“Discipleship is not a contract in which if we break our part of the agreement He is free to break His; it is a covenant in which He established the conditions and guarantees the results. . . All the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, uneven performers. We are secure not because we […]
Often in my life I have thoughts that while I am deeply passionate about, I have a hard time explaining. As I ponder and share these thoughts, it is often those around me (the many who are much smarter than I) who help me find words for these thoughts. This has been the case recently […]
Mike Breen is an author that I have been enjoying immensely, especially this past month. His book, Covenant and Kingdom is my favorite of all his work. He speaks of these two concepts in a powerful way. Below is a summary of what he has to say: “Covenant is the way in which the […]
One of my professors from my undergraduate program wrote this on the trinity: “We have no realities within creation that can describe such a mysterious communion.” Chris Hall was absolutely correct in this succinct and powerful statement. Its in our human nature to want to understand. The scientific revolution has created an expectation in us […]
When I worked at a church in Indiana, we did a series on the Lord’s Prayer that was really very well done. As a part of that, we were encouraged to re-write the Lord’s Prayer in our own words. Ever since that time I ask my confirmation students to do this every year as they […]
I continue to argue that the world has changed the church and not the other way around. As one of my college professors and mentors, Tony Campolo said ‘the church is the taillight of every social movement.’ The church reflects the world far more than it reflects the kingdom. One example of this is Christian […]
“Everyone should be warned: ‘Give your life utterly to Christ and you will eventually suffer much more than you can now comprehend.’ But there is no way a man can communicate to daring young Christians the amount of suffering they will encounter in one lifetime.” Suffering is one of those realities of life that […]
“We must distinguish between the burden bearing that is right and the burden-bearing that is wrong. We ought never to bear the burden of sin or of doubt but there are burdens places on us by God which He does not intend to lift off, He wants us to roll them back on Him. If […]
“At the sight of human sin, one wonders whether to combat it by force or by humble love. Always decide ‘I will combat it by humble love.’ If you resolve that once for all, you can conquer the whole world. Loving humility is a terrible force: it is the strongest of all things, and there […]
During my time in California for my doctoral work, the professor talked a lot about Galatians 5. The main concepts related to Galatians 5 included trust, righteousness, the Holy Spirit and the notion of adoption. These are four very significant concepts that I continue to unpack as I start to study and wrestle with the […]
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