love is a gift.

We cannot will ourselves to accept grace. There are no magic words, preset formulas, or esoteric rites of passage. Only Jesus Christ sets us free from indecision. The Scriptures offer no other basis f...

Gracious God, we confess that we are often dissatisfied with our lives. We recognize the gap that exists between what we are and what we want to be. Lord, like the woman at the well, we know our failu...

Much that we have interpreted as a defect of sanctification in church people is really an outgrowth of their loss of bearing with respect to justification. Christians who are no longer sure that God l...

The final word is love.

We may remark in passing that to be blind and beloved may, in this world where nothing is perfect, be among the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. The supreme happiness in life is the assura...

To love means to open ourselves to suffering. Shall we shut our doors to love, then, and be “safe”?

Creeds must disagree: it is the whole fun of the thing. If I think the universe is triangular, and you think it is square, there cannot be room for two universes. We may argue politely, we may argue h...

Thank you Lord God for the opportunity of worship, for the freedom to be amongst your family meeting together in your house, and in the warmth of your embrace Thank you that in worship we can put asid...

Gracious Father, too often we base our worth on our performance. We believe if we do well, your love grows, and if we falter, your love lessens. Our God, how far this is from the truth. We confess our...

I am persuaded that love and humility are the highest attainments in the school of Christ and the brightest evidences that He is indeed our Master.

O God who will not let us go, we confess that we have been so wrapped up in ourselves that have not loved You with our whole hearts, and we have not loved our neighbors as we love ourselves. By Your g...

One who has been touched by grace will no longer look on those who stray as "those evil people" or "those poor people who need our help." Nor must we search for signs of "love...

Frank Laubach recounts the profound shift in his life that came when he wholeheartedly committed to following God’s will: Before that moment, I was barely alive—like a tree rotting from within. Bu...

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.

A simple refusal motivates my argument: refusal to believe that the present time and place, and the people who are here with us, are somehow not enough. Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram act li...

Gracious God, we come before you with humility, recognizing that doubt has led our decisions. We have allowed fear to lead, rather than love. Because of this, we have been unkind to our families, our ...

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace ...

Beloved, Let us love one another; for love is of God And everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this God’s lov...

Belonging can be such a fickle and painful process in life. As the popular researcher and writer Brené Brown describes in her book, Braving the Wilderness, she struggled to fit in after moving to New ...

Being heard is so close to being loved, that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.

Father, as adults, we can fool ourselves into being quite self-sufficient. Yet, You have called us to be precariously dependent upon You. When we see how Jesus welcomes the little children, we can als...