“I deserve better!” “They owe it to me!” “It’s my right!” The world of the Twenty-first Century is filled with demands of entitlement. From religious expression to bedroom privacy, the plurality of our world voices its insistence on personal and social rights. Not a day seems to go by without a news story about some…
but deliver us from evil Matthew 6:13 Deliver – But do we really want to be delivered? Delivered means facing reality as it is, no fantasies, no band-aids, no idol protection. Maybe we aren’t so quick to be delivered because it’s so frightening. Isn’t that exactly what happens when we turn back to the idols…
One of the wonders of Europe is the centuries-old peek into Man’s attempt to create a feeling of the majesty of God. Just wander through some of the cathedrals and look up. Here are some examples from my trip to Spain. If we can make this kind of beauty, imagine what the ceiling looks like…
John 15:15 The New Testament uses a very strange word to describe our relationship to God. It is the word doulos. In most English translations, this Greek word is rendered “servant” or “bond-servant”. Occasionally, it is translated more correctly as “slave”. That is what it really means in Greek – slave. But not just any…
Course correction on the way to the Future Everyone wants to have a crystal ball about the future. In spite of the difficulty of prediction, we still try our best to peer over the time horizon. If we are really sophisticated, we develop statistical models, forecasts, and algorithms. If we are the ordinary types; we…
Why do you pray? No, really. It’s not a stupid question. Why do you pray? If you’re like most of the people I talk to, your answer will be something like this: “I pray in order to ask God to take care of needs in my life and in the lives of others. I pray…
The often-repeated truism about marriage is the once the honeymoon is over, life comes back to normal and the bloom is off the romance. There is good reason behind this expectation. The romance of courtship fades under the pressures of jobs, house, friends, children, etc. We stop putting our best selves forward. The mysterious beckoning…
And do not lead us into temptation Matthew 6:13 Lead Us – How are we supposed to understand this strange phrase? God doesn’t tempt anyone. The Bible is clear about that. God is holy. All that He does is holy. There is no possibility that He would ever entice anyone to sin. So, what can…
More than 30 years ago, Wolfhart Pannenberg wrote the book that was translated into English as Jesus – God and Man. On page 230 of that work, Pannenberg makes a suggestion about the relationship between Jesus’ proclamation concerning the true nature of the creation and the end of this world age. It reads: . ….
I recently had a conversation with a long time friend, catching up with our individual lives over some months. While the general themes seem to stay the same, we both were in the midst of new relationships, a subject of considerable interest. As I talked about the thrill that I was feeling, the energy that…
