christian living on Behavior

One afternoon, I was playing with my son in our living room when I suddenly smelled something burning. I stood up and walked around, nose high in the air, sniffing furiously. My wife smelled it too, s...

Does reading the Bible really change us? Does it have the ability, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to shape and form our characters? That's what The Center for Bible Engagement wanted to fin...

Spiritual nourishment cannot be seen purely in our outward behavior. The process of sanctification is a deeply internal process. Outside growth is merely a symptom, and acting better does not mean our...

There is a story—likely apocryphal—of Alexander the Great discovering a soldier asleep at his post, a grave offense. When the guard was brought before him, the king asked his name. “Alexander,” the yo...

What is kindness, then? What sort of behavior do we have in mind when we say that someone has been kind to us or to others? I think the essence of kindness is being thoughtful for others more than for...

The question for each parable is: How did Jesus seek to change attitudes and behaviors with this parable?

Some years ago, the syndicated newspaper columnist Sidney J. Harris shared an interesting anecdote from one of his friends. Each evening, this friend would stop at the same newsstand to buy a newspape...

Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will present...

Patience is not simply the ability to wait, it’s how we behave while we are waiting.

There is a television show that has one of those beginnings that stick with you long after you’ve seen it. And it starts like this…A man, dressed like a cowboy enters an ultra sleek Miami club, lookin...

We only learn to behave ourselves in the presence of God.

Culture shapes the way we order our life, interpret our experiences, and evaluate the behavior of other people.

The definition of the word habit, according to Merriam-Webster, is “a usual way of behaving: something that a person does often in a regular and repeated way.” In the American Journal of Psychology it...

I am not perfect, and I will struggle with the “old Jim,” who was and is influenced by American culture, narratives and values. But the key is that identity comes before behavior. We almost always do ...

What this means is that prayer can be learned only in the vocabulary and grammar of personal relationship: Father! Friend! It can never be a matter of getting the right words in the right order. It ca...

One of the most enduring lessons of social psychology is that behavior change often precedes changes in attitude and feelings.

The noonday devil of the Christian life is the temptation to lose the inner self while preserving the shell of edifying behavior.