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It is always the transformation of the smallest part that leads to the transformation of the whole. 
We groan and cry out in this painful life experience together. 
Either way, you will ultimately face then refiner’s fire.
The problem is that Hell is never once mentioned in the Bible.
When you are confronted with the reality of an undeserved kindness, it can be transformative.
The word wrath isn’t an unloading of God’s fury and rage on the unrepentant.
The judgment of God is simply giving a person what they have freely chosen.
We have only ever been alienated from God in our minds.
I was told that I needed to be saved from my sins so that I wouldn’t go to Hell when I die.
The most misunderstood word in all of Christianity.
These small moments are gifts, if we will receive them and let them teach us.
There are many people who struggle to understand a God who unconditionally and preemptively forgives everyone.
The forgiveness of God is unconditional and preemptive.
Where O Light are you in this darkness?
You may not trust these words now, but there is hope in your pain and suffering.
Joy is an ever-present reality to which we open wide our souls to receive, but it is also a remembering and a longing.
We live in an age in which stimulation and consumption are all too normal in our lives.
All you have to do is walk outside and take a deep breath and accept the invitation.
The Good News of the Kingdom of God is not one of the many things.  It is the thing.
For the words we use can be powerful weapons that wound, kill, and destroy, or instruments of blessing, healing, and life.
In my experience, the only place where the superficial veneer is stripped away, where pretense is obliterated, where cosmetic application fails, and where vulnerability is unmasked and triumphantly exposed... is in the presence of a loving, non-judgmental, other-centered group of trusted friends.
It doesn't matter which side of the political spectrum you are on- This country is not your hope. This political system is not your hope. This government is not your hope.
I know who I am. I know what I signed up for. I know whose life I have chosen to pattern my life after. I know that patterning my life after Jesus comes with a cost.
I do not need any legislation to pronounce the freedom I already have, and will continue to have, despite my changing circumstance or situation.
The homeowner took a stand against every single person who violated the covenants.
The church of the future is around a table- breaking bread and taking the cup together. It is where we move from a personal, individualized faith to a place of shared, relational, and communal faith as a family.
There is no question that we live in an incredibly unique time in history in which there is a strange mass collision of shallowness, superficiality, competing narratives that try to explain our existence, and depersonalization wrought by technology, all accompanied by a growing disdain for spirituality, in general, and religion, in specific, from a hyper-rationalistic culture.
In the barrios, the Church my daughter and I were a part of that day was the light of Christ breaking into darkness.
One Sunday we showed up at our rented church building. Someone had spray painted a Nazi swastika on the front of the building.
We weren’t hired to work the vineyard. We were hired because we know how to work the vineyard.
I asked over 100 of my friends, “What is the Good News and why does it matter?” Of the nearly 30 responses I received, all but one essentially said the same thing, “The Good News is that Jesus died for our sins and those who believe in him will be forgiven.” Is that it?