“We can only be saved if we confess our sins” read the sign on the Trinity Baptist Church in Nebo NC. And I would add, to confess our sins is the first step towards a redemptive relationship with Jesus Christ. It is a very healing first step, but nonetheless not the end of the […]
[based on Romans 12:2] To live in the world and not be of the world is not something we can claim because we believe in Jesus Christ. It is a step-by-step dismantling of the world’s influence in our lives. It is taking the bias of the world out of our own thinking. It is giving […]
Humility is probably the most important quality that is realized in a close relationship with God. In surrendering our own agendas, our preferences, our cultural biases, our assumptions and our ways to God, we are left with our own poverty, our own lack of knowledge of God, our own small selves. Walking with the Lord […]
I have been writing over the last month about all that stands in the way of our relationship with God: 1)our negative self-images; 2)the need for trust in God and for our listening for the Indwelling Spirit of God; 3)the need for a full surrender of who we are to God and 4)the need […]
Humility is a strange concept to us Americans. We are so self-sufficient and self-directed and motivated, that we almost can’t grasp what humility is. It is not a cloak that we wear to subdue ourselves and look like we are “humble” and pious. It is not an attitude that we have to be a doormat […]
An article by Cindy Brandt[1] that I read a few weeks ago reminded me that when Jesus called his disciples, he said to them, “come and see.” He invited them to experience what he was offering. He held out a promise, a potential that they could taste and feel. And, obviously, when they did “come […]
As we in the Christian church regroup in an era where the church has lost much of its authority in our country, I think we need to look deeply within for why we have turned so many people off in the last forty years. From the scandals of the Catholic priests to the Protestant politicians […]
Recently I received an interfaith calendar of holy days for April from the hospital chaplaincy board I was apart of in Charlotte. It started me thinking that maybe everyday is a holy day in some religion. And then by extension, what if we considered everyday, a holy day? Not just the Sabbath. And every step […]
“Thy kingdom come!” Do we know what this proclamation means? What does the kingdom mean to us? Is it in some distant second coming? Or is it in the here and now? Jesus taught about the kingdom frequently. It seems to me that he came to teach us how to live, how to […]