Do you feel that you are buried alive? Do you feel that you’re facing a lot of dirt? Do you feel everything is dark around you? It is all right. Don’t be afraid. It might be that you’ve been (re)planted. A seed needs time to grow before it will see the light. The replanted one needs time to grow its roots deep in the new soil. It all happens in quiet invisibility but we might feel terrible growing pains. But…
We all want to live well. Just too often we mess up things and forget how to live blessed in God’s way. Instead of praying we worry. And by worrying we forget the most important thing of life: our relationship with God. Too often we want something our way so badly that we forget to see what’s happening around us. Our fists are so tightly closed that we receive nothing God tries to give us. “Cursed is the strong one…
What can we learn from the temptations of Jesus? Or are they inapplicable in today’s world? But it is not just about big temptations, it’s about our daily choices. It’s about putting God first in everything. My thoughts on Matthew 4: 1-11 were inspired by Eugene H. Peterson’s sermon notes found in Conversations – the Message with its translator. The core of the temptations is to put something else first in our lives and God second. The things can be…
One of the important decisions in life is to choose how we frame our life. Because our focus leads us to choose the elements that will define and refine us. Do we frame the troubles and disastrous elements of our lives? Or do we frame the grace of God and joys of the Lord? The choice is ours. Do we want the troubles and hardships to define us? Or do we let God define us? Living in grace does not…
Are you a friend of grace or a stranger to grace? I don’t know anything more liberating, more exhilarating and more exuberant than God’s abundant grace. In grace the whole salvation story comes together and starts to bloom. Grace is so wonderful, amazing, powerful, wild but gentle that it tames me over and over again. It embraces me and woes me for God time after time. It surprises me, it encourages me, it corrects me, it renews me, it treats…
Are you afraid or anxious about future? Many of us are but there is no need to. Because our future is in God’s hands. Like William Carey has said “The future is as bright as the promises of God”. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for. (Jer. 29:11, MSG) That sounds too easy for some people. They want to…
The LORD is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works. (Psalm 145:17,KJV) God is holy. What does it mean? Holy in Hebrew, qadosh, literally means “to be set apart”. So God is something else! God is distinct from anything and everything. God is totally different from us. God is holy! “I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work.” God’s Decree. “For as the sky soars high above earth,…
