July is here and it is time to rest. Sometimes it is hard to let go or we might even feel guilty about vacationing. But guess what? Rest is holy. How do I know this? Actually, rest is the first thing in the Bible that God makes holy. See for yourself! By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and…
We need rest because we are not robots. Hence we all need a vacation, some time off. But this does not mean we need to necessarily go anywhere. The key to vacation is to take a leave of absence from routines. Staycation might be even more restful if we are able to break the routines while staying at home. We are not robots, we have a spirit, a soul, and a body. And all these different parts of us need to…
I reserve Sundays for play and worship only. I try to avoid doing anything useful (like doing laundry or mowing the lawn). When you first start doing this, it might feel a bit annoying that you can’t deal with the everyday stuff whenever you want. But when you truly embrace the idea of play and worship only, you start celebrating the fact that you have a whole day set aside for worship and play only. You can plan ahead of…
Spiritual disciplines are nothing more than ways to connect with God in such ways that increase spiritual growth. They are ways that help us to get to know God deeper and deeper. They are ways that get us refocused on God. They are also ways that prepare us for service and mission. The deeper we abide in Christ, the more God can use us in his service. That’s why Christians have used spiritual disciplines from the beginning. Just like Jesus….
Are you well equipped for your faith journey? Do you have enough tools to tend your faith along the way? Is your spiritual arsenal big enough to fight the good fight of faith? Believe or not these are important questions. If you don’t have adequate faith skills, you are in great danger to wander away when storms rage. We need to build a spiritual arsenal in order to have a healthy spiritual life and stand firm no matter what happens…
We all want to learn to live in grace, to embrace the unforced rhythms of grace and to live freely and lightly in Jesus. (Matt.11: 28-30, MSG) Why then we so often run ourselves out of breath? Why then we so often allow ourselves to go without adequate rest? Why then we so often try to live on our own without consulting the Breath of Life? If God really became a man and died on the cross and rose on…
