God has been speaking to me lately about the importance of community. It is quite uncanny sometimes how God gets the same message to you over and over again until you take notice. On Monday I blogged about how the only way to be fully alive is to live openheartedly and in community. Today Kurt Bubna reminds us in his new book Epic Grace, Chronicles of a Recovering Idiot that we are not meant to live alone, how we need…
There are good reasons why you are you. God made you unique and he wants you to be true to your real self. Don’t try to be someone else, that’s not who God made you to be. Sometimes we even forget who we really are. It might not be intentional, some circumstances just have pushed our inner self to retreat. Then we need to ask God to show us who we really are, whom God made us to be. I…
What makes you yield into temptation? If we know this, we are more likely not to yield into temptation. Because then we know for what to pray. And that’s the key to living well. When we invite God into our lives, we are empowered to victorious living. That’s why the chapter ten of Mary DeMuth‘s new book The Wall Around Your Heart concentrates on this very important matter. Mary gives us a new way to look at temptations. She writes…
Why should I pray? Does it really make any difference? God knows everything anyway, you might think. But prayer has been part of Christianity from the beginning. Jesus prayed and he taught us to pray. The Bible is also full of exhortation of prayer. The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. (1 Timothy 2:1, MSG) Prayer seems to be important. I personally vouch for it. I could not…
We all know people that either drains us of energy or drives us other wise nuts. How are we supposed to deal with these very draining persons? Especially as Christians? I’d rather not deal with them at all. But that’s not a very constructive attitude, is it? Certainly not very Christian anyway. What would Jesus say? “You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to…
Forgiveness is hard. Living forgiveness is ever harder. But we don’t have much choice if we want to have tender hearts and live fully. And the Bible is pretty adamant about forgiving too. This is what Jesus told us: “Be alert. If you see your friend going wrong, correct him. If he responds, forgive him. Even if it’s personal against you and repeated seven times through the day, and seven times he says, ‘I’m sorry, I won’t do it again,’…
What matters in faith journey is what we do when we fall short. Do we deny our shortcomings and start pretending to be what we are not? Or do we run to Jesus? Why is this so important? Because if we keep from admitting that we are sinners, we harden our hearts. Blessedly this is not the end of the story. God can change our hearts, we just need to ask God for forgive our sins. And I will give…
The writing prompt today from Five Minutes Friday was ‘together’. My immediate association was Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s wonderful but challenging book Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community. Bonhoeffer teaches us how to be church together, how to live out faith the original way. Faith is not just an individual affair, no matter how much we would like to be independent. Faith is not just a communal affair, no matter how much we would like to keep it social….
Are you trying to be holier than Jesus? A shocking question, isn’t it? But – Lord, have mercy – unfortunately a valid one. With the words of Brennan Manning “Christians have an unfortunate tendency to be preoccupied with the trivial”. When we occupy our time with being just right with every little trivial thing, we are trying to be holier than Jesus. But that is never possible. And Jesus did not have a condemning attitude. He oozed love and grace….
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…
