Fear in the biblical sense is a much broader word. It includes being afraid of someone, but it extends to holding someone in awe, being controlled or mastered by people, worshipping other people, putt...
God likes his people to be outnumbered because then there is no mistaking that he alone is the Deliverer.
God's love is a costly love. It never takes the easy path away from relationships. Instead, it plots how to move towards other people. It thinks creatively of ways to surprise them with love.
If we look only at God’s love, we will not need him, and there will be no urgency in the message of the cross. If we focus narrowly on God’s justice, we will want to avoid him, and we will live in ter...
If you know you have been forgiven, you will forgive and reconcile with others.
If you want Jesus, you must be willing to accept the honor that goes with the relationship. Your royal status—ascribed to you, not achieved—has been unveiled.
In this classic reversal of reality, we do not stand before him, but the King stands before us. We question him; he doesn’t question us. The irony of it all! While the name of the Lord was constantly...
[Screwtape warns Wormwood] Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s [God’s] will, looks around upon a universe from which every t...
Isaiah himself was only more aware of his shame as it stood in contrast to the perfection and purity of the Lord. It brought him to despair at his predicament. But despair is not a bad thing when it c...
It is one thing to die. It is another thing for an innocent person to die for a guilty one. It is something much more that Jesus would take on himself all the curses the world deserved in concentrated...
Modern spirituality has no hell, no doctrine, no substance. It is about feeling.
Notice how those who have medicated away their hardships with illegal drugs, alcohol, or sex can seem immature. They may look forty-five, but they have the character of an adolescent. Find a person wh...
O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding...
Our fears have typically already decided that the worst is about to happen. Catastrophe is upon us and there is no hope. But Don’t be afraid, when spoken by the Lord, is a promise that the end will be...
With this? Do you live as if this is true? Let’s keep going. The Bible isn’t just about heaven and only for the by-and-by. It is gritty and real. It is about messed-up people and the way God pursues t...
People who have experienced war have learned to accept the trials and sufferings of life. Among many wise, older citizens in American society, there is no desperate flight from suffering. Instead, the...
Shame lives in the community, though the community can feel like a courtroom. It says, You don’t belong—you are unacceptable, unclean, and disgraced because You are wrong, you have sinned (guilt), or...
Shame’s hold over you leads you to believe you don’t deserve to be rid of shame. As a result, you treat hope as if it were a contaminated substance.
The character of God is the basis for our connection to him, not our intrinsic worth. Self-worth, or anything we think would make us acceptable to God, would suit our pride but it has the disturbing s...
There is an important difference between embarrassment and shame. Whatever caused your embarrassment has been experienced by everyone else too, at one point or another. Your sense of social isolation...
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