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All you have to do is walk outside and take a deep breath and accept the invitation.
For the words we use can be powerful weapons that wound, kill, and destroy, or instruments of blessing, healing, and life.
I can't overstate how important it is for each of us to have people in our lives that we allow to speak truth to us.
Fear has absolutely no room in the life of a person consumed by the complete and perfect love of God.
We will not take part in continuing the endless cycle of death and destruction. Not with what we think. Not with what we say. Not with what we do.
We marry as a celebration, as a signpost, of how God takes two beautiful and unique individuals and brings them gloriously together as one.
If we aren’t living like Christ in the present, when times are relatively good, then we will never live like Christ when things get difficult.
One Sunday we showed up at our rented church building. Someone had spray painted a Nazi swastika on the front of the building.
I know who I am today and I know what role I play in this life because of my mother.
Father we repent and ask for forgiveness, for we know that Jesus did not spend his time isolating and targeting special “sin groups” or trying to defend his positions through arguing and debating.
"This my body, given for you" is not simply a statement reminding us of what Jesus did, but a declaration of what his Body (the Church) will continue to do.
We live in a culture that does not stop, that does not rest, that does not breathe, and does not understand our desperate need for sacred space.
If we are God's ambassadors then we can't give up on even the most hard headed, hard hearted, stubborn mule of a person.
There is a beautiful word, an elegant descriptor, that has been maligned, tarnished, lampooned, distorted, and completely misunderstood.
Spiritual transformation is a process. It is a daily walk of letting go and receiving, of dying and coming to life, of being refined into something new.
If the Church is to be the embodiment of new creation, a sign post of God’s present reign in our lives, who will nurture and guide us along the way?
We must become people of the bottom; people who are below; people who are last; people who are in the back; people who are the least.
Our awe of the cosmic Christ has been replaced by a very casual “Jesus is my bro” attitude.
Our communities are in desperate need of people who love each other and seek out Truth in love and who can hear it without egos and attitudes.
The great blessing of faith I received from my father was greater than the very foundations of the earth.
There are so many positions, angles, self-interested ideologies, and half-truths surrounding us that we are not sure what truth is anymore.
I can courageously face another day, another week, another year because I have a family ready to receive me and shower me with love and acceptance.
The central purpose, the grand narrative, the over-arching achievement of God is to bring heaven and earth back together as one.
You are telling me that a disembodied, spiritual heaven is not the end? I am not sure that is something I can believe.
Our future hope does not involve us as disembodied spirits floating around in the sky.
God is not giving up on the creation that was called “good” from the very beginning.
We have erroneously viewed the Kingdom of Heaven as a disembodied future existence and destination for Christians.
What if the Biblical narrative paints a very different picture of our future hope than the one many Christians have come to believe?
Each of you have had a part in Caroline’s life, molding her and shaping her into the person she is.
Real thanksgiving is saying right now and right now and right now, “This is the very best life can offer and I want to fully embrace it.”
The truth of God that cuts through every liberal and conservative position is God's profound love of all life.
Not only can I not kill my enemy or have someone do it on my behalf or with my support, I can not even hate my enemy, or avenge the wrong he has done to me.
Can you imagine America loving our enemies rather than engaging in conflict with them? Me either.
My cynicism and skepticism kept me from believing that God would, or could, actually speak in a way that a person today would really hear God.
Have you ever felt utterly alone and wished that there was someone else who would just recognize you, say a word to you, or make you feel welcomed?
The truth is that I was afraid that they might perceive me as a salesman or as having some sort of an agenda, even though neither of those are true of me.
Why are we so afraid of extending love and grace to those with whom we disagree?
There can be no hierarchy of bad behavior or worthiness because it is not about the action but about the position.
When we deprive others the opportunity to serve us, we deprive them of the profound joy of serving Christ.
“Oh my goodness. I thought you were some homeless guy and I wasn’t even going to pay attention to you.”
"You will be the servant and I will be the master," my oldest daughter declared to my youngest daughter as they played together the day before Christmas.
We have a tendency toward prolonging or avoiding pain because we believe it is too painful to deal with, but by avoiding it we prolong the inevitable.
Our time would be better spent discussing how to demonstrate a greater love to the Muslims or how we can better serve them with our actions.
