christian living on Decision-Making

Almighty and loving God, all of us here today are hurting. Some of us are hurting as the result of circumstances beyond our control. Some of us are hurting because of our own choices. Some of us are f...

God of wonder and strength, compassion, grace and love–all of which we see revealed through the power of a storm and its aftermath: You’re so big–and we’re so small. Your might is unlimited–ours is fi...

Only the one true God can take the risk of ruling by relying on the power of humility and love.

The purpose of the Disciplines is freedom. Our aim is the freedom, not the Discipline. The moment we make the Discipline our central focus, we will turn it into law and lose the corresponding freedom....

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Arguments won’t change people. Simply giving away kindness won’t either. Only Jesus has the power to change people, and it will be harder for them to see Jesus if their view of Him is blocked by our b...

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

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...

My friend Mike Metzger of the Clapham Institute once used the following example to demonstrate how important frames are if we are to make sense of reality’s puzzle. This may seem like a head scratcher...

Editor’s Note: The following illustration came from one of my own (Stu’s) sermons, as I was trying to help the congregation make a paradigm shift from the church as a building, to the people of God: ...

Our inclination is to reveal to God only what we feel comfortable in sharing. Naturally, we want to love and be loved by God, but we also want to keep a little corner of ourselves, where we can hide a...

What often continues to shape our stories (interpretations) are the implicit emotional responses to our wounds. We must be willing to attend to our wounds and address the emotions embedded in our woun...

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the importance of finding ways to rest and relax as part of a healthy, balanced life: I once read a book in which the author sa...

Paradoxically…healing means moving from your pain to the pain…When you keep focusing on the specific circumstances of your pain, you easily become angry, resentful, and even vindictive. You are inclin...

Becoming a teachable person has two prerequisites: There must be a teacher and a person willing to be taught. Increasingly, Western culture has become an environment that celebrates and platforms the ...

Compassion is expressed in gentleness. When I think of persons I know who model for me the depths of spiritual life, I am struck by their gentleness. Their eyes communicate the residue of solitary bat...

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.

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...

In his book  The Case for Grace , pastor and author Lee Strobel describes a dream he had as a child after having a significant argument with his father. Strobel does what most of us would do at that...

You have noticed, I expect, that Christ Himself sometimes describes the Christian way as very hard, sometimes as very easy. He says, “Take up your Cross”—in other words, it is like going to be beaten ...

In his book The Logic of the Spirit, James Loder talks about a woman with whom he had been in a therapeutic relationship for years. This woman’s underlying issue seemed to be a complete sense of rejec...

Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.

One of the challenges, at least in the western church, is an inability to deal with our wounds in a healthy way. Our training as Christians has been focused on Bible studies, small groups, and Sunday ...

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones. And when you have finished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake!"

Heavenly Father, forgive us for delving so much into our own lives that we forget the love and purpose with which you have created us. When we are faced with doubt and despair, help us to turn to you ...

Our heavenly Father: You’ve seen how hard life can be for us. You hear our prayers for forgiveness and help. You listen when we cry aloud in pain or when we just weep into our pillow alone in the nigh...

Lord: In our times of weakness and our hours of need, Yours is the strength that enables us to carry on, Yours the shoulder we rest our heads upon. When our load is heavy and too much to bear, Yours a...

You know all about us–our weakness, our failing, our sin; and you still love us enough to give your Son to redeem us. Hear the cries of our hearts today. There’s someone for whom it was hard to get ou...

Leader: The word of the Lord to the prophet Isaiah says: You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and with the...

One of Christianity’s most brilliant theologians, Jonathan Edwards, taught us that gentleness—he called it “a lamblike, dovelike spirit”—is not an optional extra but instead is “the true and distingui...