You need to know God’s statements and images about who you are, not self-produced positive statements or the lies being told to you by your experience of disgrace. Confronting your distorted self-Image and having your identity reconstructed is not a chore you do but is the fruit of having faith in the person and work […]
Great is Thy Faithfulness
I am the man who has seen affliction under the rod of his wrath; he has driven and brought me into darkness without any light; surely against me he turns his hand again and again the whole day long. He has made my flesh and my skin waste away; he has broken my bones; he […]
Putting It All In
Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus […]
Peace Child Revisited
When I worked for Community Christian Ministries, many years ago a book about foreign missions came out. It was the story about a young family who went to New Guinea to work with head hunters and to share the Gospel with them for the first time. The book was called Peace Child. Well, its been […]
He Will Not Reject Our Call For Help
If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me! Psalm 66:18-20
He Understands Our Suffering
God’s compassion for and solidarity with the oppressed is embodied in Jesus Christ. Christ not only suffered for his people but also suffers with them. “The decent of God to earth is the descent of God to the underside of the knife, plague, or rain of fire.”* He understands our sufferings. His identity was attacked. […]
Fear, Worry, and Anxiety
Introduction: The motto of many twenty-first century Christians seems to be, “Why trust when you can worry?” Some realize it is wrong and try to hide their worry by giving it other titles such as “concerned,” “troubled,” “disturbed,” “interested,” or “bothered.” Regardless of the term used, worry saps your energy, drains your joy, destroys vision, […]
The Opportunity of Conflict
The Bible teaches that we should see conflict neither as an inconvenience nor as an occasion for selfish gain, but rather as an opportunity to demonstrate the presence and power of God….it encourages us to look at conflict as an opportunity to glorify God, to serve others, and to grow to be like Christ (Ken […]
Deep Joy
Maturity in Christ has a certain look. It is characterized by, among other things, deep joy. Deep joy is not, as one dictionary put it, “the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires.” The deep joy that is spoken of in the Bible is more […]