The Embrace of the Self-Giving Christ by Kim Reisman
Kim Reisman
May 8, 2017
Christ’s self-giving love overcomes human hatred while at the same time creating space within Christ to receive estranged humanity.
Christ’s self-giving love overcomes human hatred while at the same time creating space within Christ to receive estranged humanity.
A few days ago I visited a mercy ministry in another town as part of our preparation and planning for building a capacity-building ministry in our community. Talking with the director of the ministry I visited, I was reminded again of just how many beautiful souls there are in the world. I keep running into people who care deeply about
“The writer who contends we lost our soul when we adopted the mission statement inisists that, “love God, love neighbor” would be a better mission statement from a “Wesleyan” perspective. Would you not think that love for our neighbor compels us to share Christ with them, that doing justice and loving mercy is for the transformation of the world and
Creation is never an extra in Christian faith; it is foundational. All else moves outward from there.
“As Christians, we have a great deal to say about the meaning of suffering.”
Understanding turns sadness into joy.
Since I can remember, I’ve had a pastor’s heart. Often times when I hear someone talk badly about the Church, I get offended in the way a sibling gets offended when someone is talking about her sister—“Hey, don’t talk about my sister like that!” I ache to see the Church live into the fullness of holiness in which she has
Let your eyes wander to places you’ve never heard of, or cities you can’t pronounce. Ask God to be at work in those places. When you’ve prayed around the world, turn the globe so you can see your home region. Picture a map being zoomed in around your house or flat, and pray for God to be at work in
Before social media and the prevalence of pop culture, it was a lot easier to enforce whatever ideologies you wanted your child to follow. But as globalization increased, this changed. Young people became increasingly exposed to the rest of the world. Today, their ideologies and values no longer find a basis in what their priest or imam preaches but in
Don’t ask God to guide your footsteps if you’re not willing to move your feet.
There I was, punching couch cushions, trying to keep my sudden, violent shouts muted so I wouldn’t wake up the kids. If you watched the University of Kentucky vs. Notre Dame college basketball game Saturday night, you know what I’m talking about: a nail-biter, an epic battle. “This is why we love sports,” a headline blazed the following morning. In
It has been said that the dinner table—that place where we eat, talk, and share life together with others—is an extension of the Eucharist.
The text for this sermon is Mark 2:13-22 Many of us have suffered a punch-the-clock kind of job. This is the kind of job that you see as a stepping stone, and you hope there may be a day when you do not have to live through its drudgery. Perhaps even now you currently yearn for the other side of
For Wesley, the purpose of fasting was not to lose weight or to be more physically healthy. Wesley believed fasting was crucial for the spiritual health of Jesus’ disciples.
The rise of the internet has created a perfect storm for growing numbers of men to become addicted. It is available. It is anonymous. I suspect no other generation of men – or their pastors – had such a collision of forces that are the same time both irresistible and destructive.
For some reason God seems to do the best character development work when we are in the wilderness. Throughout the biblical text we see people out in the wilderness or in the “wintertime” of their spiritual lives. It is often here that God decides to do something new. “Now my heart is returned to sister winter,” as singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens
But you need both. A Paul and a Peter. Someone who will confront and another who will comfort. It takes that balance of truth and grace to get someone to move beyond their epic fail and into effective service.
We allow grace to operate in our lives by allowing Christ to be alive in us. We affirm the living Christ. Freedom and joy in the Christian life depend on this. Christ is alive today. He is a now reality. This reality must become personal: Christ is alive in me.
Today my first-person perspective of Resurrection Day sits over at this website in honor of the traditional myrrh-bearers – the women who went to care for Jesus’ body at the tomb, later running and announcing the resurrection to the rest of the disciples. (Yes, Protestants – after Greek Orthodox Pascha [Easter], the tradition observes the Feast of the Holy Myrrhbearers; have
Up until more recently than I’d like to admit, the most I knew about Lent was the mysterious time of year when a banner was strung out over the road as you came into town, announcing the “Kiwanis’ Lenten Fish Fry EVERY Friday Night!” And as mysteriously as it appeared, it disappeared. That, and Lent was a Catholic thing. Have
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