Living in grace is liberating and empowering. Grace gets us into the loving presence of God and it validates our existence. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is in relation to God: We are God’s children and we love because God loved us first. I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure…
Do you sometimes wonder whether God is late? Do you sometimes ponder whether his timing is off? It is hard to wait for God’s timing. It might seem God’s timing is off. But we can rest assured God knows what he is doing. When we read the whole Bible we get a better glimpse of what God is doing in the world. Jesus came into the world exactly at the right time. The world was not ready for the Messiah…
What would happen if you took your faith seriously? What if you embraced the fact that you were created for his glory and to do his will and work in this world? Martin Luther has said “Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace.” We are called to put our confidence in God’s grace. We are called to boldly seek God’s will for our lives. We are called to daringly embrace his plan for our lives. We are called…
Don’t you just love how God works? How he gives us a fresh start time after time? How he pulls us out of chaos and shows us the right way to go? But me he caught—reached all the way from sky to sea; he pulled me out Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos, the void in which I was drowning. They hit me when I was down, but God stuck by me. He stood me up on…
Do you have regrets? Or are you carrying bitterness or hurt around? Do you keep your real feelings from God? Do you only bring the good in you before God and deal with the bad on your own? Many of us do just that. We might forget the regrets for the most of the time but they are there. We might hold ourselves accountable and don’t forgive ourselves our own wrong doings. We might have been badly hurt and we…
Prayer is as important as breathing to Christians. We all know -no matter how busy our lives are- we need to find time for prayer. Or maybe especially because our lives are hectic we need more and more prayer. Like Martin Luther has said “the less I pray, the harder it gets. The more I pray, the better it goes”. Well prayed is indeed half done. Without God’s guidance and blessing there is no point to do anything. But when…
Where were you on 9/11? I was a rookie professor in Minnesota. I had just moved across the Atlantic Ocean. All my cupboards were still very empty, I did not yet know many people, and I was still searching for the right church home. So the horrendous news made me feel very vulnerable and lonely. But I was not devastated. Because I knew my life was in God’s hands. I look up to the mountains; does my strength come from…
So you are a Christian, saved by grace through Christ. What now? We have not been left alone to wander through life. God is alive and active! Christ operates through his followers. The Holy Spirit encourages us to live God’s words in our lives. So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front…
You have heard the good news of Easter: Jesus is risen. And you have heard of the general resurrection of the dead in the future. What’s going on between the resurrection of Jesus and the promised resurrection of all? This is no time of zero activity! God is active and at work in us. Christ is resurrecting his children every single day. My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received…
Yesterday we talked about how we all need Christ because we are fallen. These two verses from the letter of Paul to the Colossians sum up the previous post pretty well: For he [God] has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Col.1: 13-14, NIV) Let’s continue to look at what living in this freedom really means to us, how…
