No matter what faith or community you associate yourself with, you will experience rejection at some point in your life. At no point am I saying that dealing with rejection is unique to Christians; what I am saying is that Christians have been empowered uniquely to...
Passive love is tolerance. The absence of hate is not the same as loving. The Christian’s job is to transform the world, to make it look more like the heaven we say we believe in. Throughout Jesus’ ministry He was increasingly inclusive, not exclusive. This requires a...
In Christian circles, people talk a lot about being spiritual or growing in spirituality. To those who are not of the Christian faith, this language can be confusing. Heck, it’s confusing to many who do consider themselves Christians. What is spirituality? What does...
Are you paying attention to the stuff inside of you? It’s an indication of who or what has control of your heart. When this stuff begins to surface it is a warning that it’s time to surrender your heart back to God. If you don’t you may end up in a place in life where...
Do you know why you hurt people who are the closest to you? It’s because you are looking for fulfillment in someone close at hand. You have brought something into the relationship, a desire of some kind that is not being met and conflict arises. We are all selfish and...
Have you ever given someone the silent treatment only to discover they never knew you weren’t talking to them? Shunning someone rarely has the desired effect you are looking for. In fact, the person who suffers the most is you. Peace is in your control. When you shun...
“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” Romans 12:18 You and I have been called to be peacemakers. It is our job to reflect Jesus and Jesus came to bring peace, not the sword. Here’s the thing, when we focus on living out...
Last month, in a rare explicit depiction of a global religious figure, DC comics announced a brand-new comic about the return of Jesus Christ titled Second Coming. In the series, Jesus is sent down to earth to learn what it takes to be the true Messiah. To do this he...
Whether you grew up Christian or not, you were probably taught the Golden Rule as a child. You know, the rule that says you should treat others the way you want to be treated? Well, that little nugget of wisdom came directly from Jesus as He preached to a multitude of...
You’ve heard the Beatles sing about and you watched Rachel and Ross try to figure it out on FRIENDS — that’s right, we’re talk about the big, scary L-word. LOVE. What is love? How do you know you’re in love? Is it really just a feeling you get? There’s a lot of...
It’s the question we all want an answered. We all want that excuse to go “Aha! I knew I didn’t need to love so-and-so!” But, is it ever okay to exclude someone from your love and claim that God’s love is outside of their lives? Is your neighbor defined by something...
You just make a choice. But seriously. I think sometimes we try to make somethings cuter than they are. Just choose. I mean, if it’s simply that you don’t like the person, well, c’mon man. There will always be those people we don’t like. That’s life. So instead of...
Unfortunately for some of us, no. Well, honestly, I guess unfortunately for all of us because we all have those people who have hurt us deeply and we just wish we could be done with them. We are called to love everyone. However, we are also called to be wise....
Once we accept Jesus’ unconditional love for us, we are begin healing. We begin to feel accepted. Worthwhile. Secure. We stop looking to everyone and everything to make us feel okay. We look to Jesus. And this allows us to love and to serve others. We are whole...
Why do we have trouble loving others unconditionally? Two reasons: We don’t love ourselves. We aren’t receiving love from anyone. If we don’t love ourselves, we will be unwilling to receive love from others because we believe we are unworthy. Because...