The Megaphone
You and I need to learn to recognize the invitation of the Spirit when it feels as though our lives are on fire. If we have eyes to see it, we will discern God’s adoring love in our agony, reaching …
Grow
Is God the Object of Our Hope—Or Is It Our Healing?
As we have faced my wife, Elizabeth’s diagnosis, different versions of healing promises have popped up everywhere. We have been given several books that implicitly or explicitly make such claims. I have talked to people who struggle deeply with the …
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3 Questions to Ask When Confronting Conflict in Prayer
To engage in effective spiritual warfare, you need to know your enemy and your authority, but most of all, you need to know how to fight! Baptist pastor John Piper says that “the number one reason why prayer malfunctions in …
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Spiritually Speaking, An Enlarged Heart Is Good
While our family was on a walk, my youngest daughter (then five years old), kept talking about how she had to find somebody “just like daddy” to marry. “I’m going to marry you,” Kelsey said finally, somewhat defiantly. “I’m already …
Four Steps to Start Growing in Patience
I knew a young man who had been a habitual cocaine user. God miraculously delivered him during a revival service, and soon he became enthusiastic for God. He didn’t touch cocaine for an entire year. As the religious high began …
What Samson Taught Me About Church Community
My friend Samson [i] was a profoundly abused little boy, and in 2005, he came to us at Hope Community Church a strong but extremely angry young man. The love of Hope’s believers brought Samson to Jesus—but he landed in …
What It Means (and Doesn’t Mean) to “Wait On the Lord”
But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;they shall mount up with wings like eagles;they shall run and not be weary;they shall walk and not faint.Isaiah 40:31, ESV So much wisdom has already been shared about this, …
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How Do We Connect with One Another In a Way that Allows the Love of Jesus to Heal Us?
The church of Jesus Christ is meant to be the sacred community where every sin-generated wound can be touched by the love of the Healer—through the love of his brothers and sisters. But this healing won’t take place if we …
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Stay Close to Jesus
Without fail, Scripture describes our walk with God—abiding in Jesus’ love—as inseparably linked to passionate desperation. Should we be surprised, then, that over the years, so many enduring voices in the history of Christianity have spoken boldly of their desperate …
To Practice Resurrection in Nature
Saint Francis had a penchant for the glory of the world and God’s presence and movement within it. In a time of upheaval and change in the church, when spirituality had strayed from its dedication to the simplicity of the …