christian living on Insecurity

I once heard a sermon that compared believers to commercials for God. “And God doesn’t need any bad commercials,” I remember the preacher saying. It stuck with me, and from then on I often made decisi...

If I am in denial about my own weaknesses and sin, there will be a concomitant blindness to the greatness and glory of God.

Humble and self-forgetting we must be always, but diffident and apologetic about the gospel never.

Self-made and self-sufficient people live in a fantasy world, empty of the reality of God. In contrast, the poor in spirit are deeply aware of being God-made and God-sufficient:

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 ...

But what will not Ambition and Revenge Descend to? Who aspires must down as low As high he sor’d, obnoxious first or last To basest things.

All: Gracious God, you promise that your light drowns out darkness, yet the darkness is so persistent. We cannot see in front of us, so we look to our own knowledge and ways. Forgive us for turning to...

Go in the peace of Christ that is beyond our understanding, and plant this peace by word and deed in this world of turmoil and uncertainty, depending on that all-sufficient grace. Amen.

Humility is royalty without a crown.

Lord of Hosts, We come before you today in a tone of solemnity. We recognize that while it was Judas who betrayed you for 30 pieces of silver, that we often betray you as well. We know what is right,...

Gracious, almighty God, we think of John the Baptist, who was a faithful witness to you. He understood that this role was pointing people toward you and not himself. Yet we know that all too often we ...

Dear Heavenly Father, we lower our heads before you and we confess that we have too often forgotten that we are yours. Sometimes we carry on our lives as if there was no God and we fall short of being...

If pride turned some of the angels into demons, then humility can doubtless make angels out of demons.

In another day and age, God, religion and church enjoyed the general respect of the culture. Not today. Religion is suspect, church is weird, and Christians are hypocrites. Distrust has become the nor...

The mission of Christian humility in social life is not merely to edify, but to keep minds open to many alternatives. The rigidity of a certain type of Christian thought has seriously impaired this ca...

A few years ago, a journalist named Joseph Blackman wrote an Op Ed on an interesting subject, “Why Clubs are Dark.” That is, why is it when you walk into a nightclub or a bar, the lights are off, or a...

Lord Jesus Christ, your light shines within us. Let not my doubts nor my darkness speak to me. Lord Jesus Christ, your light shines within us. Let my heart always welcome your love. Amen.

We fixate on sins of commission far too much. We practice holiness by subtraction-don't do this, don't do that, and you're okay. The problem with that is this: you can do nothing wrong and...

The claim here is not that the poor are inherently more righteous or sanctified than the rich. There is no place in the Bible that indicates that poverty is a desirable state or that material things a...

Lord Jesus Christ, you gave up everything to come down from heaven in order to love and serve us. Unlike you, we find self-sacrifice hard. Most of us look for ways to puff ourselves up, so that we loo...

Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our need, a joy in total dependence. The good man is sorry for the sins which have increased his need. He is not entirely sorry for the ...

Almighty God, too often we settle for brokenness in our lives. Rather than offering forgiveness, we hold onto offense. Rather than pursuing justice, we turn away . Rather than offering mercy, we c...

These ‘meek’ people, Jesus added, ‘shall inherit the earth’. One would have expected the opposite. One would think that ‘meek’ people get nowhere because everybody ignores them or else rides roughshod...

The way to rise in the kingdom is to sink in ourselves.

The beatitudes paint a comprehensive portrait of a Christian disciple. We see him [or her] first alone on his knees before God, acknowledging his spiritual poverty and mourning over it. This makes him...

The shepherds show us that we don’t prepare to receive the king of heaven the same way we prepare to meet the celebrities of our day, through earthly displays of showiness. In fact, receiving our King...

Contempt is so painful To be dismissed, disregarded Questioning instead of dignity Accusation instead of personhood I have felt its sting and hollowness As have you, my Jesus Help me hear the needed m...

I love the following story because it illustrates both our natural defensiveness when we are attacked and the potential for transformation. As the illustration demonstrates, this is only possible when...

A wound that goes unacknowledged and unwept is a wound that cannot heal.

A true Christian is both a beggar and an heir.