christian living on Disability

There was a story going around about the Special Olympics. For the hundred-yard dash, there were nine contestants, all of them so-called physically or mentally disabled. All nine of them assembled at ...

Those who can’t change their minds can’t change anything.

All of us struggle with our own desires for accomplishment and ambition. Christians especially find it difficult to discern their own worldly ambitions vs. following Jesus’ comand to seek first the ki...

Almighty God, we take pride in our self-sufficiency while we look down on the weak who cannot provide for themselves. We praise others for their efforts, yet we demand perfection from our own families...

Judgment and joy don’t go well together – no, judgment leads to grumbling. I’m sure you’ve met people in your life who are hard to please – maybe even your parents, or your boss. People for whom n...

The more we allow ourselves to personally experience sanctification by faith, the more we also experience healing by faith. These two doctrines walk together. The more the Spirit of God lives and acts...

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 kingdom is present not in grandiose accomplishments, but in showing practical love in humble ways, day after day, and in refusing to allow our failures and disappointments to hide God’s love from ...

Father Damien was a priest who became famous for his willingness to serve lepers. He moved to Kalawao, a village on the island of Molokai in Hawaii that had been quarantined to serve as a leper colony...

The word eccentric comes from a combination of the Greek terms ex (out of) and kentron (center). When combined, ekkentros means “out of center.” The term gained currency in the late Middle Ages, when ...

God is looking for people through whom He can do the impossible. What a pity that we plan only the things we can do by ourselves.

The invincible weapon against all our enemies is humility.

Grace is not simply about pardoning sinful behavior; it’s also about rewiring the sinners themselves. The grace the Bible talks about is power not just for justification but also for transformation.

The bad news was that a friend’s leg was severed in a gruesome automobile accident. The good news was that it was surgically reattached. A few months later she asked if I wanted to see her scar. I swa...

In the Greco-Roman world of Paul’s day, humility was a despised trait. They viewed it as a sign of weakness. And our culture today is no different from that world of two thousand years ago. Maybe it’s...

Greatness in the kingdom of God is measured in terms of obedience.

In his book, Scary Close , Donald Miller acknowledges that over time he developed a mask, or a persona that kept even those closest to him from experiencing with him. As he began to peel back layers ...

What self denial! What self abasement! What self emptying! He, whom no infinitudes can hold, is contained within infant’s age, and infant’s form. Can it be, that the great ‘I AM THAT I AM’ shrinks int...

To hold to a doctrine or an opinion with the intellect alone is not to believe it. A man’s real belief is that which he lives by.

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...

Merciful Jesus Give us courage to deny privilege to lay down favor and safety in order to take up the cross of opportunity and justice Too often we fail to do this Merciful Jesus Give us courage to d...

A chaplain was speaking to a soldier on a cot in a hospital. “You have lost an arm in the great cause,” he said. “No,” said the soldier with a smile. “I didn’t lose it–I gave it.” In that same way, Je...

The kingdom of God manifests itself in the modest changes in our attitudes and in the little improvements in our behavior that no one may notice, including ourselves. These are the mighty works of God...

As I have worked to clarify my calling, I have learned to pay attention to my energy levels in response to different activities. If I experience a particular activity as being inordinately draining, I...

In his book, Soul Keeping, pastor John Ortberg describes his mentorship by Dallas Willard early in his ministry. The following vignette occurred while Willard was teaching a philosphy course at the Un...

Loving Father, You receive all who come humbly before You. Yet we approach You far too often with much satisfaction and inappropriate pride. We think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. W...

Jesus, though you were in very nature God, you did not consider equality with God as something to be used to your own advantage. Rather, you humbled yourself, you made yourself nothing. Lord, you are ...

Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am bla...

Love to be unknown.

In The God-Shaped Brain , Timothy R. Jennings tells a well-attested story about how belief can affect the body. Late one night in a small Alabama cemetery, Vance Vanders had a run-in with the local...