Category: Christian Spirituality
-
You Can Hear from God: Listening Prayer and the Choice to Believe
Last week I wrote about coming to God in prayer with an ask-seek-knock kind of approach—with an expectation that God will speak, so we should listen. When you try to do this, you will be challenged. By distractibility. By frailty. Mostly by doubt. Don’t Doubt In James 1:5-7, we are told: Now if any of…
-
The Prayer that Listens: How to Practice a Lifestyle of Ask, Seek, Knock
Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. (Matthew 7:7) If I had to sum up my spirituality—the way I do life, the way I commune with God and the way I approach him—in three words, those three…
-
To Seek and Keep on Seeking: Jesus’ Call to Continual Exploration
Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. (Matthew 7:7) Matthew 7:7 describes a fundamental way of life. It is an approach to all of life that changes who we become. It’s also one of “my” verses, one…
-
Seeing, Seeking, & Asking Questions: How to Find the Kingdom of God
So don’t worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For the idolaters eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.” (Matthew…
-
Provision, Responsibility, and The Waste of Worry
Can any of you add a single cubit to his height by worrying? Jesus begins teaching about money by telling us not to collect stuff: lay up treasure in heaven instead. It lasts and it’s better, and you never have to worry that someone’s going to break in and carry it off. That’s the…
-
Right Places, Right Times: What Looking at the Birds Teaches Us about Provision
My friend Sheila watched a nature documentary about penguins. This is a bad idea for anyone who wants to retain magical, fuzzy feelings about the natural world. I saw one recently too: there were all these penguins living on an island near Antarctica or somewhere, and every day they would go plunging off these sheer,…
-
Laying Up Treasure in Invisible Places: How to Live Life Jesus’s Way
“Don’t collect for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21) In September…
-
Secret Sorrow and Private Fasting: How Jesus Meets Us in Our Brokenness
“Whenever you fast, don’t be sad-faced like the hypocrites. For they make their faces unattractive so their fasting is obvious to people. I assure you: They’ve got their reward! But when you fast, put oil on your head, and wash your face, so that you don’t show your fasting to people but to your Father…
-
The Centerpiece Prayer: Why “Forgive Us Our Debts” Is the Central Step in the Lord’s Prayer
“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12) Right on the heels of asking for provision—that God will meet our needs—Jesus teaches us to ask that our debts may be forgiven, and he adds the only note of “bargaining” in the Lord’s Prayer: if God will answer this prayer…
-
How to Find Yourself in the Words “Our Father”
“Our Father in heaven . . .” (Matthew 6:9) In our culture we’re a bit flippant about names. We tend to use first names for almost everyone, without a lot of regard to relationship or age or role. But even we haven’t managed to erase the importance of names. What you call someone is deeply…