Sermon Illustrations on seeing god

What, then, should a Christian be afraid of regarding God? Think of it like this. Imagine that you suddenly are introduced to some person you have always admired enormously—perhaps someone you have he...

Many of us westerners are familiar with the stories of the first Apollo missions and the “space race” with Russia. What we are less familiar with is the experience from the other side, from the Russia...

C.S. Lewis wrote an essay…called “The Seeing Eye,” and in it he argued that if there were a God, we would not relate to him the way a person on the first story of a house relates to a person on the se...

I have a friend named Joy who teaches underprivileged children in an inner city church. Her class is a lively group of nine-year-olds year-olds who love life and aren’t afraid of God. There is one exc...

We cannot be closed off to one another and be open to God. That’s not how this works. Do you remember the commercial when the woman says “that’s not how this works, that's not how any of this work...

Sometimes, of course, the sense of God with us becomes much more distinct. My oldest brother, J. I. Willard, served for over thirty years as a minister under the blessing of God. But his entry into th...

I remember being with a Christian student on a beach during an evangelism training week. Bob and I met several religious skeptics and began talking about all sorts of things. Eventually the conversati...

While written almost 30 years ago, this poll of Christian leaders provides some interesting fodder for how to define excellence from a Biblical perspective: What, then, does excellence—as it is descr...

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....

In the book A Peculiar Glory , John Piper describes how he maintained a traditional view of scripture, even after he went on to advanced theological studies in California and Germany. He describes hi...

[In the middle of the twentieth century a] young Russian communist went to a meeting one night where he heard a Christian expounding his faith. The communist was angry. How could anyone still believe ...

God’s “glory”: the phrase means, no doubt, that when people eventually see God the sight is astonishingly bright and dazzling. But beyond that it also means that it is surpassingly lovely and beautifu...

In 1961 the Russians put the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin. Nikita Khrushchev was the Russian premier, and he said that when Gagarin went into space, the cosmonaut discovered that there was no Go...

These disciples turned the world upside down because they saw a dead man come back to life by the power of God. And whatever that “knowing” and “seeing” did in them, it did it at a deep level because ...

I remember taking my youngest son to one of the national art galleries in Washington, DC. As we made our approach, I was so excited about what we were going to see. He was decidedly unexcited. But I j...

After the fall of our first parents, boundaries were something to push past, to transgress. It’s worth pausing to note how we use the word transgression for “sin.”  With its Latin roots, “across” and ...

If you want to know who God is, look at Jesus. If you want to know what it means to be human, look at Jesus. If you want to know what love is, look at Jesus. If you want to know what grief is, look at...

After the fall of our first parents, boundaries were something to push past, to transgress. It’s worth pausing to note how we use the word transgression for “sin.”  With its Latin roots, “across” and ...

After the fall of our first parents, boundaries were something to push past, to transgress. It’s worth pausing to note how we use the word transgression for “sin.” With its Latin roots, “across” and “...

Every Communion is an embodiment of God’s grace. We hear God’s grace in the words that are spoken. But we also see it, hear it, touch it, and taste it in the bread and wine. God in his kindness, knowi...

Vision is the ability to see God’s presence, to perceive God’s power, to focus on God’s plan In spite of the obstacles….Vision is the ability to see above and beyond the majority. Vision is perception...

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 ...

A contemplative politics entails a two-part movement, one that parallels Thoreau’s injunction to be wary of trivia and devoted to eternal truths. The first involves an askesis, a kind of self-discipli...

The problem sincere Christians have with God often comes down to a wrong understanding of what this life is meant to provide. We naturally and wrongly assume we’re here to experience something God has...

Sometimes, of course, the sense of God with us becomes much more distinct. My oldest brother, J. I. Willard, served for over thirty years as a minister under the blessing of God. But his entry into th...

After finishing a major project, have you ever stood back, taken in what you have accomplished, and said to yourself, “That’s pretty good”? I’ll admit that I have on numerous occasions, especially aft...

Sadly, many of us live this way every day even though God has designed the world in which we live to be a gloryscope. What does this term mean? Just as a telescope points you to the stars and magnifie...

I absolutely love Marvel movies. I’m talking about Thor, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Black Widow, Guardians of the Galaxy. All of them. In Ragnarok , Thor, the Norse god, played by the incredibly good-...

Have you ever heard of a Stradivarius violin? It’s the gold standard of violins—instantly recognizable and famously expensive. These aren’t $29.95 instruments. One sold for $1 million, another for $4 ...

King George V of Britain, who was king during the tumultuous years of World War I, shared a New Year’s card with his friends that featured a drawing of an open gate. Below the image, he included thi...