The supreme surprise of God’s love? It has nothing to do with you. Others love you because of you, because your dimples dip when you smile or your rhetoric charms when you flirt. Some people love you because of you. Not God. He loves you because he is He. He loves you because he decides to. Self-generated, uncaused, and spontaneous, his constant-level love depends on his choice to give it. Deuteronomy 7:7-8 says, “The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But … Listen Now
Romans 8:32 says, “God did not keep back his own Son, but he gave him for us. If God did this, won’t he freely give us everything else?” Take your anxieties to the cross—literally. Next time you’re worried about your health or house or finances or flights, take a mental trip up the hill. Run your thumb over the tip of the spear. Balance a spike in the palm of your hand. Read the wooden sign written in your own language. And as you do, touch the velvet dirt, moist with the blood of God. Blood he bled for you. The spear he … Listen Now
God said, “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work; you, nor your son, nor your daughter” (Exodus 20:9-10). God knows us so well. He can see the store owner thinking, Somebody needs to work that day. If I can’t, my son will. So God says, “Nor your son.” Then my daughter will, thinks the store owner. “Nor your daughter,” God has declared. No, God says, one day of the week you will say no to work and yes to worship. … Listen Now
For thousands of years, God gave us his voice. Prior to Bethlehem he gave us his messengers, his teachers, and his words. But in the manger, God gave us himself! Many people have trouble with such a teaching. Some teach that God is One who sends others—angels, prophets, books, but God is too holy to come to us himself. For God to touch the earth would be called a “shirk.” People who claim that God has touched the earth shirk God’s holiness; they make him gross. They blaspheme him. Christianity, by contrast, celebrates God’s great descent. His nature does not trap him … Listen Now
Holiday travel. It isn’t easy. Then why do we do it? Why cram the trunks and endure the airports? You know the answer. We love to be with the ones we love. The four-year-old running up the sidewalk into the arms of Grandpa. The cup of coffee with Mom before the rest of the house awakes. That moment when, for a moment, everyone is quiet as we hold hands around the table and thank God for family and friends and pumpkin pie. We love to be with the ones we love. May I remind you? So does God. How else do … Listen Now
Are you in prison? You are if you feel better when you have more and worse when you have less. If your happiness comes from something you deposit, drive, drink, or digest, then face it—you are in prison, the prison of want. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you have a visitor. And your visitor has a message that can get you released. Make your way into the receiving room. Take your seat in the chair, and look across the table at the psalmist David. He motions for you to lean forward. “I have a secret to tell … Listen Now
God endows us with gifts so we can make him known. God endues the Olympian with speed, the salesman with savvy, the surgeon with skill. Why? The big answer is to make a big to-do out of God. Brandish him. Herald him Magnify your maker! Scripture says, “If anyone speaks let him speak the oracles of God; if anyone ministers, let him do so with the ability God supplies so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion for ever and ever. Amen! (1 Peter 4:11). So, exhibit God … Listen Now
You’ve had enough of human love…haven’t you? Enough tabloids telling you that true love is just a diet away. Enough mornings smelling like the mistakes you made while searching for love the night before. Don’t you need a fountain of love that won’t run dry? You’ll find one on a stone-cropped hill outside Jerusalem’s walls where Jesus hangs, cross-nailed and thorn-crowned. When you feel unloved, ascend this mount. Meditate long and hard on heaven’s love for you. Both eyes beaten shut, shoulders as raw as ground beef, lips bloody and split. Fists of hair yanked from his beard. Gasps of air … Listen Now
After Christ’s forty-day pause in the wilderness, the people of Capernaum tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said to them, “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent” (Luke 4:42-43). He resisted the undertow of the people by anchoring to the rock of his purpose; employing his uniqueness to make a big deal out of God everywhere he could. And aren’t you glad he did? Suppose he had heeded the crowd and set up camp in Capernaum, reasoning, “I thought the whole world was my target … Listen Now
What of those who die with no faith? My husband never prayed. My grandpa never worshiped. And, so we ask, “What about the one who never believed?” How do we know he or she didn’t? Who among us is privy to a person’s final thoughts? Who among us knows what transpires in those final moments? Are you sure no prayer was offered? A glimpse of eternity can bend the proudest knees. Could a person stare into the yawning canyon of death without whispering a plea for mercy? And could our God, who is partial to the humble, resist it? He couldn’t … Listen Now
