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  • illustration

    Does God Really Like Me?

    Author
    Cyd and Geoff Holsclaw
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Romans 10:9-13, John 17:18-23, Romans 15:7, 1 Timothy 1:15, Ephesians 1:3-6, Colossians 1:21-22, Micah 7:19
    I don’t know what I did wrong. But he had that “calmer than calm” look that hid a rage inside. I picked up the phone and saw her name. Not now. I can’t handle her right now. I scanned the room, lookin...

  • illustration

    Is God an Object?

    Author
    Eugene H. Peterson
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139:1-4, Isaiah 49:1, Ephesians 1:4-5, Romans 8:29-30
    We think that God is an object about which we have questions. We are curious about God. We make inquiries about God. We read books about God. We get into late-night bull sessions about God. We drop in...

  • illustration

    Goodwill or God’s Will?

    Author
    Henri J. M. Nouwen
    Keywords
    Scripture
    1 Corinthians 12:4-7, Isaiah 6:8, Romans 12:6-8, Ephesians 2:10, Proverbs 3:5-6, Jeremiah 29:11
    A lesson often learned the hard way in each of our spiritual journeys is mistaking goodwill for vocation. Sometimes we feel deeply about an experience we have, whether it be on a mission trip or even ...

  • illustration

    The Worst Good News

    Author
    Hugh Halter
    Keywords
    Scripture
    1 Peter 1:3, Matthew 11:28-30, Romans 10:15, Isaiah 61:1, Luke 2:10-11
    What’s the worst good news you’ve ever received? Here are a few that come to mind for me. “Mr. Halter, this is Bill from the Ford service department. I’ve got some good news for you. All the smoke yo...

  • illustration

    Forgiveness is a Gift

    Author
    James Bryan Smith
    Keywords
    Scripture
    2 Corinthians 5:18-19, Matthew 6:14-15, Romans 12:18, Matthew 5:23-24, Colossians 3:13, Ephesians 4:32
    God has given us all a message of reconciliation-that God, in Christ, has reconciled the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). The first place we are invited to practice this reconciliation is wit...

  • illustration

    “An Old Man with a White Beard”

    Author
    James Bryan Smith
    Keywords
    Scripture
    John 1:14, John 14:9, Revelation 1:12-16, Philippians 2:5-7, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:15-16
    My friend and colleague Keas Keasler, who teaches a class on spiritual formation, recently asked the class to close their eyes and picture God. After a few moments he had them open their eyes and, if ...

  • illustration

    The Generosity of Oseola McCarty

    Author
    Jen Wilkin
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Acts 20:35, Luke 21:1-4, 2 Corinthians 8:12, Matthew 25:40, Proverbs 3:9-10
    Generosity is not strictly for those who have material abundance. Because Oseola McCarty recognized this truth, the world is a better place. Born in 1908 in rural Mississippi, she quit school after si...

  • illustration

    Giving Away Lobsters

    Author
    John C. Maxwell
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Hebrews 13:16, Matthew 6:19-21, Proverbs 11:25, Luke 6:38, 2 Corinthians 9:6-7, Acts 20:35
    My friend James Crocker, a successful entrepreneur, recently shared a story with me…James and a few of his friends went out on a boat trip to fish for lobsters and had succeeded in gathering a massive...

  • illustration

    What You Think About God Determines Your Life

    Author
    John Mark Comer
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Deuteronomy 4:15-16, John 14:9, Colossians 1:15-16, Psalm 50:21, Isaiah 40:18, Exodus 20:3-5, Romans 1:25
    Put another way, what you think about God will shape your destiny in life. If you think of God as homophobic, racist, and mad at the world, this distorted vision of reality will shape you into a relig...

  • illustration

    The Two Surveys

    Author
    John Mark Comer
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Psalm 50:21, Job 38:1-4, Romans 11:33-34, Exodus 34:6-7, Isaiah 55:8-9
    My friend Scot McKnight is a New Testament professor in Chicago. For years, he taught a class on Jesus, and he would start every semester with two surveys. The first was a set of questions about the s...

