Don’t you ever wish you’d receive every morning a fax from heaven telling you what you need to accomplish that particular day? That thought is a bit tempting when life is chaotic. But if we think of it a bit further we realize that would be terribly boring. Even if we feel that life is out of control, we can rest assured on these facts: A) God has promised to guide us. I will instruct you and teach you about…
Would you like to dance in grace? Or is that too wild? Would you rather sit out? Or is that too tame? “To what will I compare this generation? It is like a child sitting in the marketplaces calling out to others, ‘We played the flute for you and you didn’t dance. We sang a funeral song and you didn’t mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ Yet the Human One came…
How do you define a full life? Is it about success, happiness, wealth? Or something different all together? A full life in Jesus gives us a few surprises. God’s blessings are not material ones or self-centered happiness in general. God wants to give us a full life even in parched places. But it doesn’t happen without change. When we come to Jesus, the old life needs to go. Because God desires holiness. God desires justice. God desires love. Just as…
Do you need grace? Don’t worry! There’s plenty available for repenting sinners. Actually, as much as you need. As much as anybody needs. All because of Jesus! How do we know this? The Bible tells us so. Let’s look at the parable of the workers in the vineyard in Matthew 20 (CEB). Jesus explains: “The kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. After he agreed with the…
Getting to know God takes a lifetime. But the journey is wonderful. How to go about it? By knocking, asking, and seeking. They are ways to get to know God. How do we then knock, ask, and seek? Let’s find out. The important thing to know is that we all do fail in our pursuit of God once in a while. But the secret is persistence. When we consistently keep on knocking (entering into the presence of God), seeking (cultivating…
Beware in your prayer, above everything, of limiting God, not only by unbelief, but by fancying that you know what he can do. ~Andrew Murray The faith exercised in prayer is faith in the God who sovereignly accomplishes His will. When we pray, our faith recognizes, explicitly or implicitly, the overruling providential purposes of God. We may at times be given insight into that will, enabling us to pray with absolute confidence in God’s plan to answer as we ask….
Are you feeling down? Is your soul singing unexpected blues? Are you weary, burned-out, at the end of your rope? Don’t worry. There are loads of fresh hope reserved just for you. You might not believe it right now. But bare with me. Do you remember how Jesus, in his sermon on the mount, calls people happy or blessed who are hopeless? Why on earth would he do that? Read it yourself: “Happy are people who are hopeless, because the…
Our lives gets so crazy-buzy that if we are not 100% certain where our True North is we get lost in the jungles of life. We don’t mean to get lost but it just happens if we don’t reset our spiritual compass daily. This is not a matter to take lightly. Our well-being, and even our future, depends on what we choose. Today. “So now, revere the Lord. Serve him honestly and faithfully. Put aside the gods that your ancestors…
I do admit it right away: The resurrection of Jesus Christ sounds crazy. It’s absolutely foolish for our rational minds. It is hard to fathom that God the Father raised God the Son from the dead. But God the Spirit awakens us to believe. Christ died for our sins in line with the scriptures, he was buried, and he rose on the third day in line with the scriptures. (1 Cor. 15:3-4, CEB) The same way that salvation is God’s…
Our pilgrimage to God is a marathon. Hence it’s not about speed but about endurance. It’s as much about taking care of our faith along the way as learning to praise God in the midst of anything and everything. Our marathon will be finished the same way it was started: By taking steps of faith in hope. We were saved in hope. If we see what we hope for, that isn’t hope. Who hopes for what they already see? But…
