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
It was in the forsakenness of that hour that Dorsey chipped away at the piano and wrote, “Precious Lord, take my hand …” In the sorrow of the desolation and flood of his loss, the song that inspired Dr. King was the dove that Dorsey released in search of dry land, the flight of hope. It was his blues: “I
For as long as I can remember, my family has celebrated St. Patricks’ Day like many other Irish-American families: corn beef and cabbage, homemade Irish soda bread, green dye in everyone’s beverages all served on Mom’s best Irish linen tablecloth. Typically, the sound of The Chieftains or Tommy Makem and The Clancy Brothers can be heard on my parent’s stereo.
“Something in you dies when you give yourself indiscriminately to gluttony, whether in food, drink, or sex.”[1] While it was New Testament scholar N.T. Wright who wrote that, it could just as easily have been written by singer-songwriter Andrew Hozier-Byrne (“Hozier”), as commentary on his song, “Take Me to Church.” The only difference is that Hozier celebrates this kind of
Have you ever had a near-drowning experience? I have. I don’t remember when, but I’d guess I was between the ages of seven and nine. I don’t remember the circumstances, except that I was in over my head. Literally. What I can remember is the feeling of not being able to breathe and the panic that completely took over any
I’m learning what pastors around the globe know so well: that Christmas Is Different For Pastors. The same truth reverberates – Emmanuel, God With Us. It has, however, sunk in that this year I work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and not only work, but serve to fashion a threshold between tired hungry human hearts and the Trinity. The Advent
Let’s just say I know a thing or two about distraction. In the past 12 months, three of our four family members were stricken with flu on Christmas Day, we celebrated our childrens’ first and fourth birthdays, we went on a two-week multi-state road trip visiting family and friends with said small children, my husband suffered chronic migraines so far
“Do it even if you don’t feel like it, even if you don’t believe, or can’t imagine, that the promise that is offered can come to you. Get up and follow it anyway, because you are a person of faith, and you believe that what is real is not only the way you feel now, but the promise offered to
” In essence our children aren’t disciples because we aren’t disciples. We’re more focused on our kids’ happiness and success than we are on their discipleship.”
“Regardless of how I have spent, squandered, or invested my time, I still have the wonderful gift of this set of 24 hours. Regardless of how I spent “yesterday,” I still have today. I can waste today, by regretting yesterday, or yearning for tomorrow. I can spend the day selfishly on myself, or investing in others.”
“How is memory significant for us as God’s people? Why is it important for us to remember, and what specifically should we remember most?”
“We are what we think. We are transformed by the renewal of our minds. So study is a necessary discipline for spiritual growth.”
Revelation. Not of the contents of a carefully wrapped box in your childhood home, hidden from view until enterprising siblings helped you spy out the contents (or were you one of the professional tape-peelers who could lift a flap of wrapping paper without leaving a trace?). Not of a painful holiday discovery, realizing your daughter has an eating disorder or
“In Advent we are waiting for the return of Jesus the Christ, the coming King. In Advent, we anticipate the return of Christ. Advent is about the future, the end, the “Christ shall come again in final victory” part of our faith. And so in Advent, we practice waiting. We remind ourselves that Jesus is coming back and that we
Get articles delivered directly to your inbox as soon as they come out.