  • illustration

    The Aseity of God

    Author
    John Piper
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Psalm 50:10-12, Revelation 4:11, Colossians 1:16-17, Acts 17:24-25, Isaiah 40:28, Psalm 90:2, Exodus 3:14
    Aseity refers to God’s self-existence (a—from, se—oneself). God exists ‘from himself.’ God owes his existence and completeness as God to nothing outside himself. . . . God’s act of creation was not c...

  • illustration

    The Gospel is Freedom

    Author
    John Stott
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Psalm 119:45, 2 Corinthians 3:17, Romans 6:22, Galatians 5:1, John 8:36
    Its [Romans] message is not that ‘man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains’, as Rousseau put it at the beginning of The Social Contract (1762); it is rather that human beings are born in sin ...

  • illustration

    What Do You Want for Christmas?

    Author
    Rick Warren
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Mark 13:37, Philippians 4:4-5, James 1:17, Psalm 95:2-3, 2 Corinthians 9:7, Matthew 2:10-11
    What do you want for Christmas this year? If you were to ask a typical little boy, he’d probably give you two words: video games. There’s a little boy I know named Brian. For weeks he bugged his paren...

  • illustration

    Seeing Through the Lens of Jesus

    Author
    Shane Claiborne
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Colossians 2:9, John 14:9, Hebrews 1:3, John 1:18, 2 Corinthians 4:6, Philippians 2:6-7
    By the way, I have terrible eyesight. When I don’t have my glasses on, I can see shapes and forms and colors, but not much else. And that’s sort of what I think it’s like to look at God without Jesus....

  • illustration

    The Sly Farmer

    Author
    Source Unknown
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Psalm 127:1, Ecclesiastes 7:12, Proverbs 27:23-24, James 1:5, Proverbs 3:5-6
    A canny Maine farmer was approached by a stranger one day and asked how much he thought his prize Jersey cow was worth. The farmer thought for a moment, looked the stranger over, then said: “Are you t...

  • illustration

    The Bible has its Own Garden Path

    Author
    Murray Andrew Pura
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Genesis 2:8, Genesis 3:23-24, Exodus 15:27, Song of Solomon 4:12-15, John 18:1, Matthew 26:36
    The Bible has its own garden path. It runs from Genesis to Revelation. In fact, some of the most important events in the Christian faith take place in Biblical gardens, evens around which Christianity...

  • illustration

    The Land Slows Us Down

    Author
    Jennifer Dukes Lee
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Isaiah 55:10-11, John 15:1-2, Matthew 13:31-32, Deuteronomy 11:10-12, Psalm 65:9-10, Leviticus 25:23, Genesis 1:11-12
    It’s been right here all along—the land teaching us how to un-hurry our hurry-sick hearts. Land speaks stunning truths through Scripture. The Hebrew word for land is eretz. It is the fifth most freque...

  • illustration

    Paradise: A Set Apart Place

    Keywords
    Scripture
    Isaiah 51:3, Genesis 1:28, Psalm 104:14-15, Genesis 1:31, Genesis 2:8-9
    The first garden (Eden) was perfection. In it was the possibility not only for the purest fulfillment of the human race but for all of creation. It was meant to be a paradise, which is, in fact, no di...

  • illustration

    Settling Accounts

    Author
    William E. Brown
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Isaiah 55:8-9, Matthew 6:33-34, Proverbs 3:5-6, Psalm 37:25-26, Ecclesiastes 3:1, Galatians 6:9
    The story is told of a farmer in a Midwestern state who had a strong disdain for “religious” things. As he plowed his field on Sunday morning, he would shake his fist at the church people who passed b...

  • illustration

    Why Did God Make This World?

    Author
    Joe Rigney
    Keywords
    Scripture
    James 1:17, Psalm 145:16, 1 Timothy 4:4-5, Ecclesiastes 3:12-13, Psalm 104:24, Genesis 1:31, Psalm 19:1
    To ask our (not so) simple question in another way: Why did God make this world? Why did he make a world for his own glory in Christ and then fill it to the brim with pleasures—physical pleasures, sen...

