The Sacrifice of the Incarnation
He “existed in the form of God.” This phrase speaks of a reality that was present before time began. Before the creation of the universe. Bef...
Risking Prayer
Remade in the Image of Jesus
Reclaiming Hope: Why We All Need Mercy, Justice, and Hope
What does it mean to live as a people who believe in God’s mercy and justice, and that they actually make a difference in this world? In our li...
Reading Scripture: What Every Christian Needs to Know
Outrageous Compassion
He began with a stunningly wry self-introduction. He let us know that he has more than a dozen wives. Pausing for effect, he looked around the ro...
Origin Story: Following Jesus Back to the Beginning
My 22-year-old son’s faith doesn’t look like mine—and that’s fine. Colin has arrived at his own faith for his own good reasons. His faith...
One of Us – Why Jesus Came
The Higher Power, the Word, came to us in time and space two thousand years ago on that very first Christmas and began communicating with us thro...
My Soul in Silence – Learning How to Pray
Knocking on Heaven’s Door
Most of us wrestle with prayer, especially when they seem to go unanswered. We offer the following pages to help you walk through the sometimes d...
Missing the Mission: Disciples in an Age of Abundance
By asking what the church can do for us, we treat church like a club membership, and we miss the mission God has given us. Our interaction with t...
Looking for God
I sat across from the psychiatrist simmering in angry disbelief. Just one week earlier he had compassionately and appropriately expressed comfort...
Living Justly, Loving Mercy: A biblical Response to Our Broken World
Justice and mercy can seem like opposing ideas. Justice requires the recompense for wrongs done, the wrongdoer to “pay the price” or make res...
Living in Love – How the Trinity Changes Everything
We’re used to thinking about the Trinity as an intellectual problem, theologian Michael Reeves suggests in his insightful book Delighting in th...
Live Free: A Fresh Look at the Fruit of the Spirit
Paul’s imagery of the fruit of the Spirit describes Christian maturity with a clarity and vividness that makes us want to harvest those sweet j...
Leviticus Is the Key to Hebrews
We struggle to understand their present-day value to our Christian living. The easiest (and most common) solution is to chuck it all into a box l...
Job and the God Who Would Not be Chained
But the true value of the high-poetry in Job lies in the message it carries about the character of the God we serve—a God who refuses to be cha...
Jesus or Herod?: The Choice of the Magi
But once the new year rolls around, the Christmas trees end up brown and waiting for the garbage truck and the snow transforms from magical into ...
The Promised King: Jesus and the Kingdom of God
It’s a significant shift. Instead of receiving Jesus as the promised messiah, the leadership of the Jewish people condemn him as an agent of th...
It's Not Fair - Trusting God When Life Doesn't Make Sense
We are often tempted by our circumstances to agree with the cynic: “No good deed goes unpunished.” In reflective moments, we may find ourselv...
In the Beginning: God and Creation in Genesis
How do we honor the truthfulness of the Genesis account of creation while also acknowledging the controversy over what geology, biology, and phys...
I Am the Way: The Amazing Claims of Jesus
When you ask people today who they think Jesus was, their responses usually aren’t as outlandish as the characters in Talladega Nights, but the...
How God Loves Us
Eventually, it was the football itself that threw in the towel, and it parted neatly in the middle. One half remained clenched in the Rottweiler...
Going the Distance – Spiritual Disciplines
Understanding the comparison between running a race and our spiritual journey can provide insight into how we are designed spiritually.
