christian living on Illumination

Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.

Lord God, we know that you are life, the life which is the light of the world But sometimes we allow the darkness to close in We find ourselves driven apart from you We confess that we do not ...

In their excellent book Invitation to a Journey , M. Robert Mulholland and Ruth Haley Barton discuss the poignant insight that it is the Spirit that leads Jesus into the Wildnerness. What does this...

While we are now surrounded by a never-ending number of pixels with our smartphones, there once was a time where the process of developing photographs took something much more significant than pointin...

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life…. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for pe...

Lord and God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have only begun to comprehend the wonder of the Incarnation, that you in Christ would become one of us, that you in Christ would live among us and be ...

It takes a profound conversion to accept that God is relentlessly tender and compassionate toward us just as we are—not in spite of our sins and faults (that would not be total acceptance), but with t...

Even in our moments of doubt, our lack of faith, and the blindness which means we fail to see God amongst us, God is still at work. God is still healing. God is still forgiving. Even when you fail to ...

To accept this [Jesus' self-humiliation in washing the disciples' feet] is to be converted. And nothing can be added to this. If you imagine that you can add something to what is given in the ...

Kindness flows from you, Lord, pure and continual. You had cast us off, as was only just, but mercifully you forgave us; you hated us and you were reconciled to us, you cursed us and you blessed us; y...

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...

In 1998, Nick Cave, an Australian rock/pop artist, was asked by the Vienna Poetry Academy to give a series of talks on the nature of song-writing. A year later he gave a slightly revised version of th...

There is a helplessness in poverty that precedes the move of God in our lives because we understand an aspect of grace that so many miss: we do nothing to earn it. When we understand this, all becomes...

“[Zach] had gone from seeing beauty in the midst of suffering to creating it. He had taken this thing that could have suffocated him with despair and stripped it down until all that was left was hope....

All the cards in the deck of revelation about God’s mercy and kindness are stacked in favor of the unthinkable.

If we do anything to further the kingdom of God, we may expect to find what Christ found on that road - abuse, indifference, injustice, misunderstanding, trouble of some kind. Take it. Why not? To tha...

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...

One of the most powerful illustrations of grace and mercy in all of western literature has to be the great scene between Monseigneur Bienvenu and Jean Valjean in the stirring epic Les Miserables by Vi...

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...

Jesus, you are our peace You proclaim it You create it You bring us near Without you there is No safety No belonging No nurturing No identity rooted beyond this dust Without you we are Anchorless St...

Your torture puts hostility to death Your broken body breaks down every dividing wall Your blood makes us blood What wondrous truth What dazzling grace Bring us near again, Jesus Help us remember an...

I wonder as I wander, out under the sky, How Jesus the Savior did come for to die.

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...

The piling on of grace upon grace is incredible. God had given us his Son. We killed him. In response God says, “I want to forgive you and offer another ‘family member,’ so to speak.” It was a case of...

A living faith is that which pours itself out in works.

Son of God Savior Sacrifice Your love is Fierce and Forever Abounding and Intimate Generous, Goodness, and Grace Fill me with your Spirit Make me your love It is your command It is your way It is ...

Love that reaches up is adoration. Love that reaches out is affection. But love that stoops is grace.

In the silence, we raise our voice before you. We wonder aloud why you are so far from us when we call. In the agony of our cry, we are reminded that it is we who have wandered from your fold, from th...

The day will come when, after harnessing the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of Love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will...

The greatest and most powerful Christian distinctive is not the exercise of power; it is the offer of grace.