What if fasting is a blessing? The early church put fasting and prayer together as ways of seeking God’s guidance. Why don’t we? So they commissioned them. In that circle of intensity and obedience, of fasting and praying, they laid hands on their heads and sent them off. (Acts 13:3, MSG) Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his famous book Cost of Discipleship reminds us of the importance of fasting as a part of discipleship ” If there is no element of asceticism in our…
Sometimes our path of life seems so desert-like. Stone after stone after stone. We might feel that God has abandoned us in the middle of nowhere. We would like that our pathway of life would be something else than it is. Or at least we would like to see where we are going. The picture above reminds me of the fact that, even though, our path seems not to have consistency or any other quality we think a happy path…
It’s no secret I love quotes. There are quotes that capture my heart right away and then there are quotes that puzzle me and I need to let them sit for awhile and ask God to reveal the true meaning of them. This quote of Martin Luther is one of the latter kind. Not that I did not like it from the very beginning. But it left me wondering anyhow: God created the world out of nothing; so as long…
Do you want to grow in wisdom? I think we all do. But do you know how that happens? The Bible gives us a very clear answer: Skilled living gets its start in the Fear-of-God, insight into life from knowing a Holy God. (Proverbs 9:10, MSG) I knew this and I try to live it out every day of my life. But that’s not all, folks! This very morning I read from the Acts how the church throughout Judea, Galilee,…
Hope is not dead. Hope is very much alive. No matter what the world wants you to think. No matter what you are experiencing. No matter what is going on in your life. Sure, we must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope like Martin Luther King, Jr. put it. Hope is not dead. How do I know this? Because the Bible tells so. Hope is not dead because the tomb was empty. Hope is not dead because Jesus…
Have you heard the story of a little child trying to fall asleep in a dark room? The child began to cry and her mother came to assure her that God was with her and she didn’t need to be afraid. But soon the child began to cry again. She told to her mother “Oh, Mommy, I want someone with skin on!” She stated something essential to life and faith. God is real but we also need the body of…
Do you know who God truly is? So often we are told that we should see the world, each other and ourselves with the eyes of God. But are we really seeing God for who he really is? What would change if our view of God would be his view of himself? These were my thoughts last night at a Christian outdoor concert. I felt that God was inviting me to really know him for who he really is. God…
Have you erected barriers against God in your life? Maybe not knowingly. But sometimes we act out of fear without thinking. We might think we are not good enough for blessings and turn away. We might look at our own resources and shy away from service. Hence we don’t dare to dream God-size dreams. Instead we bar God further away from our lives. That’s why we need this quote from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis to wake us up from…
Every time I come across this quote by Jim Elliott I cringe. Does this convict you too? “Unwillingness to accept God’s ‘way of escape’ from temptation frightens me what a rebel yet resides within.” When we pray that God would help us….that God would rescue us from our temptations…..and then do exactly the opposite even when God is providing a way of escape….that is rebellion against God. The God-rebel tunes in to sedition— all ears, eager to sin. He has…
Are you out of sync with yourself? Maybe you are out of touch with God. That’s how it usually is, at least, for me. The root reason why we are not doing well is that we have somehow lost our touch with God. When we leave God out of the picture, our lives become rootless and aimless. We are out of sorts, disoriented and confused. We have been created to live with God. Hence when we loose our touch with…
