Weekly Gospel Meditation
Love and Sacrifice in Our Many-Splendored Kingdom
….and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, And you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.” Revelation 5:9-10 Dr. Irwyn Ince, in his beautiful book, The Beautiful...
When Changing Our Minds Is a Good Thing
Dear Friends, as Lent begins tomorrow, I wrote this meditation about repentance, a little understood and less embraced essential truth of the Christian life. Remember, if you'd like forty (free) printable Bible verses to help you in your preparation for Easter, you...
A Prayer about Holy Sexuality in a Sexually Insane World
This week, the week of Valentine’s, seems like a good time to pray about sexuality in a sexually insane world. Please join me in this prayer of confession and hope, and please share this prayer with others. “This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is...
Getting Unstuck: The True Story of a Well-Loved Woman
Dear Friends, As February begins, we focus on three important stories in the calendar: Black history month, Valentine's Day, and Lent, the beginning of a time to prepare our hearts for Easter. Today, I thought what better way to tie all of these themes together than...
Change of Plans: How God Works by Changing Our Plans
As we come to the end of this month of focus on setting goals and making plans, I want to encourage you that even when things don't go as planned, God is at work redeeming us and his cosmos. Enjoy this excerpt from The Waiting Room: 60 Meditations for Finding Peace...
Christ’s Power for Our Weakness
Dear Friends, as we continue to consider goals and planning, it's also good to recognize the frustrations we may experience in our weakness and how God may be working to restore us. Enjoy this meditation from From Recovery to Restoration: 60 Meditations for Finding...
Resisting Resistance: 3 Ways to Reach Our Goals
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. Ephesians 2:1-2 Have you made plans,...
Best-Laid Plans: What Proverbs Says about Goals and Plans
Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. Proverbs 16:3, NIV “The best laid schemes of mice and men ‘gang aft a-gley.” So goes the line from Robert Burns’ poem from which we get out phrase “the best laid plans of mice and men often go...
Planning to Learn, Live, and Love in Your Story 2021
How do you plan to live your God-given story this year? Happy Early New Year! It’s two days before New Year’s Eve, the day/night when many people make resolutions they will break before sundown on New Year’s Day. I’m not much of a resolution-maker since I’m such a...
How Long? When to Expect the Long-Expected Jesus
When Can We Expect the Long-Expected Jesus? The last few days, a lyric sticks in my head…a long-ago line from a John Denver and the Muppet’s Christmas cassette tape I used to pop in on my way home from the Young Life Christmas tree lot: Christmas is coming, the goose...