Jesus prayed “as it is in heaven” knowingly. He knew what it is like in heaven and he wanted us to lift our eyes from the ground up to heaven. This world is not all there is. Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite…
Are you interested in doing the will of God? If you are reading this I assume that’s the case. With the words of Elizabeth Elliot “The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God…or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world.” Hence doing the will of God is following Christ. Mary DeMuth helps us to understand better…
Living out faith seems fun and easy when things go well. But what are we supposed to do when things don’t go so well? Still keep going strong? But how is it possible? The trick here is….we are not to lean on our own strength…but on God’s strength. We are not to thrive on our own…but to let God empower us. Then it’s not about good times or tough times. It’s about kingdom living. It’s about Christ living in us….
I think we all grave authentic living, being true to ourselves. We want to forget faking and hiding behind masks. But do we dare to do so? Do we dare to bare our souls to others? Are we finally ready to admit that we are not perfect? Not only to ourselves and people around us but also to God? Like he would not know everything already, right? Like God would want us to be anything else but our true selves….
I’ve always thought that comparison is from the devil. So I smiled wide when I reached the chapter five of Kurt Bubna‘s new book Epic Grace, Chronicles of Recovering Idiot . The chapter is titled “The Curse of Comparison”. My thoughts exactly. “Comparison is a trap because it feeds either the beast of pride or the monster of insecurity”, Kurt writes “Either way, we lose”. We really do lose by comparing ourselves to others or to an unreachable standard. That’s…
Lately I’ve been thinking how our faith could be expressed in love. You know, even the Bible tells us that our faith should be activated through love. How can we do it? Because it’s not so easy. Life is messy and relationships complicated. Our initial response in life, unfortunately, is not often love. So. What to do? How to get from war to love, from angst to alleluia? For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion…
Do you wear glasses regularly or do you need reading glasses? What a blessing it is to have a way to see clearly, isn’t it? Otherwise everything is a bit blurry. Hard to focus, hard to see. That’s exactly the way it is in our spiritual life too. It’s hard to focus, hard to understand what’s what. We need spiritual reading glasses to see clearly. Especially when we read the Bible. Otherwise we miss the wonderful things in it. Let…
Sometimes I wonder why we try so hard to be perfect and blend in. Because perfect is boring. It would be very bland if we all looked alike. It would be very boring if there were not any variety. And not just that. We would also know so much less of God. You will notice that the variety of bodies is stunning. Just as there are different kinds of seeds, there are different kinds of bodies—humans, animals, birds, fish—each unprecedented…
Do you ever choose in the battle within what’s wrong even when you know what’s right? That’s way too familiar for all of us. Even Paul wrote: I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it. (Romans 7:19-20, NLT) Do…
What do you do when you are crushed? How do you react to devastating news? How do you cope in the midst of uncertainties? Your answer defines your way of living. What we do when a catastrophe strikes makes us or breaks us. One of the most important life skills is to know how to handle hardships. Mary DeMuth points us into the right direction in her new book The Wall Around Your Heart “So in whatever circumstance we walk,…
