The Spirit of Reconciliation
We were born into this world at enmity with God due to inherent sin. There can be no resolution of the conflict and no…
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Evidence of the New Inner Life
Intimacy with God is the essential characteristic of a healthy Christian life and community. The disciplines measure our will to experience such intimacy. Without…
Defining Intimacy with God
John, the Apostle, proclaimed “God is love!” Many wrongly accept that truth as the definitive and all-inclusive statement on the nature God. It is…
Jesus and the Spiritual Disciplines
Jesus encourages three disciplines in Matthew 6:5-18 – prayer, fasting, and giving. Other disciplines orbit around these primary directives. In each case, He warns…
Examining Spiritual Disciplines
She was all the rage, rated the most desirable woman in her day – Marilyn Monroe. Secretly, she frequented nightclubs on the prowl and…
Let Us Come – Not So Boldly!
We quote quite liberally the passage from Hebrews, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and…
Prayer – Balancing Intimacy and Immanence (Part 2)
In my last blog, I suggested that, first, intimacy and our sense of God’s immanence must not eclipse transcendence. Second, it must not forget…
Prayer – Balancing Intimacy and Immanence (Part 1)
We were made for intimacy with God, and that is the essence, the very heart of prayer. But a detached view of intimacy, one…
Communion with God
Philip Melanchthon, a companion of Luther, noted, “Trouble and perplexity drive me to prayer and prayer drives away perplexity and trouble.” So the first…
Labor Out of Rest
Dutch Sheets says, “We don’t wait well. We’re into microwaving; God, on the other hand, is usually into marinating.”[1] The writer of Hebrews tells…
Prayer as Discipline and Delight
A balanced prayer life must be driven by delight as much as by duty. The greatest motivator is not law, but love! Ultimately, you…
Discerning Prayer!
There is a wonderful old story of a group of blind men who had each found a different part of the same elephant. “What…