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Childlike Faith

September 12, 2012

I once served as a counselor for third-grade campers at a Christian camp in the North Carolina mountains. It was an especially hot, dry, Carolina July. On the way to arts and crafts, I overheard one of my campers say thoughtfully to another, “I sure hope it rains soon. My grandmother’s garden needs water.”

Immediately his friend let out a confident war cry and began a primitive rain dance. A third child then chimed in, “Don’t be so silly. God’s not going to make it rain just because of your stupid dance.”

Now defiant, the original “rain wisher” made a grand theological statement: “God can do anything He wants to!”

The first step to a childlike heart is the most important one. You must admit that God can do whatever He wants—and that you can’t. It means [ … ]

Answering the Call

September 11, 2012

For you, the call is literally within your grasp. It’s the place you show up each day and the problems you encounter in the process. Possibly for you, it’s putting a dent in the never- ending cycle of poverty that destroys so many lives, neighborhoods, and nations. Or creatively addressing the malnutrition, poor health, and disease that’s wrecking so many families. Or tutoring, mentoring, and fostering fatherless children. Perhaps the addiction to drugs, alcohol, career advancement, affluence, or pornography is what enslaves and torments your friends the most. What ever it is that’s broken, whatever you see wrong, remember— God’s intention and method of restoration is to use you to bring his redeeming love to the world.
This is the “power of the ought” at work— the way restoration living begins to flood and transform our entire cosmos. [ … ]

The Lover of Our Souls

September 10, 2012

Sometimes I fear we are like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. Throughout the entire story, Rhett Butler tried to win her heart, but Scarlett was smitten by the milquetoast Ashley Wilkes. Finally, as the story comes to a close, Rhett walks away in frustration. “I feel sorry for you, Scarlett,” he declares. “You are throwing away love with both hands and grabbing for that which will never love you.” As I watched the movie, I kept thinking, Doesn’t she see how much Rhett really loves her? He’d move heaven and earth to please her, if she would but let him. Why is she going after someone who would never make her truly happy? And we are Scarlett, ignoring the only one who can make us truly happy and chasing after figments of our imagination…things that will never make [ … ]

The Reality of Grace

September 7, 2012

Grace is a reality, a fact of life. It is by grace that one becomes a Christian, and it is by grace that one lives the Christian life.

Because prior to his conversion Paul persecuted and murdered Christians, he did not consider himself fit to be called an apostle. Yet, grace conquered his feelings. If anyone understood that grace covers our past and equips us for God’s future, it was Paul! Listen to his words: “By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me” (1 Corinthians 5:10).

In Paul’s writing of those God-breathed words, we see that the whole of life is to be lived in the understanding and [ … ]

Grace

September 5, 2012

Now, if it is true that we’re saved by grace, then it’s important to ask ourselves: Can we define it? And if it is true, as I suppose, that no unconverted person can tell me what it is, I think it would be important to you to make sure you can define it.

Think for a moment. Grace is _______. What? Your answer to that question may reveal where you really stand with God.

Did you answer it? Do you know what this marvelous term means?

We may be able to define it some way, but one thing is certain: We can never comprehend it, because it plumbs the profoundest depths of human thought. It scales the dizziest heights of divine revelation. And though we may get a hold of a little corner of it, we can never fully comprehend [ … ]

Greater with Jesus

September 4, 2012

By leaving and then sending His Spirit to dwell inside His followers—ordinary people like you and me—Jesus released a greater power for us to do extraordinary things on an extraordinary scale. The kinds of things the early church saw and did. The kinds of things He still wants to do today through us.

Jesus isn’t calling us to be greater than He is.

He’s calling us to be greater with Him through His Spirit within us.

Excerpted from Greater by Steven Furtick

Daily Reflection:
What is Jesus calling you to do with Him?

The Meaning of Guilt

September 3, 2012

Guilt says, “I owe you.” Guilt is the result of having done something we perceived as wrong. Every wrong we do can be restated as an act of theft, as we’ll see in a moment. If I steal from you, I owe you. So the message from a heart laden with guilt is, “I owe!”

For example, consider the man who runs off with another woman and abandons his family. Without realizing it at the time, he has stolen something from every member of his family. He has stolen his wife’s first marriage; he has robbed her of her future, her financial security, her reputation as a wife. From his children’s perspective this man has stolen their father and all that a father means to the home. He has robbed them of Christmas, traditions, emotional and financial security, [ … ]

Jesus’ Choice

August 31, 2012

He could have come back when crosses were out of style.

But his heart wouldn’t let him. If there was hesitation on the part of his humanity, it was overcome by the compassion of his divinity. His divinity heard the voices. His divinity heard the hopeless cries of the poor, the bitter accusations of the abandoned, the dangling despair of those who are trying to save themselves.

And his divinity saw the faces. Some wrinkled. Some weeping. Some hidden behind veils. Some obscured by fear. Some earnest with searching. Some blank with boredom. From the face of Adam to the face of the infant born somewhere in the world as you read these words, he saw them all.

And you can be sure of one thing. Among the voices that found their way into that carpentry shop in Nazareth [ … ]

Understanding God’s Love

August 30, 2012

God created us to give and receive love, not just with each other but with Him as well. He’s our loving Father, and in many ways He constantly tells us, “You are My child. I was delighted when you were born, and I love you still.” God loves hearing that we love Him, but how His heart must jump when He knows that we really get it, that we understand, receive, and delight in His love.

When we understand the Father-love of God, we naturally desire to spend time talking with Him. Prayer is no longer a duty; it becomes a delight! We recognize God not as an unapproachable entity, but as the loving Father who invites us to come straight to Him and tell Him what our day was like, what we’ll face tomorrow, and how we feel about [ … ]

Finding Peace

August 29, 2012

We all long for an inner calm—especially when we’re in the valleys of life. We all want, pray for, and pursue peace. At the point of desperation, some people pursue peace by numbing their pain with alcohol, drugs, sex, food, success… The list is endless. Remember the old country song that says we are looking for love in all the wrong places and in too many faces? The same can be said about peace.

Some people tend to believe that peace is simply the absence of problems, valleys, and trials. Not so! Peace is a calm confidence that the Lord of the mountains is still on the throne—no matter how deep the valley may be. Peace recognizes Jesus walking on the water as He calms the crashing waves and stills the howling winds in your life. Trials become opportunities [ … ]