Are you a good manager of your time and money? Is your life in good order? Do you have what it takes to navigate wholesomely your life journey? Or do you need help? Time for evaluation: “Take a good, hard look at your life. Think it over. You have spent a lot of money, but you haven’t much to show for it. You keep filling your plates, but you never get filled up. You keep drinking and drinking and drinking,…
What matters in faith journey is what we do when we fall short. Do we deny our shortcomings and start pretending to be what we are not? Or do we run to Jesus? Why is this so important? Because if we keep from admitting that we are sinners, we harden our hearts. Blessedly this is not the end of the story. God can change our hearts, we just need to ask God for forgive our sins. And I will give…
The writing prompt today from Five Minutes Friday was ‘together’. My immediate association was Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s wonderful but challenging book Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Faith in Community. Bonhoeffer teaches us how to be church together, how to live out faith the original way. Faith is not just an individual affair, no matter how much we would like to be independent. Faith is not just a communal affair, no matter how much we would like to keep it social….
Do you need healing balm? Lucky you, there’s plenty of it available. It’s called grace. It is meant for all people. And there are no other qualifications than sinfulness. Hence, I think, we all qualify. There’s no one without sin. Also none of us have a monopoly on grace. We are all just happy receivers and meant to pass it on with love. Because we all need it. One of the reasons why I love Kurt Bubna‘s new book is…
Do you pray daily? Or do you save it for special occasions? Jesus taught us to ask for daily bread. He told us to ask daily for anything we need, nothing more, nothing less. God is our heavenly father who wants to take care of our needs and sustain us to victorious living. (But realize that Jesus advised us to ask for our needs not wants.) Give us today the food we need. (Matthew 6:11, NLT) Mary DeMuth wants us…
How to build our lives on God? That’s the question. By following the example of Christ is the quick answer. But let’s try to find some blueprints for building our lives on God. The sixth chapter of the letter to Romans give us some advice. For by the death He died, He died to sin [ending His relation to it] once for all; and the life that He lives, He is living to God [in unbroken fellowship with Him]. (Romans…
Are you broken? What do you think? Could there be any beauty in brokenness? Yes, there can be. Especially if we surrender all the pieces to God. He is ready to create something new out of the messes of our lives. We are confident that God is able to orchestrate everything to work toward something good and beautiful when we love Him and accept His invitation to live according to His plan. (Romans 8:28, VOICE) Kurt Bubna in his new…
Jesus prayed “as it is in heaven” knowingly. He knew what it is like in heaven and he wanted us to lift our eyes from the ground up to heaven. This world is not all there is. Compared to what’s coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we’re tired of it! We’ve been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite…
Do you know it is possible to hope even when there is no hope? I was stunned by this discovery as I was once again reading the fourth chapter of the letter to Romans. That’s where Paul reminds us of Abraham as an example of faith. How Abraham did not focus on his impotence but on God’s competence. Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping (NLT). Hoping against hope, he believed (NRSV). For Abraham, human reason…
Are you trying to be holier than Jesus? A shocking question, isn’t it? But – Lord, have mercy – unfortunately a valid one. With the words of Brennan Manning “Christians have an unfortunate tendency to be preoccupied with the trivial”. When we occupy our time with being just right with every little trivial thing, we are trying to be holier than Jesus. But that is never possible. And Jesus did not have a condemning attitude. He oozed love and grace….
