truth on Well-Being

Believe the incredible truth that the Beloved has chosen for his dwelling place the core of your own being because that is the single most beautiful place in all of creation.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

Pragmatism may be defined simply as the approach to reality that defines truth as “that which works.” The pragmatist is concerned about results, and the results determine the truth. The problem with t...

In his poem Cocktail Party , T. S. Eliot captures a fundamental truth about human nature and the source of much hurt in the world. People’s actions are rarely driven by outright malice—intended t...

Gracious God, our hearts are often divided between what is good and what is evil. Not one of us is pure in heart yet we long to have a whole heart. Where there is hypocrisy in our life, please n...

In the land whose founding metaphor was the mutuality of John Winthrop’s seventeenth-century vision of a “city set on a hill,” we live more and more in estranged, hostile, exclusive enclaves, linked o...

In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair...the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothi...

Truth consists in the mind giving to things the importance they have in reality.

The closer you get to the truth, the clearer becomes the beauty, and the more you will find worship welling up within you. That's why theology and worship belong together.

Recently I was watching a children’s television show on YouTube with my kids, when the host asked, “What is the meaning of Life?” His response was typical: “I don’t know,” but what he said next made m...

If your salvation does not include living with God in beauty, truth, and goodness, it’s going to be a very dry haul. And so much of our difficulty today for Christians in this world, and for the world...

Gracious God, thank you for the gift of your presence and opportunities to be fully present with others. In our selfishness and impatience, we seek to connect with those not in the room. God, help us ...

In June 2024, I (A. J.) had the opportunity to visit the Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem, Oregon, to meet with a group of inmates who had read one of my recent books. The experience was...

Preaching Commentary Summary of the Text James, the brother of Jesus, the leader of the earliest Christian church in Jerusalem, writes this letter to scattered Jewish believers who are going throug...

Pastor: The blessing of Almighty God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be with you as you follow Him and grow to look, live and love more like Jesus every day.    People: He is the way, the tr...

New Testament Mountains Like the Old Testament, the New Testament has plenty of references to mountains.  There’s the Sermon on the Mount, obviously.  Jesus often went onto hills or mountains to pray...

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.

Recently, when I was in London, I went to the National Gallery. It was a weekday, but it was still crowded with people wearing headsets, staring at famous paintings, listening to a narrator explain th...

Author and Episcopal priest Stephanie Spellers suggests that instead of imagining a kingdom, a better way for us to understand what Jesus had in mind when he spoke of this script, this new way of livi...

New Testament Mountains Like the Old Testament, the New Testament has plenty of references to mountains.  There’s the Sermon on the Mount, obviously.  Jesus often went onto hills or mountains to pray...

Truth indeed rather alleviates than hurts, and will always bear up against falsehood, as oil does above water.

Jesus, we receive your blessings and pray for the Holy Spirit to make them real in our lives. Renew a right spirit within us, a poor spirit, a spirit that knows our deep need of your grace and deliver...

God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—our Loving Creator, Redeemer and Guide: We praise and thank You for being with us wherever we are on the journey of faith; whether we feel You or not—You are here wit...

We have an outdoor church readerboard (yep, manual, press-in-the-grooves-black-plastic-letters) near a busy street that I enjoy changing every couple of weeks. The challenge of saying something meanin...

You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.

God of grace and truth, holy and compassionate—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: You hold the universe in Your hands and earth’s oceans hardly moisten Your palm; yet—You number the hairs of our heads and k...

One day when George MacDonald, the great Scottish preacher and writer, was talking with his son, the conversation turned to heaven and the prophets’ version of the end of all things. “It seems too goo...

Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom: Enlighten by your Holy Spirit those who teach and those who learn, that, rejoicing in the knowledge of your truth, they may worship you and serve you from gen...

I think the mistake most of us make about beauty is that we expect it to be pretty—to please us with its proportions, its balance, its harmony, its rhyme. If those are your requirements, I doubt I wil...