christian love on Materialism

Jesus is teaching us to stop loving things and using people and start using things and loving people.

Merciful Jesus Give us courage to deny privilege to lay down favor and safety in order to take up the cross of opportunity and justice Too often we fail to do this Merciful Jesus Give us courage to d...

God’s definition of what matters is pretty straightforward. He measures our lives by how we love.

The Christian’s self-understanding is that she is precious before God—however much a sinner, however much a failure (or success) she may be by the standards of worldly comparisons—and that every other...

Context Reading Someone Else’s Mail Paul first visited the city of Corinth in south-central Greece during his 2 nd missionary journey (Acts 18:1-18). Paul in 1 Corinthians is responding to a letter...

Context Reading Someone Else’s Mail Paul first visited the city of Corinth in south-central Greece during his 2 nd missionary journey (Acts 18:1-18). Paul in 1 Corinthians is responding to a letter...

If love is the soul of Christian existence, it must be at the heart of every other Christian virtue. Thus, for example, justice without love is legalism; faith without love is ideology; hope without l...

A few weeks after Rich Mullins died in a car accident in 1997 at age forty-one, his friend and financial manager, Jim Dunning, went to collect Rich’s possessions. Mullins was a wildly successful Chris...

Our true identity is to love without fear and insecurity. Our higher potential finds us when we set our course in that direction. The power of love and compassion transforms insecurity.

The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that’s the chief thing, and that’s everything; nothing else is wanted—you will find out at once how to arrange it all. And yet it’s an old truth which ...

Gracious Father, too often we base our worth on our performance. We believe if we do well, your love grows, and if we falter, your love lessens. Our God, how far this is from the truth. We confess our...

Nietzsche belongs to a trinity of nineteenth-century thinkers that Paul Ricoeur called the “masters of suspicion.” These masters of suspicion—Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud—were all...

Tolerance is a cheap, low-grade parody of love. Tolerance is not a great virtue to aspire to. Love is much tougher and harder.

A missionary in a Muslim-majority country got a call one day from his wife. Their local house-helper (a common practice in that country) had accidentally dropped and broken their carafe from the coffe...

One day, as Leo Tolstoy, the renowned Russian author, was walking down the street when he encountered a man in worn, shabby clothing. The homeless man asked him if he had any money to spare. Tolstoy s...

[I]f we have compassion without capacity, we have human frustration. If we have capacity without compassion, we have human alienation. If we have compassion and capacity, we have human transformation....

(Scripture quotations below are from ESV unless noted otherwise.) Author and Audience Acknowledging the scholarly debate over whether the letter comes directly from the apostle or from the traditio...

(Scripture quotations below are from ESV unless noted otherwise.) Liturgical Context On this Third Sunday of Easter, the Revised Common Lectionary texts harmonize with the epistle’s praise of Jesus...

Ancient Lens What's the historical context? An Honest Inquiry from the Religious Leaders It is easy—perhaps tempting—to read this passage with built-in sarcasm because we know the general ton...

Holy God, we have not lived in the light. We have not walked as Jesus did. We compromise all too often, living both for you and for ourselves. Your word calls us to account and your Holy Spirit convic...

Generous Lord Jesus We confess that we do not receive others with compassion. We object to being interrupted And respond with anger or frustration. We confess that we do not share generously Not trus...

If I fear to hold another to the highest goal because it is so much easier to avoid doing so, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

I heard a story about a little boy who wanted to give God an offering but had nothing to give. He sat on the floor, watching people pass by and place their offerings in large wicker baskets. How he lo...

Father God, you see us; you have compassion; and you care for your greatest creation – people. You have also called us to notice, to listen, and to love others. Yet in our selfishness, we have ignored...

The Cross is the blazing fire at which the flame of our love is kindled, but we have to get near enough for its sparks to fall on us.

Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas.

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

Pastor: We who have been given new birth into a living hope, are sent now into the world - People: to look, live and love more like Jesus.  Pastor: Go in peace to serve the Lord! Pe...

Gracious God, in Christ Jesus, you teach us to love our neighbors but instead we build dividing walls of hostility. You show us how to love one another as sisters and brothers but instead we hide from...

May the Lord make you to increase and abound in love toward one another, and toward all men, even as we also do toward you, to the end he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God...