sanctification on Discipleship

George Garrett, a novelist and amateur boxer wrote about a transformation that often takes place for fighters who stick with the sport. Throughout their journey to boxing excellence, in which they mus...

One saint used to say that she was the type of woman who advances more rapidly when she is drawn by love than when driven by fear. She was perceptive enough to know that we are all that type of person...

In the early 1800s, the German naturalist and explorer Baron Alexander von Humboldt journeyed through South America on a scientific expedition. Deep in the Amazon rainforest, he encountered Indigenous...

Many Christians know John Newton as the author of the hymn Amazing Grace and other beloved hymns. Fewer know that Newton’s own life matches the beauty of transformation written in Amazing Gra...

Context Jesus' Ministry Begins This passage is from the first chapter of John’s gospel and describes the beginning of Jesus’ ministry—fitting for the beginning of a new year. A congregation foll...

Context Paul in Ephesus: His Third Missionary Journey This passage describes Paul’s arrival in Ephesus during his third missionary journey. He finds there some disciples who know only of John’s bapt...

Preaching Commentary Context Jesus' Ministry Begins This passage is from the first chapter of John’s gospel and describes the beginning of Jesus’ ministry—fitting for the beginning of a new ye...

Preaching Commentary Context Paul in Ephesus: His Third Missionary Journey This passage describes Paul’s arrival in Ephesus during his third missionary journey. He finds there some disciples who k...

Holy God, You call us to a passionate, all-consuming faith. Yet, so frequently, we give You half-hearted obedience or distracted, leftover moments of our time. You tell us that we are the salt of the ...

Lord Jesus, your life shows us how you want us to live. So often we know exactly what it would take for us to become more like you, and yet we sit back, rather than taking a step toward your holiness....

Radiant Christ, You are Mystery You are Holy You are God Give us eyes to see you and your glory Eyes to see your sustaining and saving Eyes to see your future and your now Eyes to see and to follow. A...

This is the place and this is the time: here and now God waits to break into our experience: to change our minds, to change our lives, to change our ways; To make us see the world and the ...

Your words and ways are Perfect Sure Right Clear Your words and ways are Pure True Righteous Every one Their value, beyond price Their goodness, beyond delight Their counsel, en...

When Jesus invites people to follow him, he doesn’t forecast the outcomes nor guarantee change overnight. He doesn’t promise that we’ll stop cussing in traffic tomorrow and never do it again, or that ...

Conversion does not make us perfect, but it does catapult us into a total experience of discipleship that affects - and infects - every sphere of our living.

“It would be nice and fairly nearly true, to say that ‘from that time forth, Eustace was a different boy.’ To be strictly accurate, he began to be a different boy. He had relapses. There were still ma...

The conversion of a soul is the miracle of a moment, but the manufacture of a saint is the task of a lifetime.

A couple years ago I got to take a tour of the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California. The name is a bit misleading because what they are most known for are there amazing gardens. And so we were o...

It takes a lifetime to fathom Jesus; it takes a lifetime to appropriate Jesus, it takes a lifetime to be clothed with Jesus. And the question comes to each of us, have we ‘put off the old man with his...