Category: Christian Spirituality
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Who Is Jesus to You? (Guest Post)
WHO IS JESUS TO YOU? by Mercy Hope Excerpt from Sacred Space: Cultivating Your Personal Eden in a Fallen World Thirteen years ago, I was at a conference where Judy Jacobs was ministering. I have a special place in my heart for that woman of God! Through a prophetic word and personal prayer, she imparted something…
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Radical Identification and the Kingdom of God: Finding God in One Other
The one who welcomes you welcomes Me, and the one who welcomes Me welcomes Him who sent Me. (Matthew 10:40) Up until this point in Matthew 10, we’ve seen Jesus call over and over for radical identification with himself and his mission. But the tables are turned here — this is where Jesus promises to…
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Losing to Find: How Surrender to Jesus Helps Us Discover Ourselves
Anyone finding his life will lose it, and anyone losing his life because of Me will find it. (Matthew 10:39) Like Jesus’s prior statement that he is to be loved above anyone or anything else, including our own lives, this is not the statement of an ordinary human being or teacher. It’s an extraordinary claim.…
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Rise Up and Follow: Loving Jesus for All He Is Worth
The person who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; the person who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever doesn’t take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. (Matthew 10:37-38) With these words, the commissioning of Matthew 10…
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The Presence of God and the Value of Sparrows: Why We Don’t Need to Be Afraid
From Rachel: I apologize for the lack of a new blog post last week. Health reasons prevented me from writing, but I’m glad to be back this week! Don’t fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body…
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“Your Father Knows”: Why It Matters Who You Pray To
From Rachel: I am kicking off 2019 with three months of rest and seeking God, so I am reposting favorites from the blog. I’ll be back with new posts in mid-April. Enjoy! When you pray, don’t babble like the idolators, since they imagine they’ll be heard for their many words. Don’t be like them, because your…
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“Pray Like This”: How to Pray the Pattern in the Lord’s Prayer
Therefore, you should pray like this . . . (Matthew 6:9) In last week’s post we talked about “vain repetition” or empty babbling: praying like the prophets of Baal, in a desperate show of works meant to get the attention of an indifferent God. Jesus is clearly against that kind of praying. What sometimes gets…
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The Gospel According to Jesus
From Rachel: I am kicking off 2019 with three months of rest and seeking God … so I am reposting favorites from the blog. Enjoy! The Beatitudes, so familiar and easy to gloss over, are breathtaking when we see them clearly. Far from just a disjointed list of niceties, these kingdom blessings encompass the gospel…
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The Hidden Gospel in the Heart of the Beatitudes
Several years ago I was supposed to speak at a women’s conference here in Ontario on the Beatitudes and the kingdom of God. The idea was “seeing yourself through a kingdom lens.” I’d suggested that topic in part because it was specific but still broad enough for me to develop my talk over time, as…
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Blessed Are the Spiritually Impoverished, for the Kingdom of Heaven Is Theirs
The first blessing Jesus gives in the Beatitudes makes no sense at all. Poverty is not a “happy” state (makarios, the Greek word for “blessed,” is also translated “happy”). To be poor is devastating, not blessed. It is not a virtue to be poor in spirit: to be poor in spirit means we have no…