Recent Posts

The Central Message

Grace, forgiveness and mercy are the real central message of God, the core gift and offering of Jesus Christ to the world. They are the key difference between Christianity and every other system of belief. The gospel is truly good and happy news. It is not necessary or even possible to be forgiven once in […]

Why does Christianity Obsess over Guilt and Forgiveness?

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 […]

The Scandal of Grace

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 […]

Foreword

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 […]

Praise in the Wilderness

  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 […]

Grace for the Holocaust Victim

  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 […]

The Church as a Gift Culture

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 […]

Gratitude is a profound and sophisticated act…

“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 […]