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What are we hear for in the first place? The fundamental answer…is that we we’re “here for” is to become genuine human beings, reflecting the God in whose image we’re made, and doing so in worship on ... -
Quote
The new life is not a matter of mere moral reformation, but of spiritual transformation. -
illustration
Our Faith
Our faith is not a matter of our hearing what Christ said long ago and “trying to carry it out. The real Son of God is at your side. He is beginning to turn you into the same kind of thing as Himself.... -
Quote
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... -
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Why We Love Makeover Shows
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 ... -
illustration
The Lion in the Marble
There was once a sculptor who worked hard with hammer and chisel on a large block of marble. A little child who was watching him saw nothing more than large and small pieces of stone falling away left... -
Quote
At their core, transitions are the internal adjustments by which we reorient ourselves to new environments, new experiences, and new seasons of life. -
series
Psalm 1 | God's Law (Free Preview)
Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Wisdom Song It is not too far a stretch to imagine an eager young person sitting at the feet of a well-seasoned elder and receiving the words of thi... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guides, Amos 7:7-17
Confrontation Most pastors don’t care for confrontation. Maybe, that could be said for most people. There are the rare few of us who thrive on the tension and drama that comes with a direct standoff,... -
lectionary
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Preaching Commentary Confrontation Most pastors don’t care for confrontation. Maybe, that could be said for most people. There are the rare few of us who thrive on the tension and drama that comes ... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
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... -
lectionary
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
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... -
Quote
When I teach on the dynamics of real change and maturation, I often describe a “furnace of transformation” each of us must pass through for the sake of growth and refinement. I’ve never seen real grow... -
liturgy
O Holy Love, food of our souls
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... -
Quote
Living a spiritual life requires a change of heart, a conversion. Such a conversion may be marked by a sudden inner change, or it can take place through a long, quiet process of transformation. But it... -
Quote
When he found himself desiring to be treated as one of the pigs, he realized he was not a pig but a human being, a son of his father. This realization became the basis for his choice to live instead o... -
series
Road Trips: 1, Genesis 12:1-9
Road Trips in Scripture While the definitions of “oceans” and “lakes” had to be qualified a bit in order to relate biblical locations to our present-day vacations, road trips—like mountains—can be fo... -
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Life in Acts
Shakespeare was right—a person’s life is made up of many acts. As a book writer, though, I prefer to see these acts as chapters. If you look back on your life, you’ll likely see them too. There is the... -
Quote
The character of human life, like the character of the human condition, like the character of all life, is "ambiguity": the inseparable mixture of good and evil, the true and false, the crea... -
Quote
At every point in the human journey we find that we have to let go in order to move forward; and letting go means dying a little. In the process we are being created anew, awakened afresh to the sourc... -
illustration
The Shadow-Lands
On the final page of the final book of The Chronicles of Narnia, some of the children who have been to Narnia lament that they once again must return to their homeland—the Shadow-Lands. But Aslan (the... -
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The Eternal Weight of Glory: The Shadow of Our Future Selves
In this short excerpt, the scholar and Anglican clergyman N.T. Wright discusses the famous “weight of glory” passage in 2 Cornthians 4:17: For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an ... -
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Chapter One of the Great Story
In the epic conclusion to the Narnia Chronicles, C.S. Lewis attempts to express the absolute joy that will come as our earthly lives come to an end and we are reunited with our God for all of eternity... -
Quote
The first and best illustration of the effect upon personality of death is found in Jesus Christ. After his reappearance from the grave, he is unaltered in character, tone of thought, and fundamental ... -
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Our Stories, Incarnated by God
Every person in Scripture lived out a personal story incarnated by an even greater story about God, life, and the world. That story came from the politics, theology, and culture ingrained in their mem... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, John 3:1-17
Introduction This is a well-known passage full of well-known phrases, and yet reading and meditating on the text continues to offer fresh understandings and applications. John 3:1-17 is the account o... -
Quote
In embarking on the journey, we must leave the world of certainty. We must courageously journey to a strange place where there are a lot of risks and much is at stake, a place where there are new prob... -
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My worldview, my philosophy, my attitudes, my relationships, my parenting, my marriage – everything has been transformed by my relationship with Christ. -
illustration
Our Overstory and Understory
In the world of ecology, the tallest trees in a forest form a canopy that is called the overstory. It provides shade for the understory—all the vegetation that grows beneath the uppermost layer of fol... -
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The True Test of Faith
Impostors draw their identity not only from achievements but from interpersonal relationships. They want to stand well with people of prominence because that enhances a person’s résumé and sense of se...
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