  • illustration

    The Christmas Gift

    Author
    Andy Cook
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Isaiah 61:3, John 11:32-35, Romans 8:28, Genesis 37:50, James 1:17, Romans 6:23 , 1 Corinthians 12:28
    A preaching professor at Harvard University tells the story of the year his 5-year-old son was working on an art project in his kindergarten class. It was made of plaster, resembled nothing in particu...

  • illustration

    The Crucial Importance of Stewarding the Gift

    Author
    A. J. Swoboda
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Ecclesiastes 5:19, Proverbs 3:9-10, Luke 16:10-11, Matthew 25:21, 1 Peter 4:10
    The story is well known in the family: my grandparents had driven up from California the evening before. Stopping at a gas station along the Oregon border, they purchased some snacks, gas, and, as the...

  • illustration

    Eating Your Gift

    Author
    Tony Evans
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Colossians 3:17, Matthew 25:14-15, 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, Romans 12:6, 1 Peter 4:10, James 1:17
    A man who was well-to-do enjoyed buying his father unusual and exotic presents for Christmas.… But one particular Christmas this man found a gift for his father that was truly unique: a talking bird t...

  • illustration

    The Real Good of Every Gift

    Author
    George MacDonald
    Keywords
    Scripture
    2 Corinthians 9:8, Philippians 4:19, Romans 11:36, 1 Corinthians 4:7, John 3:27, James 1:17
    For the real good of every gift it is essential, first, that the giver be in the gift–as God always is, for He is love–and next, that the receiver know and receive the giver in the gift. Every gift of...

  • illustration

    A Brother’s Sacrifice

    Author
    Anne Lamott
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Galatians 6:2, 1 Samuel 18:20, Ruth 1:16, 1 John 3:16, Romans 12:1
    An eight-year-old boy had a younger sister who was dying of leukemia, and he was told that without a blood transfusion she would die. His parents explained to him that his blood was probably compatibl...

  • illustration

    Giving Myself

    Author
    Mark E. Strong
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Colossians 3:23-24, Psalm 51:17, Luke 21:1-4, Matthew 22:37, 2 Corinthians 9:7, Mark 12:41-44, Romans 12:1
    I heard a story about a little boy who wanted to give God an offering but had nothing to give. He sat on the floor, watching people pass by and place their offerings in large wicker baskets. How he lo...

  • illustration

    Our God is Great as God is Good

    Author
    Gardner C. Taylor
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Romans 5:8, Psalm 90:2, James 1:17, Psalm 145:3, 1 John 4:8
    The great African-American preacher Gardner Taylor, preacher of the Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn for over 40 years, begins one of his sermons with a paean to the God revealed to us in the 66 boo...

  • illustration

    The God I Want

    Author
    Graham Tomlin
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Ecclesiastes 3:11, Romans 11:33-34, Proverbs 3:5-6, Psalm 46:10, 1 Corinthians 1:18, Isaiah 55:8-9
    Some while ago, I picked up a book in a second hand bookshop. It was an old, slightly faded paperback with what looked like an intriguing title: The God I Want. Published in the late 1960s, it was a c...

  • illustration

    So Much Straw

    Author
    Don McCullough
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Proverbs 3:5-6, Ecclesiastes 3:11, Psalm 145:3, 1 Corinthians 2:10-11, Job 11:7-9, Romans 11:33-34, Isaiah 55:8-9
    Thomas Aquinas, the famous medieval theologian, created one of the greatest intellectual achievements of Western civilization in his Summa Theologica. It’s a massive work: thirty-eight treatises, thre...

  • illustration

    Aslan Comes and Goes

    Author
    C. S. Lewis
    Keywords
    Scripture
    Psalm 147:5, Jeremiah 10:12, Isaiah 55:8-9, Psalm 104:24, Job 38:4-7
    “He’ll be coming and going” he had said. “One day you’ll see him and another you won’t. He doesn’t like being tied down–and of course he has other countries to attend to. It’s quite all right. He’ll o...
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