To the uninitiated, Christianity’s obsession with sin can seem off-putting. We don’t like to constantly face what is wrong with ourselves, and no one wants to talk about it. We hear about God and love and yet it immediately descends into talk of morals and guilt and forgiveness. The idea of grace is all wrapped […]
Corrie Ten Boom was a Dutch Christian holocaust survivor, imprisoned for sheltering Jews. She and her sister Betsie were imprisoned at a death camp called Ravensbruck. Corrie Ten Boom survived the ordeal; Betsie did not. She tells the story that after one of her talks, a former Ravensbruck guard came up and introduced himself: “”You […]
I remember distinctly the time that the central message of this book was born in me. I was running a failing business and was in the middle of laying off my treasured employees. I owed great sums of money that I had no real hope of obtaining. We were going through marriage difficulties. I was […]
Here is a song I wrote a number of years ago, performed recently live by Betty and me at House of James in Abbotsford B.C. We are submitting it to a radio station contest so I decided to post it here as well. The basic message is that when things are not going so […]
A fellow named Roger Ball posted a comment on Tullian Tchividjian’s blog in response to one of Tullian’s wonderful posts on grace: This is a gross oversimplification. Let’s take a holocaust victim for example. Let’s say that he has serious emotional problems, nightmares etc. Let’s say he also drinks very heavily and struggles everyday […]
photo © 1890 The Library of Congress | more info (via: Wylio) I know I’m supposed to be doing a study through the book of Job, but I keep having these other ideas so I’m going to go with them. I wrote last time about the church as a gift culture. I’m going to […]
“Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, NASB. Life in the universe of grace is closely intertwined with gratitude. It is a gift culture, not a labor culture. If you live in a labor culture, there is not really much […]
We’re going through the book of Luke in my men’s Bible study, and we happened to have arrived at the story of the prodigal son Saturday. Naturally, I noticed new things, as always when you encounter a familiar scripture and pray for fresh insights. This stood out to me on this reading: “Then He […]
“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. And the LORD said to Satan, “From where do you come?” So Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth […]
I’m starting a meditative walk through the book of Job. Here is a man clearly loved by God, respected for his deeds, and yet who suffered terribly and entered into a time of doubt and failure. It is a perfect place to explore the mystery of the nature of the blessing of grace in the […]