The sacrificial way of Jesus has been co-opted by the self-serving, consumer driven interests of cultural America.
When did we get so thin-skinned and so easily offended by everything that people say or do to us as Christians?
The Christian ought not have allegiance to or affinity toward any ideological, political, or governmental system of the world.
The Kingdom of God is the full-on reign of God in the hearts and minds of those who believe in the way, life, and teachings of Jesus.
When a loved-one in your life passes unexpectedly, everything else in the world seems to completely stop and to have very little significance.
Every single time we take the humble and submissive way of Christ, it may look like defeat for you as an individual.
In solitude and silence we metaphorically come out from behind the bushes and trees and finally stand naked before God…exposed.
There has to be more to our faith in Jesus Christ than just “becoming a Christian in order to get to heaven” in the future. There must be a purpose for which we are called presently…that shapes who we are and what we are to do. Simple answers will not work.
The message and embodiment of the Kingdom of God…in and through Jesus Christ…offered people an alternative of freedom and liberation and an escape from the crushing and oppressive forces at work in the world. The message of the Kingdom of God was that life does not have to be this way.
while the world continues to over-promise and under-deliver an abundant life, we foolishly continue to pursue it with great strength and resolve…but when the one who can be trusted, Jesus, promises to give those who believe in him an abundant life if we follow him…his ways are left untried and viewed as burdensome and enslaving rather than full of blessing and liberation.
When our lives are dictated by our sinful and carnal bodies...we live enslaved and oppressed. But when our bodies are put in subjection to the ways of the Spirit there is freedom, life, and peace.
It is true that it is simple to love those who are lovable, but it is quite a different thing to love those who are unlovable, to love those who don’t deserve to be loved, or to love those who are our enemies.
The truth of the matter is that there is nothing wrong with recognizing the fact that there are times when God does not answer prayer the way that I would like. And sometimes that means the unanswered prayer will make my life hard…sometimes unbearable…but it doesn’t mean that God is not there suffering with me or that God has turned against me and does not love me.
If our understanding of worship has been so twisted and misunderstood in the church, is it possible that our understanding of praise could be just as twisted and misunderstood? Is it possible that we have reduced our praise to a Sunday sing-a-long? Is it possible that our praise has centered on what we get out of it rather than what God is doing through it?
If freedom is of God, would God have us kill to maintain it?
we direct our words in ways that can encourage, heal, and bless or that can crush, kill, and destroy.
Through worship, the Spirit of God breaks out into the world in prayer, in praise, in service putting broken pieces back together.
there is nothing that can fracture, break, scar, wound, devalue, and objectify people more than lust and it's outward manifestation.
Jesus’ words point forward to a time when there will be a restoration of God’s good creation and a marriage with His Bride (the church), where there will be perfect love, unity, and relationships.
If we don't have an overarching understanding of the larger narrative (or 30,000 foot view) of what God is doing in history then we will always continue to operate at the 30 foot view and disagree as to how to view who Jesus was, what he was trying to do, and how we are to be as his followers.
Ideas like loving your enemies, turning the other cheek, walking the extra mile, giving your jacket and your shirt have NEVER made sense from a human perspective.
fasting is the key to spiritual breakthrough. yet the obvious question is, "how can abstaining from food have any effect on my spiritual life?”
Could it be that we appear so good and perfect in our churches that there is no place for the sinner, much less a confession to another brother or sister?
there is profound wisdom in pursuing a life in which one sacrifices everything. only there will one end up with nothing and everything. that is where life is found.
response to a cnn.com article: Americans switching faiths/dropping out  one of the things i have been thinking about lately is how we treat Church as the ends…rather than the means.  when we let our faith, our relationship with God, and even our emotions rise and fall based on “the event” on sunday…we have already taught people that […]
we celebrate our options and choices…and we believe we deserve them.  we are Americans…and we deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  it is ingrained in us…it is in our collective DNA.  the market responds to our wants, needs, and desires.  it is like a vicious cycle.  we demand…the market provides.  we consume…they feed.  […]
i talk to empty people.  i talk to A LOT of empty people.  and i think i should let you know that this isn’t my assessment of people so much as their own introspective admission.  at this point…if you think of yourself as a Christian…you may have already concluded that the empty people i am referring to are not of the […]