life on Fulfillment

I still believe that all spiritual life consists of practicing God’s presence, and that anyone who practices correctly will soon attain spiritual fulfillment… There is no sweeter manner of living in t...

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 ...

The search for the good life, which so often is defined in terms of “things” and the means to get as many “things” as possible, has turned into a dead end as more and more people have more and more.

We would do well to keep in mind that Solomon’s words on the necessity of friendship were written toward the end of his life, well after he scaled his own Mount Significance. His accomplishments were ...

We long to see our lives whole, to know that they matter. We wonder whether our many activities might ever come together in a way of life that is good for ourselves and others. Lacking a vision of a l...

In The Phantom Tollbooth , there is a special kind of food called “subtraction stew.” Produced by a mathemagician, this stew makes you hungrier after you’ve eaten it. Our three main characters don’t ...

Read any study on human satisfaction and you will see the paramount role of relationships with others. And yet, so many of us readily exchange friendship and community for success and achievement, onl...

It is a quotidian mystery that dailiness can lead to such despair and yet also be at the core of our salvation. . . . We want life to have meaning, we want fulfillment, healing and even ecstasy, but t...

Last fall, I was asked to lead a workshop at a church by their men's ministry. The topic was so popular that the women in the church threatened to dress up like men to crash the course. The course...

Blog post adapted from Necessary Christianity by Claude Alexander, Jr. Adapted from Chapter 5, "I Must Be Diligent" The life of Jesus reveals that God’s call and God’s claim on the belie...

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...

Preaching Commentary 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 ...

In class I often use a show-and-tell example to illustrate the central point for the understanding of ministry. I invite a student to join me at the front of the class. I always pick a large, strongly...

Lenten practices of giving up pleasures are good reminders that the purpose of life is not pleasure. The purpose of life is to attain to perfect life, all truth and undying ecstatic love – which is th...

You and I were created for more than filling up our schedules with the self-satisfying pursuits of personal pleasure.

There is a great difference between successfulness and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control, and respectability. A successful person has the energy to create something, to keep control o...

What do you want to achieve? Greater riches? Cheaper chicken? A happier life, a longer life? Is it power over your neighbors that you are after? Are you only running away from your death? Or are you s...

We long to see our lives whole and to know that they matter. We wonder whether our many activities might ever come together in a way of life that is good for ourselves and others. Are we really living...

We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too pleased with ourselves; when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little; when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lo...

For over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living. . . . Strained by the very mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we are further strained by an inward uneasin...

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing...

One of the dearest indications of a flawed life story is its failure to give one the sense of purpose and conviction necessary to live life with an acceptable degree of optimism and resolve. A failed ...

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 ...

Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied with the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all. While we are looking at God we do...

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...

Live to the point of tears.

The more you engage in meaningful activities, the more likely you are to experience discomfort.

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...

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...