Whenever faith seems an entitlement, or a measuring rod, we cast our lots with the Pharisees and grace softly slips away..

Indeed we are all in peril if the flawed messenger invalidates the message..

God has, quite literally, all the time in the world for each one of us..

When suffering happens, it forces us to confront life in a different way than we normally do..

If prayer stands as the place where God and human beings meet, then I must learn about prayer. Most of my struggles in the Christian life circle arou….

Our confused society badly needs a community of contrast, a counterculture of ordinary pilgrims who insist living a different way. Unlike popular cul….

The Christian knows to serve the weak not because they deserve it but because God extended his love to us when we deserved the opposite. Christ came ….

Capitalism rules worldwide, and a society whose economic fabric depends on constant growth requires that its citizens have ever-expanding needs and w….

A philosophy may explain difficult things, but has no power to change them. The gospel, the story of Jesus' life, promises change..

The surgery of life hurts. It helps me, though, to know that the surgeon himself, the Wounded Surgeon, has felt every stab of pain and every sorrow..

By striving to prove how much they deserve God's love, legalists miss the whole point of the gospel, that it is a gift from God to people who don't d….

Some who attempt prayer never have the sense of anyone listening on the other end. They blame themselves for doing it wrong.... Prayer requires the f….

Jesus did not give the parables to teach us how to live. He gave them, I believe, to correct our notions about who God is and who God loves..

Having spent time around "sinners" and also around purported saints, I have a hunch why Jesus spent so much time with the former group: I think he pr….

If God doesn't want something for me, then I shouldn't want it either..

The only thing harder than forgiveness is the alternative..

God already knows the naked truth about us, of course. Why not acknowledge it?.

You can know the law by heart without knowing the heart of it.

All too often the church holds up a mirror reflecting back the society around it, rather than a window revealing a different way..

Faith in God offers no insurance against tragedy..

Jesus reserved his hardest words for the hidden sins of hypocrisy, pride, greed and legalism..