personal development on The Transfiguration

Save us, Glorious Christ, from every false understanding and motivation Save us from the temptation to just stay on the mountain Save us from the temptation to never engage Save us from the temptation...

Almighty God, we too often live in fear. Fear drives our self-preservation, our self-centered decisions, and prevents us from comprehending the wonder of your presence among us. Like Peter, we would d...

Wherever you turn your eyes, the world can shine like transfiguration. You don’t have to bring a thing to it except a little willingness to see.

The transformation from water to wine is of course meant by John to signify the effect that Jesus can have, can still have today, on people’s lives.  He came, as he says later, that we might have life...

Father in Heaven, we confess that we never knew you had come down. We confess that we were in the dark as to your light among us. Though the world was created through your Word, we could not grasp the...

We should exercise that far higher privilege which appertains to Christians, of having “the mind of Christ;” and then the two worlds, visible and invisible, will become familiar to us even as they wer...

Pentecost Came Like Wildfire I’m lying on an ice pack early this morning, doing my back exercises and listening to  Pray as You Go , a tool for meditation, with monastery bells, music, and a Bible re...

In his excellent book on worship, The Dangerous Act of Worship , pastor and president of Fuller Seminary Mark Labberton shares a story of the transformation of one of his former congregants: Ben ...

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep. And God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters. In ...

In Romans 8:18, Paul describes the future of those who persevere in the faith: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us....

When I teach on the dynamics of real change and maturation, I often describe a “furnace of transformation” each of us must pass through for the sake of growth and refinement. I’ve never seen real grow...

The more like Jesus we are, and the more like the image of God we are, the more people see of God’s glory.

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with o...

Pentecost . . . The Holy Spirit fills the disciples and they speak in tongues they likely do not understand themselves. It is an uncontrolled public witness – uncontrolled by human agendas – as well a...

Enlighten us, O God, by your Spirit, in the understanding of your Word, and grant us the grace to receive it in true fear and humility, that we may learn to put our trust in you, to fear and honor you...

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...

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present ag...

Pastor: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good n...

Royal One, grant us strength to serve and keep on serving to risk and keep on risking to love and keep on loving Holy One, grant us faith to stand, trusting all will be revealed to bow, knowing all w...

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,     according to thy word; For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,     which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, To be a light to lig...

We must journey to the edge of heat if we would catch the flame. When Blaise Pascal died in 1662, his servant found a scrap of paper hidden in the lining of his coat. It turned out to be a testimony o...

Elisabeth Elliot once stayed in the farmhouse of a Welsh shepherd and his family high in the mountains of North Wales. She stood watching one misty summer morning as the shepherd on horseback herded t...

Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out. The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself....

Transcendent God, you are the creator of time, You exist inside, outside, and around time and space. In your immeasurable power, you created and ordered the universe. Amazingly, you limited yourself b...

You, oh Christ, are the Kingdom of Heaven; You, the land promised to the gentle; You the grazing lands of paradise; You, the hall of the celestial banquet; You, the ineffable marriage chamber; You the...

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...

The conversion of a soul is the miracle of a moment, but the manufacture of a saint is the task of a lifetime.

The mystery of perfection as an aspect of beauty is its transcendence. It points to a glory beyond itself. I knew that when I held my children, I didn’t simply cradle flesh and blood. I held a living ...

From theophanies to erotic closeness, presence feels the same, even if the personalities are not the same.

Leader: Turn us again, O God; People: Let your face shine, that we may be saved! Leader: Turn us again, O God of hosts. People: Let your face shine, that we may be saved! Leader: Give us life,...