humanity on Imperfection

The recognition of humanity's flawed nature is not exclusive to Christianity. Aristotle, in his work Ethics , compares human nature to a warped piece of wood. To rectify this warp, a skilled ...

This [brokenness] is what needs to be accepted. Unfortunately, this is what we tend to reject. Here the seeds of a corrosive self-hatred take root. This painful vulnerability is the characteristic fea...

Every human being, each in their own way, has the same glory, and this glory is incomparably greater than the glory of any distinction they could struggle themselves into.

If we acknowledge that our inclination to sin is part of our natures, and that we will never wholly eradicate it, there is at least something for us to do in our lives that will not in the end seem ju...

Gracious God, sometimes I am so caught up in my failures, in all the ways I am not like you, that I neglect the deeper truth, the earlier truth of Genesis 1. You have made me, as a human being, in you...

What is the matter with us is a question as old as time. Many philosophers and prophets believe they have an answer, but so too does holy scripture. According to the Dutch-Canadian philosopher Al Wolt...

Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.

God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that he may love and perfect them.

Take refuge in our God who knows we are mere mortals. He forgives us for our sins, even though they were aimed at his loving heart. Rejoice that the Lord, out of his grace, will not remember our sins ...

I am a human being, not a human doing.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

In this beautiful poem by the English Divine John Donne, our nature as both redeemed and still sinful is eloquently described: We think that Paradise and Calvary, Christ’s Cross and Adam’s Tree, ...

There’s a somewhat naïve belief among some that, in general, most people are inherently good. While many Christians may not fully embrace John Calvin’s doctrine of total depravity (which I believe is ...

Heavenly Father, we come to you as a sinful people. We are all too aware that our thoughts are not like your thoughts, nor are our ways like your ways. You are righteous and holy, We are fallen and i...

Pastor: O Lord, we are in over our heads. So many are the sins that we’ve committed this past week, and they condemn us in your presence. Only because you love us with a never-ending, unbreaking, alwa...

Our lives are meant to inspire with (or inhale) the breath of God, the glory of his presence, the brilliance and beauty of his creation, and to expire (or exhale) an echo of wonder—an “amen.” It shoul...

The one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great. If men are deprived of the infinitely great they will not go on living a...

We have been created by God, to be loved by God, and to receive our identity from God. But in our everyday lives, as we go about our work, school, interacting with our family and friends, we don’t alw...

Jesus loved the will of His Father. He embraced the limitations, the necessities, the conditions, the very chains of His humanity as He walked and worked here on earth, fulfilling moment by moment His...

Being fully human is to inhabit the wild mysteries of our bodies and trust that, because Christ was a body, and still is a body, we don’t need to fear this place. We can say, it is good, because Chris...

Eyes of Faith Verse 17 summarizes the Apostle Paul’s argument in this passage: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Throughou...

This illustration can work well as communicators demonstrate how God made us to be unique with the purpose of living into our own unique personalities: Rick Burgess and Bill “Bubba” Bussey host the ...

The glory of God is a human being fully alive

The fact [is] that original sin is really original. Not merely in theology but in history it is a thing rooted in the origins. Whatever else men have believed, they have all believed that there is som...

You have wonderfully created us, O God, and yet more wonderfully restored the dignity of human nature. Allow us to share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesu...

The whole concept of the “image of God ” is the idea that all men have something within them that God injected. .. . And this gives [man] a uniqueness, it gives him worth, it gives him dignity. And we...

Some skeptics today speak about “evolving” from a primitive condition, but the Bible (Romans 1:18-32) sadly portrays a  descent  rather than an ascent. The result has been given the theological term “...

Our Father, Lord, when the world was without form and void did you roll the clay into shapes of life? Did you sing on that far distant Friday, when you fashioned the caterpillar, and the cobra? And Je...

Kindness flows from you, Lord, pure and continual. You had cast us off, as was only just, but mercifully you forgave us; you hated us and you were reconciled to us, you cursed us and you blessed us; y...

We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile.