hunger on Purity

Pope John Paul I recounted a story about Jonathan Swift and his servant. One morning at an inn, Swift asked his servant why his boots hadn’t been cleaned. The servant replied, “I didn’t see the point,...

“Mary’s ‘Magnificat’ has been banned from public proclamation in many countries due to the revolutionary nature of these verses. ‘He has brought down rulers from their thrones’? Just imagine this plas...

AIM Commentary “Mary’s ‘Magnificat’ has been banned from public proclamation in many countries due to the revolutionary nature of these verses. ‘He has brought down rulers from their thrones’? Just...

Of course, we do the righteous deed because of our redemption, not for our redemption.

Persons need not and ought not to set any bounds to their spiritual and gracious appetites, [instead they ought] to be endeavoring by all possible ways to inflame their desires and to obtain more spir...

Your desire for more of God than you have right now, your longing for love, your need for deeper levels of spiritual transformation than you have experienced so far is the truest thing about you. You ...

A hunger for beauty is at its heart a hunger for God.

George Fox as a youth was religious enough to meet all earthly standards and was even proposed as a student for the ministry. But the insatiable God-hunger in him drove him from such mediocrity into a...

I lust after recognition, I am desperate to win all the little merit badges and trinkets of my profession, and I am of less real use in this world than any good cleaning lady.

The hymnwriter and theologian F. W. Faber writes with beautiful prose the challenges that each one of us faces when it comes to living a life faithfully according to the truth that is within us: M...

Almighty God, too often we settle for brokenness in our lives. Rather than offering forgiveness, we hold onto offense. Rather than pursuing justice, we turn away . Rather than offering mercy, we c...

Leader: O Holy Love, food of our souls, living spring of the water of life, we worship you. All: Our souls thirst for your presence; and we hunger for your grace. O Christ, Bread of Life, sown...

You have made us for Yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.

Self-acceptance gives assent to be who I am—a small, limited person with bents toward sin as well as hungers for holiness—and allows me to live with all my contradictions, because my will, at least on...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? After the Baptism Jesus, still wet from his baptism in the Jordan. Jesus, with the affirmation of the Father still ri...

Self-indulgence is the enemy of gratitude, and self-discipline usually its friend and generator. That is why gluttony is a deadly sin. The early desert fathers believed that a person’s appetites are l...

It's important, as we go along in life, to create thirsts that death will satisfy.

The key to Christian living is a thirst and hunger for God. And one of the main reasons people do not understand or experience the sovereignty of grace and the way it works through the awakening of so...

Preaching Commentary The context The beatitudes are one of the most well-known aspects of Jesus teaching. As in the more familiar account in Matthew (5:1-12), Luke presents these words as Jesus’ fi...

Preaching Commentary A Revelation and a Prophecy The Revelation of Jesus Christ can be overwhelming to read and difficult to understand due to its heavy use of imagery and symbolism. However, the o...

Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart. May God bless you...

Context The feeding of the 5,000 in Matthew occurs within a section where questions of Jesus’ identity are heightened. Two incorrect answers of who Jesus truly is are given in 13:55 (“isn’t this the...

People today hunger not for personal salvation, let alone for the restoration of an earlier golden age, but for the feeling, the momentary illusion, of personal well-being, health, and psychic securit...

Take a toy from a child and give him another — he will be satisfied. But if the child is hungry, giving him a toy won’t help. Just like babies, true believers desire the milk of the word of God — the ...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? After the Baptism Jesus, still wet from his baptism in the Jordan. Jesus, with the affirmation of the Father still ringing in his ears...

Prayer of Adoration Loving God—Father Son and Holy Spirit— we come today as thirsty people to You who are the Spring of Living Water. We come as hungry people to You who are the Bread of Heaven. We ...

Leader: Oh Lord, your Word is a wonder  and we follow in delight. Your revelation is a shining light, giving understanding to the simple. People: Our mouths are dry and we thirst, yearning for yo...

It works like this: we hunger spiritually and are then filled and become supremely satisfied. The satisfaction then makes way for a deeper spiritual hunger, a further filling and blessed satisfaction....

When we are denied the very things our hearts long for, we learn to long for the one thing that will never be denied us, God Himself.