“So, in practice we should constantly be reminding ourselves who we are. We need to learn to talk to ourselves, and ask ourselves questions: ‘Don’t you know? Don’t you know the meaning of conversion and baptism? Don’t you know that you have been united to Christ in his death and resurrection? Don’t you know that […]
It had all been taken and hung on a tree
He was my expert whenever some adventure story required knowledge of planes. He was a man who faced bullets and bombs and storms, who was willing to end his life story in the service of his country, his family, his men. And he came close. But even after two wars, the heaviest burden he ever […]
GAINING TROUGH LOSING
Remember when I said suffering is having what you don’t want and wanting what you don’t have? Subtract your wants and you’ll have contentment. It’s a way of equalizing your desires and circumstances. The apostle Paul was an expert at this arithmetic. For example, he was glad his Philippian friends were sending him gifts. “I […]
wrestle against principalities and powers
We wrestle against principalities and powers. We must take down their foundational strongholds, arguments, and pretensions. Stronghold (ochuromaton) is a military term referring to a fortress or fortified place. The word came to be used metaphorically for anything on which someone relies (Ralph Earle, Word Meanings’ in the New Testament, p. 260). In 2 Samuel […]
The Battle for Our Minds
Life, then, is a battle for our minds. How do we fight the battle? What’s our strategy? When Paul explains that “we do not wage war as the world does” (2 Corinthians 10:3), he uses the word strateia meaning strategy. In Paul’s day strategy was inseparably linked to “generalmanship”—the tactics and war plans of the […]
Bitterness and Simple Faith
She realized her seething hatred was just as heinous, just as nauseating as the sins committed against her. She was no better than her parents. As surely as her father thrust himself on her, she had in her imagination, thrust a knife, with hot fury, into his chest. Glenda could have easily been the one […]
the vanguard
“As men and women grow old together, many people’s natural response is pity. Because the elderly can’t ‘keep up’ anymore, they are thought of as society’s stragglers. Sometimes this comes out in exasperation (on the freeway, when we’re behind somebody in geezer drive), and other times in pity, but the root assumption is the same. […]
The process of sanctification
The process of sanctification largely consists of learning to tell the lusts of your body no(Rom. 8:13-14)— Douglas Wilson
one or the other of these destinations
“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship or else a horror and a corruption such as […]