character on Completion

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition was one of my favorite shows for a while, mainly because I loved to see the before and after shots. The water damage in the bathroom, the rotting ceiling beams, and the ...

Relational congruence is the ability to be fundamentally the same person with the same values in every relationship, in every circumstance and especially amidst crisis. It is the internal capacity to ...

An elderly master carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. He w...

Success is a shining city, a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We dream of it as children, we strive for it through our adult lives, and we suffer melancholy in old age if we have not reached it....

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.

I desire to conduct the affairs of this administration in such a way that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall have at least one ...

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....

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....

Waiting is not just the thing we have to do until we get what we hope for. Waiting is part of the process of becoming what we hope for.

To frame is to put a language boundary around our experience. It is to name what happens in particular ways, to say how we see the world, and to see the world how we say it is. Framing includes tellin...

As we depart,  Both individually and collectively  Be who you are called to be. In any and in all the ways you can Seek justice.  Resist evil.  Stand strong against Death.  And all Death’s works and w...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A Dry Spell It had been a dry period for “Team Israel,” 400 plus seasons without a shout out from God. Since the proph...

Preaching Commentary Introduction Our Gospel reading for today, the well-known “Parable of the Talents,” is one of a series of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of Matthew that focuses on what Davies ...

Introduction Our Gospel reading for today, the well-known “Parable of the Talents,” is one of a series of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of Matthew that focuses on what Davies and Allison rightly lab...

Sanctification is not a work of nature, but a work of grace. It is a transformation of character effected not by moral influences, but supernaturally by the Holy Spirit.

We long to see our lives whole, to know that they matter. We wonder whether our many activities might ever come together in a way of life that is good for ourselves and others. Lacking a vision of a l...

Prayer of Adoration Lord—you’re sufficient in everything. You can create without us; save without our assistance; bring good out of evil, hope from despair and restore what we mess up. You’re soverei...

Preaching Commentary Drama at Its Finest The transfiguration is theatrical. It is drama at its finest. The mountain peak as the stage of the performance, the appearance of the greatest dramatis per...

Preaching commentary The Law The ambiguous place of the law in Christian thought can be seen historically in battles between antinomians and legalists, each side finding New Testament support, and ...

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather have these because we have acted rightly; these virtues are formed in man by d...

Resolved: that all men should live for the glory of God. Resolved second: that whether others do or not, I will.

Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in 'religion' mean nothing unless they make our actual behavior better.... When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making ...

We are to have a character that invites others to see the goodness of Christ and to be a character that intrigues and compels others to discover what it means to be forgiven and set free to live with ...

If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of me.

As a study assistant to the Anglican pastor and writer John Stott during my early years as a believer, I witnessed John’s faithfulness in public and private, as a highly visible speaker and as a nearl...

During the time of Oliver Cromwel ascendancy in England, a young soldier faced execution as the curfew bell was set to toll. Desperate to save him, the soldier's beloved approached Cromwell, plead...

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...

The fatal metaphor of progress, which means leaving things behind us, has utterly obscured the real idea of growth, which means leaving things inside us.

Progress means getting nearer to the place you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an ...

We readily confess our little faults in order to suggest that we have no big ones.