“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10 NIV) I have a love/hate relationship with this verse. I love the promise it makes and the loving intent of a Savior who would generously offer so much. I hate my intermittent inability to believe it. A scarcity mindset has…
“The basis of world peace is the teaching which runs through almost all the great religions of the world. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Christ, some of the other great Jewish teachers, Buddha, all preached it. Their followers forgot it. What is the trouble between capital and labor, what is the trouble in many of…
I spend a lot of time with teenagers. I have taught middle school and high school for almost six years, and I have experienced the teen years with my own children. And, yes, while my kids and my students do sometimes fulfill the stereotypes assigned to teens, they are more than that. They have deep…
“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” (Proverbs 27:17 NIV) It’s been a while since I have had the opportunity to get into really deep, personal discussion with anyone about spiritual things, my thoughts on life, ways I could grow or change to be more like Jesus. The kinds of relationships in which…
Recently, a pastor I know quoted this Jon Acuff wisdom, which seems pertinent in anticipation of all the upcoming family gatherings this time of year: “We fear that if people truly knew us, they wouldn’t love us, but the truth is if people really knew us, they could truly love us.” For many of us,…
At a prayer chapel on top of a hillside in Redding, California, I sat on the grass overlooking the city just one year after a raging fire swept through, destroying everything in its path. The Carr Fire jumped the Sacramento River, blew through three counties, and took more than a month to contain. Over a…