LENT: An Opportunity to Start Again A 40-Day Journey to Renewal LENT: An Opportunity to Start Again is a 40-day devotional for the season of Lent. The season of Lent refers to the 6 weeks of preparing our hearts leading ...
“And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all ...
“No eye has seen, nor ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him – but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.” (1 Cor. 2:9) What I have discovered is ...
"Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions." (Luke 2:15) Lent is all about taking an honest look at our cluttered lives and taking stock. ...
Often one of our New Year (or mid-year) resolutions is to be more consistent in reading our Bible. The good news is there a lot of helpful Bible reading plans out there. Unfortunately, too soon our resolve falls by the way side and we chide ourselves for not being faithful or diligent enough. Next year, ...
We talk a lot in the church about being fully devoted followers of Christ. This is a good thing. The biblical assumption is that all believers in Christ would become his disciples…and fully devoted ones at that. We usually, however, get snagged up on the “fully devoted” part. We are all aware how much we ...
A new year has come and for most of us it’s a new beginning. Who doesn’t love the opportunity to begin again? There is the feeling of a fresh start and new resolve that things will be different than last year. This is typically when we start the diet we’ve put off for so long ...
This is just too good not to re-post. I wish I'd written it. If you are struggling in waiting, wanting to be anywhere but where you are, grab a cup of coffee, curl up in a comfy chair and read on. It's a long piece and you will be tempted to skim through it just ...
“The spiritual life if first of all a life. It is not merely something to be known and studied. It is to be lived.” Thomas Merton I often remind the groups of women I mentor that the strength of our group and the basis of our own transformation is in living out our faith. Our ...
Nothing is more practical than finding God, this is, than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your ...
Let me say right up front….I am not a theologian. I don’t have the smarts to even enter the ring with those who are. But…It seems to me that a lot of people hold to a theology of God that is not compatible with suffering. It is not compatible with the wounds and pain we ...
We are a little over half way through the Lenten season. This is the time of year designated by the church calendar set aside as a time of searching our hearts (Psalm 139) in preparation for celebrating Easter. It’s about not only discovering and confronting the sin that has subtly crept in to our lives ...
This last Monday night our Women’s Ministries launched a 9-month challenge we are calling “Simple Justice.” We are challenging the women of Faith to commit to give up a “want” for a period of time and donate all money that they would normally have spent on their want to help the International Justice Mission* bring ...
Today I am piggybacking on a past post that has been juggling around in my head for some time. In this post I wrote,” “God does not allow trials to teach us something but to unlearn something.” I wrote about our Self-Revealing God who is constantly and consistently bringing Truth into our lives through his ...
Gail Johnsen 