“Prayer, whatever else it may be, is not calling God’s attention to things He’s not aware of, nor is it urging Him to do His duty. No, its rather a conversation in which we speak our minds and God speaks His. We talk and we listen until we get into His mind and He gets […]
The Business of Prayer
The Danger of Christian Idealism
From Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together ‘Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community…
Deliverance beyond our Feeling
Christians are persons who no longer seek their salvation, their deliverance, their justification in themselves, but in Jesus Christ alone. They know that God’s Word in Jesus Christ pronounces them guilty, even when they feel nothing of their own guilt, and that God’s Word in Jesus Christ pronounces them free and righteous even when they […]
Called to Peace
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9 “Jesus’ followers are called to peace. When Jesus called them, they found their peace. Now they are not only to have peace, but they are to make peace. To do this they renounce violence and strife. Those things never help the […]
The Path of Discipleship
The Christian life is always where God freely gives his life to us and we freely give our lives to him in return. It is where we love because we have been loved. It is where we forgive because we have been forgiven. It is where we serve because we have been served. It is […]
The rewards of self-denial
“The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to […]
A Long View
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom […]
Christianity without Discipleship
“Discipleship means adherence to Christ.. An abstract Christology, a doctrinal system, a general religious knowledge on the subject of grace or on the forgiveness of sins, render discipleship superfluous, and in fact they positively exclude any idea of discipleship whatever, and are essentially inimical to the whole conception of following Christ. With an abstract idea it […]