If we are to be like Christ, we must know something of self-sacrifice. To think that God will not refine us through the fires of pain and suffering, and melt away our imperfections like the dross of silver is to relegate the tao of Christianity. Let us embrace sufferings that serve to embrace our longing…
Christ is the ideal soldier: he never leaves a man behind. Even under enemy fire he risks his own life to save the men and women under his authority. He puts the needs of his platoon before his own: they eat and then he eats; they sleep and then he sleeps; they shower and then…
The literary devices of style (i.e., how something is said), tone (i.e., an attitude towards the subject), and mood (i.e., feelings and emotions created in the reader), which make up the author’s voice is of no minor importance in a narrative. The same goes for the narrative of our life, which the Supreme Author writes….
Hillsong United has come out with a relatively new song (2017), entitled “So Will I (100 Billion X).” Its songwriters are Joel Houston, Benjamin Hastings, and Michael Fatkin. I am personally a big fan of the song, particularly its melody and lyric. Click here to listen to it for yourself on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLURTvUQoTM VERSE 1 God…
Fear stifles love and ultimately imagination. To freely love and be loved (that is, to create a moment or memory with someone), one must stand ground in the presence of fear and its twin, condemnation, and smile in the dark. By the term “imagination” I mean the soul’s ability to freely create with bold, unapologetic…
Love me. Teach me. Guide me in all Your ways. Help me humble myself before You everyday, and if need be, humble me, so my thoughts may be pure and pleasing to You. May my actions never cease to emulate You releasing a sweet smelling fragrance of salvation’s freedom. More than anything, I seek to…
The struggles we encounter are not always elicited by self-destruction and self-dilapidation, but by strategic trials that are necessarily entailed by divine circumstances. Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. This is not an appointed suffering by a draconian deity. Look at the life of a “blameless and upright”…
In our fast-paced modern world, pride can disguise itself as busyness or even success. I am not talking about healthy responsibility. I am referring to taking on more and more stress until there is no time for spontaneity, enjoyment, and rest. We shove God off His throne and replace Him as the center of the…
In Catholic theology, the stations of the cross are a 14-step devotion usually practiced on Good Friday that commemorates our Lord’s last day on earth qua human. I just spent a few days at Prince of Peace Abbey in Oceanside, a Roman Catholic monastery O.S.B. (in the order of Saint Benedict) praying, meditating on God’s…
Negatively speaking, Israel was intended to be an example for us of what not to do (1 Cor 10:6). Their hedonism was spiritual idolatry (v. 7). Christ was their Provision in the desert (otherwise they would have died), yet they tested Him (vv. 4, 9). Christ became the true Vine (John 15:1) replacing the withering…