christian living on Wants

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

We are people of desire. We want things. We long for things. It is primal to our nature to yearn. As Saint Augustine reflected, “The whole life of the good Christian is a holy longing. . . . That is o...

It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants. What are you industrious about?

The man who wants to be loved does not desire the enslavement of the beloved. . . . If the beloved is transformed into an automaton, the lover finds himself alone.”

If I could just come down on that telling phrase – God wants us to be happy… but God doesn’t want us to be happy. God wants joy for us. But joy is something rather different from happiness. Joy is s...

What Jesus wants from us is not admiration, but imitation.

Satan is a liar. He wants to steal our joy and replace it with hopelessness. When we're up against a struggle and we think we can't keep going, we can change that by praising God. Our chains w...

Christ … wants to have the heart pure, though outwardly the person may be a drudge in the kitchen, black, sooty, and grimy, doing all sorts of dirty work. Though a common labourer, a shoemaker or a bl...

It is our best work that God wants, not the dregs of our exhaustion. I think he must prefer quality to quantity.

When God wants to sort out the world, as the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount make clear, he doesn’t send in the tanks. He sends in the meek, the broken, the justice hungry, the peacemakers, the ...

Jesus wants me to tell you again … how much is the love he has for each one of you — beyond all what you can imagine. … Not only he loves you, even more — he longs for you. He misses you when you don’...

What an envier wants is not, first of all, what another has; what an envier wants is for another not to have it… . To covet is to want somebody else’s good so strongly that one is tempted to steal it....

Have you ever played in a swimming pool and tried to hold a beach ball under the surface? Its tendency-you might even say its penchant and desire-is to rise to the surface. It is “restless” when it is...

Give me all of you!!! I don’t want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and so much of your work. I want YOU!!! ALL OF YOU!! I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man...

We’re all tempted to come to Jesus for what we want from him, rather than coming to him for mentoring, training and teaching about what he wants our lives to look like.

Let's help people get on board with what God wants to give them, but what we don't want is the process. Everyone wants the product.

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignora...

One day, a father bought his little boy some French fries. The father, doing what any dad would do, reaches over and moves to take one of the fries off of his kid’s plate. The little boy screams, slap...

When conflict and division are driving both politics and media (including social media), the contrast between the way of the world and the way of Jesus stands out more than ever. How can pastors, task...

Jesus is a reconciler of people, not a divider. He wants to bring people together, not finalize separations.

When our will wholeheartedly enters into the prayer of Christ, then we pray correctly. Only in Jesus Christ are we able to pray, and with him we also know that we shall be heard. And so we must learn ...

I have a friend who says he wants to write a book on the life of Jesus and call it “a theology of interruptions.” Because, he says, so many of the things that Jesus said or did in the Gospel stories h...

Many of us assume that our spiritual heroes do not have to experience the same inner-wrestling that we do. Mother Teresa, beloved across the world is one such figure we might “assume” didn’t have to d...

There Are No Ordinary Things J. R. R. Tolkien tells a short story about an ordinary fellow who just wants to finish a painting. Over time, he is constantly distracted by the requests of his neighbors...

If the Prof is 10 min late... I was in my freshman year in college, and Statistics was the final class before Thanksgiving break. When the professor was ten minutes late, I and several others got up ...

Following always involves a coming down, a humbling of oneself and a serving of others. Jonathan Edwards, the Puritan theologian, captured this condescension of God in his sermon "The Excellency ...

Myths about Faith and Work Faith is to be lived out 24-7-52. For many Christians this involves living out our faith at work. But several myths about faith and work can prevent us from being effecti...

Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Autobiographies Have you ever thought about writing your autobiography? It would be a little like reliving your life, at least in miniscule. As a write...

Intertwined Narratives Jesus’ encounters with Jairus’ daughter and the bleeding woman are sandwiched together with the intention that the two narratives would unlock and help to interpret the other....

Father–Thank You for the opportunities You put before us every day to make a difference; and for special friends who serve You in all they do. Thank You for those faithful in their callings: whether ...