Slowing Down Time
A lot has changed since the electric clock was invented in the 1840s. We now keep time on smart watches, smart phones and laptops. The entire pace of life seems faster—with even our “leisurely” walking speeding up. This is especially true in cities and can have a negative effect on health, scholars say. “We’re just moving faster and faster and getting back to people as quickly as we can,” Professor Richard Wiseman observed. “That’s driving us to think everything has to happen now.”
Moses, the writer of one of the oldest of the Bible’s psalms, reflected on time. He reminds us…
Where Are You Heading?
Everyone Needs Compassion
When Jeff was a new believer in Jesus and fresh out of college, he worked for a major oil company. In his role as a salesman, he traveled; and in his travels he heard people’s stories—many of them heartbreaking. He realized that what his customers most needed wasn’t oil, but compassion. They needed God. This led Jeff to attend seminary to learn more about the heart of God and eventually to become a pastor.
Jeff’s compassion had its source in Jesus. In Matthew 9:27–10:8 we get a glimpse of Jesus’s compassion in the miraculous healing of two blind men and one…
A Lifestyle of Praise
Wallace Stegner’s mother died at the age of fifty. When Wallace, a novelist and short story writer, was eighty, he finally wrote her a note – “Letter, Much Too Late” – in which he praised the virtues of a woman who grew up, married, and raised two sons in the harsh history of the early Western United States. She was the kind of wife and mother who was an encourager, making the best of situations, especially those that were less than desirable. One of his enduring memories is the strength his mother displayed by way of her voice. Stegner wrote:…
The Only King
As five-year-old Eldon listened to the pastor talk about Jesus leaving His heavenly kingdom and coming to earth, he gasped when the pastor thanked Him in prayer for dying for our sins. “Oh, no! He died?” the boy said in surprise.
From the start of Jesus’s life on earth, there were people who wanted Him dead. Wise men came to Jerusalem during the reign of King Herod inquiring, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him” (Matthew 2:2). When the king heard this, he…
Here Be Dragons?
Legend has it that at the edges of medieval maps, marking the boundaries of the world the maps’ creators knew at the time, there’d be inscribed the words “Here be dragons”—often alongside vivid illustrations of the terrifying beasts supposedly lurking there.
There’s not much evidence medieval cartographers actually wrote these words, but I like to think they could have. Maybe because “here be dragons” sounds like something I might’ve written at the time—a grim warning that even if I didn’t know exactly what would happen if I ventured into the great unknown, it likely wouldn’t be good!
But there’s one glaring problem…
Conclusion
First Peter 1:3–5 describes a treasure trove of God’s abundant grace and mercy to believers through our participation in Christ:…
Guarded by God
I wonder if part of why we forget to focus on our eternal inheritance is our own doubt and anxiety,…
An Unfading Inheritance
When I turned thirty-five my mother gave me a treasured family heirloom: a gold diamond ring that had belonged to…
Living Hope through Resurrection
But new birth is just one of three ideas about salvation intricately interconnected in 1 Peter 1:3. The second key…
New Birth
In the 1976 presidential race, Jimmy Carter described himself as a born-again Christian. At the time, this was not yet…
The Leaning Tower
You’ve probably heard of the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, but have you heard of the leaning tower of San Francisco? It’s called the Millennium Tower. Built in 2008, this 58-story skyscraper stands proudly—but slightly crookedly—in downtown San Francisco.
The problem? Its engineers didn’t dig a deep enough foundation. So now they’re being forced to retrofit the foundation with repairs that may cost more than the entire tower did when it was originally built—a fix that some believe is necessary to keep it from collapsing during an earthquake.
The painful lesson here? Foundations matter. When your foundation isn’t solid, catastrophe…
Thinking about Resurrection
When asked, Christians are pretty good at offering explanations of what the death of Jesus means. They might reply that…
The Transforming Power of the Gospel
If we truly wish to follow Christ, each day we need to fight our impatient, self-gratifying tendencies. And as Peter explains, it’s more than worth it. Let’s explore how Peter describes the incredible inheritance God has given us through Jesus’s resurrection. We’ll consider how Jesus gives believers not only a living hope but also an incredible, life-changing inheritance that will last forever. Most importantly, we’ll consider how this inheritance could change everything about how we live our lives.
A Hundred Years from Now
“I just want people to remember me a hundred years from now,” said screenwriter Rod Serling in 1975. Creator of the TV series The Twilight Zone, Serling wanted people to say of him, “He was a writer.” Most of us can identify with Serling’s desire to leave a legacy—something to give our lives a sense of meaning and permanence.
The story of Job shows us a man struggling with meaning amid life’s impermanence. In a moment, not just his possessions but those most precious to him, his children, were taken. Then his friends accused him of deserving this fate. Job cried out:…
