Are you feeling small or fenced in? Maybe your perspective is off kilter. When we are focused on ourselves, our lives gets smaller and smaller. But when we open our eyes to help others, our lives get larger and larger. The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller. (Proverbs 11:24, MSG) And when we focus our eyes on God, our lives are getting even more spacious. In the Hebrew language…
The Bible is a huge gift for us. It proclaims the good news of Jesus Christ, of course. But it also equips saints and advices disciples. It keeps us focused on God and when our life focus is God, our life is balanced and blessed. Reading the Bible is so essential to a life of a believer that we really can’t live without it. Or at least stay spiritually alive without it. Today I want to share the beauty of…
Once I overheard a discussion between two successful young professionals on a train. It sounded like they had graduated together from a graduate school a while back with big dreams. And they had gone and achieved them all right. A good job. A beautiful wife. Wonderful kids. A comfortable house. A fast car. Extensive travels. Yet they were asking: Is this all there is? We think we can find happiness on our own. We think we know how to find…
Robust peace might sound a bit odd first. That’s because we’ve learned to think of peace as of lack of something. Peace is a lack of hurry or lack of pestering people. The peace the world ever is able to give is this kind of peace: a removal from busyness or a subtraction of something from our lives. But this kind of peace is not lasting and it diminishes our lives. This kind of peace is not robust peace. This…
What’s the big deal of the Holy Spirit? Why do we need the Holy Ghost? Why should we be excited about the Spirit of God? I’ve collected here my big five reasons why the Holy Spirit is an essential part of spiritual life. 1) The Holy Spirit is a person. For real. The Holy Spirit is not just an abstract thought or impersonal wind. The Holy Spirit is a person who hears, speaks, feels and thinks. The Holy Spirit loves,…
I’ve always thought that life with God is life in colors and life without God is life in black and white. Many people insist that life in black and white is cool. And it might appear so but once you’ve experience life in color you would never go back into living God-colorless life. If you ever have watched TV in black and white, you have an idea how huge the difference is. I have tried to find ways how to…
Lent is a wonderful time to really examine where we are in our walk with God. Not to condemn ourselves but to help ourselves to be where we could be. Because it is our own loss if we are not enjoying a truly intimate relationship with God. It is our loss if we are not close to Jesus. It is our loss if we are not filled with the Holy Spirit. On the road someone asked if he could go…
The elements of a great life are not what people usually think. Neither a designer hand bag nor the latest technological gadget will bring happiness. And finding a spouse or having a child are not necessary elements of a great life, either. What then? The main element of a great life is God. Christ is the cornerstone of a great life. A great life is built by the Holy Spirit. Any life can be a great life if it’s lived…
Disappointments are part of life. There will always be some sort of disappointments along the way. If we expect no hardships we will always be disappointed and might even become bitter. The trick here is to learn what to do with disappointments. Do we let the disappointments drag us away from God? Or do we give thanks even in the midst of hardships? Sure, it is hard. But when we praise God when we don’t feel like it, we are…
Black Friday is the craziest shopping day in the U.S.A. But no matter how many hours people spend shopping, the best deal ever can’t be bought. Because it is free yet so precious. It was shed and given on Good Friday almost 2000 years ago. It is valid every day until the end of the world. By dying on the cross for our sake Jesus gave us the best deal ever: we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus….
