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We groan and cry out in this painful life experience together.
Who can stand before this cosmically-sized love without being completely transformed?
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 idea of burning in Hell for eternity is utterly inconsistent with a God that we are told looks exactly like Jesus.
We are not being saved from something, but saved into something.
If death is the end toward which all life is moving... then why does anything in our lives matter at all? Why ascribe any purpose to it whatsoever? It is all death in the end anyway.
Sometimes we need the desert to find our hearts and souls... and to remember who we are and what our purpose is. And no matter the endless circles and varied pathways we take in this desert life, the point at which they all converge is at the cross. For it is when we come to the cross that we choose to no longer go our own way.
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.
There are so many positions, angles, self-interested ideologies, and half-truths surrounding us that we are not sure what truth is anymore.
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?
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 Incarnation…the word becoming flesh…the logos becoming flesh…the Good News of Great Joy is not on the defensive. It is on the offensive march destroying every stronghold and every work of Satan through the word, the logos, becoming flesh in Jesus Christ and through the logos becoming flesh in our own lives.
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?