Shortcuts in the spiritual life tend to have a detrimental payoff in the long run. Foundations laid with anxiety and haste become the bane of feigned maturity built on an insecure base of imminent collapse. Why do people feel the need to so quickly “build up the tower,” or at least give such an impression, [...]
It is not so much sin that plunges us into disaster, as rather despair (John Chrysostom)
Revelation 21:7-8 – “The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. 8But as for the cowardly (timid, fearful), the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, [...]
In the atmosphere of contemporary Western Christianity, when someone voices a lament with the intensity frequently found in the Psalms, it is not uncommon for them to be looked at aghast or derided for their deficient faith and concept of God, which has produced such a so-called absence of trust. “If you really knew who [...]
Whenever there are times of great difficulty, pain or suffering, we naturally ask God questions. I once heard someone remark that in a certain instance people were “asking God the wrong questions.” The notion of asking God the “wrong question” struck me, so I made a quick breeze through the Psalms exploring what the God-inspired [...]
The most significant aspect of being a prophetic voice is deeply knowing and clearly articulating the heart of God.
From the time when a major natural disaster strikes, one can hold their breath until people have quickly announced that such a tragedy (which incidentally, happened in a place far, far away and did not remotely touch [...]
I’m unsure if you’ll believe me, but I am not preparing to launch into a discussion on bodily processes, but rather, New Testament Greek and the New Testament concept of love. I have often heard sincere Christian people define love as something like “acting to promote the well-being of others.” I can understand, both the perspective [...]
Part 1 – The Christian Year
Part 2 – Introducing the Book of Common Prayer
Part 3 – The Opening
Part 4 – The Psalms
Part 5 – The Readings
Part 6 – The Prayers
Part 7 – Making it Easy (in fact, brainless…)
Part 8 – Morning Prayer
Part 9 – The “Little” Offices (Midday and Compline)
Part 10 – Connecting with God [...]
The Book of Psalms is an incredible gift of God to the Church. Regularly singing the entire book of Psalms is the spiritual practice I commend to people most frequently. Their uniqueness lies in while most of Scripture portrays the history of Israel from either a God’s-eye or birds-eye view, the Psalm give us the inside [...]
In my experience, whether talking to evangelicals or charismatics (or evangelical-charismatics), there seems to be a fairly strong opposition to using pre-written forms in either corporate or personal prayer. By this I am mostly referring to using prayers written by someone else. Even more specifically, I am speaking of using something akin to the historic [...]
For some time I’ve been pondering the notion that we become like what we worship. Recognizing this as a biblical principle (2 Cor. 3:18, amongst others), I’ve wondered how exactly it works. I’ve come up with a theory, not attempting to fully explain the concept, but perhaps to give perhaps one reason why worship has a transformative effect.
