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…
Did you know that the color red is in the core of Christianity? I was checking out verses including the word red. When I was going through those verses I realized red was indeed in the heart of the Gospel. Let me explain. As Oswald Chambers has said “Sin is not weakness, it is a disease; it is red-handed rebellion against God and the magnitude of that rebellion is expressed by Calvary’s cross”. We all are rebels against God and…
What kind of excuses have you given to God? How do you rationalize your refusal to obey? This week I learned there is something Kurt Bubna, Moses and I have in common when it comes to choosing either the route of obedience or excuses. How about you? Kurt Bubna writes in his new book Epic Grace, Chronicles of Recovering Idiot that he did not want to become a pastor because he was terrified of public speaking, had no desire to…
Do you always want to have the last word in arguments? Why is it so difficult to not to be the one who knows best? Why does it seem to be so harmful to be weak and lowly? Probably because we think it is about us. Because we think we could solve the problems, that we should have power. But it is not about us. And we can’t solve the problems. And we don’t have anything lasting. If we don’t…
Spiritual blindness seems quite an extreme idea. Somehow we are quick to toss away that idea. If we know God, we are not spiritually blind, right? Not so fast. Look again. This is not an either/or matter. We are not either spiritually blind or have a 20/20 vision. We can also be spiritually shortsighted. What to do then? How can we ensure that we are not spiritually shortsighted? First of all we need to remember that it’s not about us…
Are you feeling the effects of Monday? Are you in need of a fresh supply of hope and encouragement? If yes, let’s turn our eyes on God. That’s where our help comes, day after day. God will never let us down. I’m homesick—longing for your salvation; I’m waiting for your word of hope. My eyes grow heavy watching for some sign of your promise; how long must I wait for your comfort? There’s smoke in my eyes—they burn and water,…
Do you blame God for the messiness of your life? Do you think it’s God’s fault that your life is complicated? Do you think it’d be God’s responsibility to keep your life smooth? You are not alone. But you are still mistaken. You see, ways of God are straight. Always. But sin makes our paths unnecessarily crooked. Hence it is not God who complicates our life. What a God! His road stretches straight and smooth. Every God-direction is road-tested. Everyone…
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…
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…
