God’s Role and Our Role
So last time we looked at the good work that is already going on in our lives by the Holy Spirit…that our inner being (heart) might take on more and more the image of Jesus that we might live like and love others like Jesus. “…until Christ is formed in you” (Gal. 4:9). So exactly ...
The Good Work of God
Receiving the abundant life Jesus wants to give us rarely looks like we think it should. Often it means abandoning the life into which we have settled. One of my favorite quotes, in speaking about Mary the mother of Jesus, Craig Barnes writes, “God has interrupted our ordinary expectations, as cherished as they were, to ...
Receiving a Life vs. Making a Life
In continuing my thoughts on keeping in step with the Spirit (Gal. 5:25) one of the first things, I believe, we need to get our arms around is that the Holy Spirit is always active in our lives to birth in us the life of Christ we cannot produce ourselves. We cannot by direct effort ...
Keeping in Step with the Spirit
“Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” Romans 8:14 My interpretation of that verse: Those who follow the Spirit’s leading…they are the real deal. This verse also makes me think of a dance. In a dance some leads and it the job of the other to follow. It doesn’t ...
Daily Discipleship
“Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Mark 1:17 It’s the most concise definition of discipleship. In eleven words, Jesus summed up the essence of the Great Commandment to “Go…and make disciples…” The call to discipleship is the call to become an apprentice of Jesus – becoming like Jesus by entering ...
Stay Close to the Stream
In his book, Extravagant Mercy, (one of my favorite devotionals) Craig Barnes explains: “The Bible often portrays the grace of God as a thin stream of refreshing water that perseveres in a desert land. The only way our parched souls can survive in a spiritually desolate society is to stay close to the stream. That ...
Sabbath – Sinking Deep
“Because we do not rest, we lose our way.” Wayne Muller, in Sabbath. Some thoughts on Sabbath…by F. Bernies When there is a storm at sea, those who are caught in it have their hands full. They concentrate on nothing else but the exhausting task of staying afloat in the midst of gale force winds and ...
Fellowship of the Broken
Interesting. My blog is infantile, by any standard of measure, but there is one post that has been viewed overwhelmingly over the rest. It was the post on Woundedness. What that tells me is…we are all wounded people. None of us is immune to pain whether self-inflicted or at the hands of others. We all ...
My Spiritual Journey
The Christian ideal, for the most of my Christian experience, has been held out as a state or place to be achieved. “Fully devoted follower” loomed as an elusive, if not unreachable, Promised Land. Not that this is a bad goal but the unspoken assumption was its fulfillment rested on my ability to achieve it. ...
Imperceptible Strength
Before I pulled my calf muscle yesterday, I had started back at working out after, as I said, a three year hiatus. (I went back to school fulltime and got a job….to help pay for the schooling.) Until that time, however, I had routinely worked out for eleven years, 5-6 days a week. That’s ...
Gail Johnsen 