“O God, I have tasted Your goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the triune God, I want to want You; I long to be filled with longing; I [...]
Rev. 3:15 ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot! 16 So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth! ________________________________________ “As I see it, a lukewarm Christian is an oxymoron; there’s not [...]
Before too much time passes from this past Saturday evening I thought I would raise a few questions for us to ponder as we move forward. At what point during our sharing did you feel most engaged? What was happening at that point? Was it something someone said or did? Of those who shared, [...]
“When we play god in our lives, [our union with God is lost] (see Col. 3:3). We become autonomous, self-referenced (self-centered) being who have abandoned the center of our true identity in God. We objectify or identify our self apart from God.” (M. Robert Mulholland, The Deeper Journey, p. 28) I call it Christian atheism. [...]
Last night, chatting with the middle schoolers, I decided to simply focus on James 4:13-17. We all agreed that the topic was one none of us wanted to actually discuss. Jared was pretty sure he never thinks about dying and both Jille and Katie agreed that was not very interesting. And since tonight’s subject was [...]
“I want more. Please!” The whole room gasps as Oliver Twist timidly walks to the font of the room and asks for more. All eyes are on him. Hopeful, angry, cynical, confused, shocked. Each hiding his (or her) own secret desire. Quite frankly, I don’t remember much else from that scene. I was not much [...]
My life’s work is supposed to be about people. Like a pastor, I enter people’s lives for a time noticing the contours of their soul, the formation or deformation of Christ within. Somewhere in there I ask questions and make observations eventually challenging and hopefully disrupting their beliefs about God and what He is about [...]
Christianity has to be disappointing, precisely because it is not a mechanism for accomplishing all our human ambitions and aspirations; it is a mechanism for subjecting all things to the will of God. Simon Tugwell
“The believer can only perfect his faith on the ocean of nihilism, temptation and doubt; he has been assigned the ocean of uncertainty as the only possible site for his faith.” Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity
The email arrived and I was immediately captivated by what I saw. Clicking on the link to view the video, my kids wanted to see what was so exciting. Within a minute both exclaimed, “I want one!” So did I. We don’t see many commercials in our home because we don’t watch TV. As a [...]
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