christian living on Conversion

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...

If we are honest with ourselves, for many of us who celebrate the sacraments on a regular basis, at times we take them for granted. We lose sight of their nature to inspire and remind us of our covena...

You cannot reason someone out of something he or she was not reasoned into.

In the midst of all you are facing Your burdens Your responsibilities Your hustle Hear the invitation “Come to the Table” In the midst of all you are facing Your longing Your ambition Your distractio...

Jesus Christ was prone to making comments which seem to support an almost infinite variety of exegesis. A remark like ‘Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and ‘unto God the things that are ...

The disciples want to take Jesus aboard, and “immediately” they are already at their destination. Jesus’ spiritual destination, this chapter will teach us again and again, is believing disciples; futu...

Father God, you have provided us with bread from heaven through your incarnate Son; He is all that we need for spiritual revival and restoration. We, though, have taken offense at his invitation to ab...

The call to ‘believe in the gospel’, or to ‘believe in me’, does not suggest that Jesus was inviting Galilean villagers to embrace a body of doctrine — not even a basic ‘theory’ about ‘salvation’ and ...

In The Phantom Tollbooth , there is a special kind of food called “subtraction stew.” Produced by a mathemagician, this stew makes you hungrier after you’ve eaten it. Our three main characters don’t ...

For Christians, to share in the Eucharist, the Holy Communion, means to live as people who know that they are always guests – that they have been welcomed and that they are wanted. It is, perhaps, the...

Man must eat in order to live; he must take the world into his body and transform it into himself, into flesh and blood. He is indeed that which he eats, and the whole world is presented as one all-em...

You, oh Christ, are the Kingdom of Heaven; You, the land promised to the gentle; You the grazing lands of paradise; You, the hall of the celestial banquet; You, the ineffable marriage chamber; You the...

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

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...

Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery ...

[R]eliable quantitative research around this has brought some helpful insights to light. Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan Burge have released the largest study ever done on dechurching in America i...

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...

It’s remarkable that when the Father declares at Jesus’ baptism, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” Jesus hasn’t yet done much of anything that many would find impressive. He hasn’...

Leader: Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who co...

God saves by persuasion, not compulsion, for compulsion is no attribute of God.

When he said, “I am the bread of life,” he must have meant he was scattering bits of himself like a trail of crumbs leading us to speak and act and scatter forgiveness in his name to the ends of the e...

As I repeat these words of your disciple Peter, let us believe them in our hearts: Lord, to whom can we go? You alone have the words of eternal life. Help us to hear your word and put them into prac...

Heavenly Father, we confess that we are not always able, willing, and ready to be vessels of your work. Thank you for the times that you cultivate our receptive hearts and fruitful hands. In your abun...

Jesus, we bless you and honor you for your unending mercy, a flood of grace, pouring out and spilling over. We receive your mercy. We receive your blessings and pray for the Holy Spirit to make them r...

Wilderness” is a place, in biblical rhetoric, where there are no viable life support systems. “Grace” is the occupying generosity of God that redefines the place. The wonder bread, as a gesture of div...

Jesus is the holy one of God who forgives our sins and pardons our iniquities. He pursues us with words of eternal life and in him we are forgiven, fed, and freed to live again. Amen.

In one of the classic scenes from Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist, the misfortunate young orphan, Oliver, is stuck in a workhouse, laboring for long hours and getting barely enough gruel to keep h...

In his book The Mystery of Christ , a series of fictionalized pastoral counseling sessions (based on actual events), the Episcopal priest Robert Farrar Capon shares a number of helpful ways of unde...

Brothers and sisters, God does not leave us in our distress. He does not abandon us to our devilish decisions. While we choose to starve ourselves on a diet of our own making and choosing that leads t...

In his wonderful book, God’s Big Picture , Vaughan Roberts gives readers an overview of the Bible, focusing on the importance of context for developing a deeper understanding of holy scripture. In ...