Ephesians 2:1-10, Psalm 40:2-3, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Luke 15:20, John 1:5
I (Josh) know a young man named Mark who was on the brink of self-destruction. He partied away his first semester of junior college and was later kicked out of school. He was devastated by his loss an...
Mothering or nurturing is not just a calling for women who have biological or adopted children. Mothering is a calling for all women. Every Christian woman is called to the spiritual motherhood of mak...
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 ...
Because I was raised in England, drinking tea is a central part of my cultural identity! Whatever the situation—a celebration, a welcome, a crisis, an afternoon break—the response of a good Brit is to...
Gracious God, we admit that though You have sent each of us out with the task of raising disciples, we often neglect that task. We remain content, stagnant, in our Christian calling, while we regularl...
Jesus has not called you to build his church. In fact, in all of the Gospels he mentions the church only two times. One time he mentions it, it’s about conflict resolution. The other time? To say that...
Non-discipleship is the elephant in the church; it is not the many moral failures, financial abuses, or amazing general similarity between Christians and non-Christians. These are only the effects of ...
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.
In ancient Judaism, discipleship was taken very seriously. It was taken so seriously that eager disciples would ty to follow their rabbi (teacher) everywhere they went. Why? Because they wanted to see...
The act of “being with” someone requires patience and sacrifice. It means putting the other person’s wants and needs above our own and being willing to invest as much time as it takes to make the pers...
Leader: Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, "Where I am going you cannot come." People: "A n...
To follow Jesus implies that we enter into a way of life that is given character and shape and direction by the one who calls us. To follow Jesus means picking up rhythms and ways of doing things that...
Beholding beauty produces fascination, and fascination is the best way to transform a person. Consider a young man in love. Parents, professors, mentors, and friends can plead with a young man to chan...
There is nothing that more tends to strengthen the faith of the young believer than to hear the veteran Christian, covered with scars from the battle, testifying that the service of his Master is a ha...
Proverbs 3:5-8, Matthew 22:37, Romans 12:1-2, Luke 14:26-27, Deuteronomy 6:5, Luke 16:13, Mark 12:30, John 14:15, Matthew 16:24-26, Luke 9:59-62, Matthew 6:24, Hebrews 11:13-16, Hebrews 10:38-39, Matthew 6:33-34, Matthew 10:37-39
What are you willing to do for love? An instructor for the Perspectives on the World Christian Movement course shared with a class the major hang-up he had to get over before asking his wife to ma...
Becoming mature Christians will require the sovereign work of God. Only God can save and sanctify. Still, God uses men and means. Certainly we as parents must seek to bring our children to Jesus Chris...
Deuteronomy 6:6-7, Proverbs 22:6, 1 Samuel 1:27-28, Luke 2:51-52, Ephesians 6:1-4, Psalm 127:3-5
I want to suggest a pretty radical idea about what family is for. Family is about the forming of persons. Being a person is a gift, like life itself—we are born as human beings made in the image of Go...
Luke 12:33-34, Luke 18:28-30, Acts 2:44-45, Matthew 19:21, Mark 10:29-30, Luke 14:26
Family and property, then, were not for the ancient Jew simply what they are to the modern western world. Both carried religious and cultural significance far beyond personal, let alone “individual,” ...
Before my mentor, Dallas Willard, passed over to glory, I asked him what he thought about the rapid rise of the Christian spiritual formation movement. He said, “It is a wonderful thing, but my fear i...
In 1988, I (Randy) moved with my wife and two sons (ages two and eight weeks) from Texas to Sulawesi, an island north of Australia and south of the Philippines. We served as missionaries to a cluster ...
Let no Christian parents fall into the delusion that Sunday School is intended to ease them of their personal duties. The first and most natural condition of things is for Christian parents to train u...
John 15:null, John 15:13, Proverbs 17:17, Proverbs 27:6, Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, 1 Samuel 18:1-3, James 5:16
Friend. We use that word too loosely. Too flippantly. We use it too generously. And most damaging of all, we give the title to people who haven’t earned it. I recognize that using the word earn makes ...
When Jesus caught his disciples arguing about who among them was the greatest, they felt embarrassed—but Jesus didn’t rebuke them for wanting to be great. He simply gave them an unexpected formula: Be...
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread; and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. ...