transformation on Wrongful Imprisonment

As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.

It was on November 28, 1965, that fighter pilot Howard Rutledge’s plane was shot down right into the hands of the North Vietnam Army. Quickly he was shuttled to the “Heartbreak Hotel,” one of the noto...

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

In this excerpt from a sermon preached at Trinity Church, Boston, the Episcopalian Priest Fleming Rutledge describes the amazing work of Will Campbell: The last time I was here, your rector Sam Lloy...

Several years ago I saw a television show called Caught on Camera . It featured clips of people being secretly filmed doing all manner of horrific things, precisely because they thought they were...

At the beginning to the musical Les Misérables , the lead character Jean Valjean is arrested by the police, with silver he has stolen from a kindly bishop who had given him shelter. Valjean is plainl...

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,...

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 ...

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

Josephine Bakhita’s life is a testament of God’s faithfulness in the darkest circumstances. She was born in Darfur, Sudan, among the Daju people. Her first years were happy, but at age eight she was k...

A glutton is one who raids the icebox for a cure for spiritual malnutrition.

Dawn grew up in a family in which she felt she had a fairly happy childhood. But in her adult years she struggled greatly with emotional, psychological, and physical maladies. She never felt a sense o...

O Giver of every good and perfect gift, we confess that we are poor stewards of your bounty. You give us time, but we waste it. You give us life, but we use it to glorify ourselves. You give us wealth...

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...

Reading the Bible without applying it to your life can be downright dangerous. On August 3, 1996, Melvin Hitchens, sat on his front porch and read the Bible. After his Bible reading, this 66 year old ...

When he [the prodigal son] found himself desiring to be treated as one of the pigs, he realized that he was not a pig but a human being, a son of his father. . . . Once he had come again in touch with...

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...

Holy God, we know that you created us in love, to enjoy this world and You, to serve your creation and your children. And we know that we do not do your will. With clenched hands, we can neither give...

Brother Lawrence, a 16th-century Carmelite monk, spent his days scrubbing pots and mending shoes. Largely uneducated, he filled his free time writing letters and notes that, after his death, friends g...

You've got to admit you're broken before you can be made whole.

The True Self is all about right relationship, not requirements. It’s not about being correct; it’s about being connected, which you always were—you just didn’t realize it.

Peter Greave (1910-1977) was a British national who endured a challenging and tumultuous life, which took a severe turn in 1939 when he contracted leprosy while stationed in India, also his birthplace...

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...

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.

Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? How did we get here? When relationships disintegrate and fall apart it is a fair question to ask. The question may come on the brink of...

Summary The Text: 1 Peter 3:13-22 In the first chapter of this letter, Peter sets out the reason for writing. He affirms the eternal state of the believer:  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lo...

One of the biggest challenges in the Christian journey is grasping the heart of grace. Oftentimes there is an internal battle between our theology and our lived experience. In this short excerpt, Fred...

I want to change my circumstances. God wants to change me.

Merciful God, you have moved and changed our lives in amazing ways, yet we have kept these stories to ourselves. We confess the times we have kept these stories to ourselves out of fear of rejection a...