The last several weeks I’ve been focusing on what it means to love God with all of ourselves as Jesus commanded. This week I want to add one more way in which we can love God with all of ourselves. When we give our whole selves to God in love, we are giving […]

There really is only one sin—separation from God. Every other thing that we label sin is merely a manifestation of the state of being separate from God. If we were living in God, with God or in Christ’s mind, how could we hurt someone else, reject another human being, judge someone else? Or do anything […]

It’s so complicated to follow all of Jesus’ teachings, to keep them all in mind, from the Sermon on the Mount to the parables and other sayings, but I am convinced that if we are obedient to His First Great Commandment and to the first four of the Ten Commandments, we cannot do anything that […]

The spiritual journey has been described classically in four stages: awakening, purgation, illumination and union. Awakening is the first movement in the journey into God’s world. It can be a direct answer to God’s call to be born again, to surrender your life to him. Or we can be thrown out of our normal life […]

We are raised to be “letter of the law” people. We learn to obey our parents. Our teachers. Our traffic laws. The laws of our nation. The trouble is that we’re not very good at following the letter of the law. All one has to do is to drive the streets and highways of our […]

Nicodemus is mentioned three times in the Gospel of John. The first time Nicodemus, a Pharisee, appears in John 3:1-21 he comes to Jesus at night, affirming that Jesus must have come from God because otherwise He wouldn’t be able to do all the signs and miracles of His ministry. Jesus replies, “No one can […]

If we cling to the relationship with God that we have… If we cling to our beliefs rather than building the relationship with God… If we settle for a small change, but forget that Jesus is a radical teacher even today… If we’re not willing to let God lead us and we still are in […]

We can’t have it both ways, if we’re being true to our love of God. We can’t do things one way and think and feel the other way.  If we are only ”nice” and “good” and “kind” on the outside, our inner state will belie what we do. We all read the inner energies of […]

Several years ago I moved three times in a year and a half. I followed my daughter and her husband up to Baltimore from Charlotte. When his new job didn’t work out, we moved back to Charlotte. I rented an apartment and then six months later, I bought a townhome and moved again. During this […]

There’s a curious synchronicity in two of Jesus’ sayings. The first is that “no one can serve two masters.” [Matthew 6:24]. The second saying is this: “Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.” [Luke 17:33]. In thinking about the first one about serving God and […]