in christ on Stability

The cornerstone was a critical element of ancient architecture, the anchor that the rest of the building relied on. The cornerstone was the stone that set the alignment of the entire building. Every o...

Settle this in your heart: Whether I am up or down, the Lord Jesus is the same. Whether I sing or sigh, the promise is true and the Promiser is faithful. Whether I stand on the summit or am hidden in ...

Abide is an old English word for “remain,” “stay steady” and “keep your position.” What it means to abide in Christ—that is, always to be resting on him, anchored to him, fixed in him, drawing from h...

Webster defines the word abide this way: “to remain or settle down.”

Abiding is the continually renewed decision that what has been done once for all by the action of Jesus shall be the basis, the starting point, the context for all my thinking and deciding and doing.

Abide is an old English word for “remain,” “stay steady” and “keep your position.” What it means to abide in Christ—that is, always to be resting on him, anchored to him, fixed in him, drawing from hi...

To abide is to continue, persevere, never cease to be within this eternal divine energy into which God alone can introduce us and then keep us and cause us to remain . . . . It is only in God that we ...

In my home country, the Netherlands, you still see many large wagon wheels, not on wagons, but as decorations at the entrances of farms or on the walls of restaurants. I have always been fascinated by...

If you think of your identity and heart as an engine, you could say there is a kind of fuel that powers it cleanly and efficiently—and a kind of fuel that is not only polluting but also destroys the e...

Writing about ministering to postmodern skeptics, Don Everts and Doug Schaupp share a helpful insight into the mystery of God's movement: The first lesson they have taught us about the path to f...

Holiness, as taught in the Scriptures, is not based upon knowledge on our part. Rather, it is based upon the resurrected Christ in-dwelling us and changing us into His likeness.

The relational posture of a Christian is anchored in our union with Christ. God dwells in us, by the Spirit, nearer to us than our very breath-Anyone who lives from this depth of intimate relationship...

The farmers in the old prairie days used to prepare for a winter storm by putting up a rope between the house and the barn. They did this because they knew that in a swirling blizzard, even a brief di...

For the most part, when we think of saints or heroes of the faith, we think of people who are altogether different than we are. They seem to embody a quality of communion with God that is impossible f...

Submission is not subjugation. Subjugation turns a person into a thing, destroys individuality, and removes all liberty. Submission makes a person become more of what God wants him to be; it brings ou...

IDENTITY AND SUFFERING The key to understanding today’s readings lies in the first half of 1 Peter. Two themes dominate Peter’s encouragement to these early Christians: identity and suffering. Knowi...

Preaching Commentary Inexpressible Things This chapter of Paul’s Corinthian correspondence is rich indeed, revealing so much about Paul and his relationship to the Corinthian church, a church which...

Leader: He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, People: I Will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Leader: For he...

O God, from whom to be turned is to fall, to whom to be turned is to rise, and with whom to stand is to abide for ever; grant us in all our duties your help, in all our perplexities your guidance,...

Faithful God, we confess that we try to carry more than you ask and work hard to have our way. Help us to see and believe your goodness. Help us to lean into you and to trust that your strength will h...

“Christianity promises to make man free,” Anglican priest William R. Inge writes; “it never promises to make them independent.” Freedom and independence are polar opposites. The former leads to wellne...

A Note of Understanding The Lectionary and the Liturgical Calendar Preaching from the lectionary isn’t always easy. When the assigned texts align with major moments in the liturgical calendar—Christ...

What each of us needs in place of the superficial virtue of niceness is a soul rooted and abiding in Christ. We need to be transformed so fully and completely that we actually are who we present ourse...

The word Abide is designed to help you remember that following Jesus is first and foremost about your relationship with Him. It’s about that wonderful, intimate fellowship between you and your Savior....

If you never left your home and avoided all interaction with other people, you couldn’t be characterized as a loving person. Instead, you might even be unloving because of your lack of concern for oth...

A group of researchers sought to study the nuances of self-control. They conducted a study with a few dozen kindergarten students and gave them a painfully boring, repetitive task designed to test how...

At the bottom of every person’s heart there is an uttermost foundation. At the beginning of The Two Towers, the second Lord of the Rings movie, Gandalf battles the Balrog while they plummet down an in...

Leader: Hear the good news: Paul writes that Jesus Christ "will sustain us to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." Our identity is not based on our best days or our wors...

Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus.

Leader: Friends, Paul reminds us that we are "called to be saints.” But we know that our lives often do not reflect this high calling. We forget who we are. We forget whose we are. But the invit...