Category Archives: Spiritual life

The Light of the World, John 8:12 (video)

The Christian life was never about God making you more successful or more comfortable or healthier where you are. It is about taking you where you can be what you were made to be. Continue reading

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The Art of Living Backwards

the most important thing in your life happened in someone else’s life. Continue reading

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Come, Eat, Believe and Live (John 6)

The first people who heard Jesus speak those words didn’t understand them either. Yet what is at stake here is life, a kind of life we don’t automatically possess but that will fulfill us as human beings… Continue reading

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Jesus: The Bread of Life (1) – John 6

It was a magical, Hogwarts School of Theology kind of teaching, but you can see where the idea came from. The rabbis believed that eating the manna would make people deathless, and in Isaiah, what does God do at the Great Banquet? He takes away death forever. Continue reading

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The Great Recycling Enterprise

In my own life, my older brother’s death when I was in 6th grade was a tragedy. It was not good in any way; it was horrible. But God nevertheless brought good out of it. Continue reading

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When Jesus Gave the Silent Treatment

And how does Jesus respond to this woman, whose heart was breaking for her little girl? He gives her the silent treatment. He heard her pleas, knew her distress, and yet walked away without saying a word. Continue reading

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Why God Wants You to Believe in Him

Faith is connective. When we trust a person, we naturally connect to that person. It is by trust that humans connect to God, “whom to know,” as Jesus once said, “is eternal life.” Continue reading

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The “Residue” Inside Us

This is true whether or not they ever pray, attend corporate worship services, or believe in God. Everything that happens “inside us” (as well as “to us”) has spiritual implications because Homo sapiens is a spiritual being. Continue reading

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Could God Be Angry With You?

Does [God] use punishment as an instrument of control? Do we need to hold pro-God rallies (Sunday mornings at 11:00) and offer the Almighty extravagant praise, lest his wrath burst out at us? Is God some kind of cosmic tyrant who requires constant appeasement? Continue reading

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Good News about the Day of Judgment (2 Cor. 5:10; Rev. 20:11-15)

No one is thrown into that lake because they have sinned. If that were the case, we would all go there, since “there is no difference: for all have sinned” (Romans 3:22-23). People do not end up in hell because they have sinned, but because they do not have life. Continue reading

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