Put bluntly, the American church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice. We say we believe that the fundamental structure of reality is grace, not works – but our lives refute our faith.
One of my realizations in such an earthy atmosphere was that many of the burning theological issues in the church were neither burning nor theological.
Shame – what happened when my mother, the dragon, huffed and puffed and blew my self down.
I you think you’ve done it, then you’re wrong. Because you’re not finished until you have achieved everything that you never thought you could.
Craving clarity, we attempt to eliminate the risk of trusting God.
A trusting heart is forgiven and, in turn, forgives.
Letting ourselves be loved by God is more important than loving God.
The loss of transcendence has left in its wake the flotsam of distrustful, cynical Christians, angry at a capricious God, and the jetsam of smug bibilolatrists who claim to know precisely what God is thinking and exactly what he plans to do.
We are enveloped in peace, whether or not we feel ourselves to be at peace. By that I mean the peace that passes understanding is not a subjective sensation of peace; if we are in Christ, we are in peace even when we feel no peace.
You will trust God to the degree you know you are loved by Him.
Hope your wildest hopes, dream your maddest dreams, imagine your most fantastic fantasies. Where your hopes and your dreams and your imagination leave off, the love of my Heavenly Father only begins.
Authentic Christianity should lead to maturity, personality, and reality. It should fashion whole men and women living lives of love and communion.
Don’t try to understand it. You won’t succeed. Don’t try to see it. You can’t. Try to live it, and you will be living out of the center.
The cultural propaganda embodied in two liquor advertisements, “Living well is the best revenge” and “Sip it with arrogance,” have a curious, perhaps demonic appeal. Consumerism indeed has its own spirituality.
When being is divorced from doing, pious thoughts become an adequate substitute for washing dirty feet.
Accepting the reality of our sinfulness means accepting our authentic self. Judas could not face his shadow; Peter could. The latter befriended the impostor within; the former raged against him.
Too many Christians are living in a house of fear and not in the house of love.
Though it is true that the church must always dissociate itself from sin, it can never have any excuse for keeping any sinner at a distance.
The life of Jesus suggests that to be like Abba is to show compassion.
Stop comparing or boast at your victories. He was referring to enormous vitality and strength of God of Jesus seeking union with us. The living acts of a Christian become somehow the acts of Christ.
Childlike in faith means the daily acknowledgment of utter dependence and that I owe my life and being to another.