redemption on Loss

George Matheson was just entering the bewildering teenage years when doctors informed him he was going blind. Undeterred, he pressed on with his education and graduated from the University of Glasgow ...

The film the Dead Poets Society is set in 1959 at Welton Academy, a strict, elite, all-boys preparatory school. The main character, Todd Anderson, is a shy and insecure student who struggles wit...

In 2021, I heard a story on the radio about the “Kindest Family in America”. As far as I can see, this is the only year Parents magazine awarded such a prize. When I first heard this headline I rolled...

Context: The Grumblers Jesus tells the three parables of Luke 15 to “the Pharisees and scribes” who were grumbling. Throughout Luke’s gospel account Jesus has been involved in controversy with the Ph...

Context: The Grumblers Jesus tells the three parables of Luke 15 to “the Pharisees and scribes” who were grumbling. Throughout Luke’s gospel account Jesus has been involved in controversy with the Ph...

Preaching Commentary Paul’s Prize Fight Paul pulls no punches in this letter to the church of Ephesus. It is an onslaught of theological intensity from the first ring of the bell. Like a prize figh...

Lamenting a Living Son This is God’s own lament: a brokenhearted father mourning the loss of a still-living son.  Throughout the book, God has led Hosea to draw from moments of Israel’s past.  Here, ...

Faithful and Good God–our Father, Redeemer and Companion. You know all about us–and love us anyhow; nothing we are or do surprises you or puts you off. Therefore, we turn to you with assurance and tru...

Preaching Commentary Lamenting a Living Son This is God’s own lament: a brokenhearted father mourning the loss of a still-living son.  Throughout the book, God has led Hosea to draw from moments of...

Redemption is a recovering and restoring of the original. The person who experiences redemption in Christ remains the same person, even though the transformation from the sinner dead-in-sins to the sa...

The cost of redemption cannot be overstated. The wonders of grace cannot be overemphasized. Christ took the hell He didn't deserve so we could have the heaven we don't deserve.

Suppose I sell you a piece of commercial property on which I am already behind in my mortgage payments. You not only pay me a fair price for the property but also pay my overdue payments. Now the prop...

There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today ...

O Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, look upon us and have mercy on us; you who are yourself both victim and priest, yourself both reward and redeemer. Keep safe from all evils those who...

Compassion costs. It is easy enough to argue, criticize and condemn, but redemption is costly, and comfort draws from the deep. Brains can argue, but It takes heart to comfort.

If man had his way, the plan of redemption would be an endless and bloody conflict. In reality, salvation was bought not by Jesus' fist, but by His nail-pierced hands; not by muscle but by love; n...

In order to speak of the crucified God we need a theology of abandonment, of dereliction, of an alienation so profound that it can only be expressed in language marked by paradox and by great daring a...

Your sorrow itself shall be turned into joy. Not the sorrow to be taken away, and joy to be put in its place, but the very sorrow which now grieves you shall be turned into joy. God not only takes awa...

In Israel’s tribal society redemption was the act of a patriarch who put his own resources on the line to ransom a family member who had been driven to the margins of society by poverty, who had been ...

In Isaiah 43:25, God says, “I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.” Here God uses two absolute terms to assure us of the complete removal...

Whatever happens to me in life, I must believe that somewhere, In the mess or madness of it all, There is a sacred potential— possibility for wondrous redemption In the embracing of all that is.

Merciful and Holy God, We bow before You in heartfelt confession, acknowledging that we are a broken people, living in a broken world. This world is dark with the stain of sin. Your design for creatio...

It [salvation] is all of God; nothing is, in the ultimate analysis, of man. Man provides only the sinner to be saved: God provides the entire salvation.

In my lifelong study of the Bible I have looked for an overarching theme, a summary statement of what the whole sprawling book is about. I have settled on this: “God gets his family back.” From the fi...

Because of man’s fall into sin, a curse was pronounced over the creation. God now sent His Son into this world to redeem that creation from the results of sin. The work of Christ, therefore, is not ju...

Non-Christians seem to think that the Incarnation implies some particular merit or excellence in humanity. But of course it implies just the reverse: a particular demerit and depravity. No creature th...

Mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people.

The heart of the gospel is redemption, and the essence of redemption is the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ.

If you’re not stunned by the thought of grace, then you aren’t grasping what grace offers you, or what it cost Jesus. In 1987, eighteen-month-old “Baby Jessica” fell twenty-two feet into a Texas well....

Father God, you have provided us with bread from heaven through your incarnate Son; He is all that we need for spiritual revival and restoration. We, though, have taken offense at his invitation to ab...