Christian Living Archives
James’ description of the tongue is hideous. It makes us feel as if we are in a horror movie, being pursued by a ravenously hungry and deadly monster – a slithering, slimy, poisoned tongue-beast! When we successfully cage the monster, we are free to let loose words of life, love, hope, and peace.
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A personal God is an offense to most people. Why? A personal God possesses a will and desires us to align our wills with God's will. A personal God makes claims on our lives and invites our response of respect, surrender, faith, and love. Most people prefer an impersonal energy that makes no demands.
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We can see, hear, and smell from afar, but with taste, we must completely give ourselves over to the object we consume. When food enters our mouth, dissolves in our saliva, and goes into our stomach, it becomes part of us. It affects us – empowering, enabling, delighting or disgusting us. But there can be no impact apart from direct experience.
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Life is good and is meant to be enjoyed. But joy must not be taken lightly: Joy is the serious business of heaven. The Teacher calls us to rejoice while remembering our mortality, life's brevity, and God's judgment. The dark backdrop of our inevitable death underscores the positive opportunities for joy in the present moment.
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Only when our love is rooted in patience can we truly love as God loves, for “God is love” and “Love is patient.” Patience is a commitment to love even if it hurts – and it usually will.
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Jesus invites us to shed our selfish preoccupations and endless distractions that arise from anxiety over so many concerns. Instead, he calls us to view one single issue as our major concern: "Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well" (Luke 12:31).
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Forbearance is a call to love the unlikable. Forbearing love rises above feelings and empowers us to love those for whom we have no special attraction. Even more, it empowers us to love those who irritate us. Forbearance forbids us from allowing our own comfort zone to be the yardstick of acceptance. It frees us to love beyond our feelings.
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Emotions are not irrational. They are inseparably linked with our intellect, or more accurately, our beliefs, values, and assessments. Because of this they are not unimportant, uncontrollable, or undesirable. They are not shallow, unstable, or untruthful. On the contrary, emotions tell us the truth about what we believe and what we value.
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In the sacred scriptures, we are constantly admonished to “fear not” because fear is a spiritual and moral issue. Fear keeps us from becoming the kind of people God wants us to be. When fear rules our lives, there is no place for faith, courage, hope, risk, or love. Following Jesus requires that we fight fear and step out “into faith’s daring.”
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We are to "grow up" by "growing young" for "spiritual childhood is not only the way to Heaven, it is Heaven's very life." I would like to help you "grow young" by nurturing a childlike faith - the mark of true greatness in God's kingdom.
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Our extreme obsession with speed, efficiency,
and productivity spills over into other areas of our lives — including our
spiritual lives. Herein is the problem: Relationships aren’t always efficient. Religion
isn’t always productive. Godliness is not instant.
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Life can be confusing. But in the midst of confusion, uncertainty, and complexity, there is one thing of which we can be sure: God causes all things to work together for our good. God is actively involved in all things in our lives and will not waste a single moment. Thus, every day offers the possibility of further progress in christlikeness for those willing to embrace God's ultimate purpose.
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Guilt and shame are self-evaluative and moral emotions. They play a key role in fostering moral behavior. Somehow we must learn to discern between good and bad expressions of guilt and shame. Why? Because we cannot afford to lose guilt and shame. Believe it or not, good guilt and shame make our lives richer and more meaningful!
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God is for failures and he uses them to spread grace and truth in the world. The evil one desires that our failures would result in the complete loss of faith. God desires that our failures would result in greater humility and renewed commitment to loving service toward others.
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Learning to reflect God's heart for the world will involve developing a Christian mind, nurturing christlike affections, and discovering and embracing God's will in the world.
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Paradox is the language of mystery. We learn to personally participate in the mysteries of God by practicing paradoxes - by "living paradoxes."
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Because poverty of spirit heads the Beatitudes, the Church Fathers argued for humility as the foundational virtue. Poverty of spirit is certainly crucial to spiritual formation. But what exactly is it? Four words get to the heart of this virtue - lowly, empty, open, filled. These four postures can be illustrated with four hand movements.
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"The greatest problem lies in trying to integrate everything, to invest all with meaning, see it all as part of a larger, more meaningful life." Hear about the 10 truths that pervade my teaching.
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The secret of heaven according to Mitch Albom's
the five people you meet in heaven is this: "that each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one."
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Through touch we receive sacraments and by touching others we become sacraments of God to others. The limitation of touch is its greatest strength. In order to physically touch others we must be in their immediate presence. Touch connects us with others - not as abstractions - but as "neighbors" God has placed in our lives.
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While the world hungers for mystery and transcendence, the church settles for practical principles and dead moralisms in the name of "relevance." We fail to realize that the way to be truly relevant to our world is to give mystery the prominence it deserves in our proclamation and practice.
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What question should ultimately guide ethical theory? "What ought I to do?" "What kinds of outcome will this decision
produce?" or "What kind of moral character will be shaped by my actions?" Should ethical theory be other-oriented, future-oriented, or self-oriented? Could all three questions be integrated together to provide a more robust foundation for ethics?
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A superhero’s humility is set in stark contrast to a villain’s hubris. Villains rarely have secret identities. They do not wish to identity with a common humanity. They envision themselves as above the fray of mortal humans. They deserve to rule the world, to be worshipped by the masses. This is the chief reason they always fail: their ego gets in the way.
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Our first strike against worry has to do with changing our sight - seeing with and through faith. It involves beholding glory in the ordinary; seeing God's faithfulness, love, and care in the rhythms of creation. It is an alternative vision of the world that allows us to lose our preoccupation with self and strive with all our passion for God's kingdom - a kingdom that challenges the greed and anxiety of this world.
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A map is a tool to ascertain your current position in respect to your desired destination. Maps not only record travel over land, but also progress in the journey of life. Just as we map physical growth, we can also map spiritual growth. In this article I present a "faith map" that incorporates insights from the last two thousand years of the Christian spiritual tradition.
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Our culture of narcissism feeds a spirituality of self-realization in the context of moral relativism. A spirituality with no beliefs to which one must adhere, no particular community to which one need belong, and no demands on one's moral behavior is appealing to narcissistic individuals. Tragically, this is what many people mean when they say, “I am spiritual.”
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All who start well do not finish well. What makes the difference?
Patient endurance.
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Sadly, repentance is often viewed in a negative light. Its positive qualities are rarely affirmed and celebrated. Why? We recoil against those who call us to spiritual self-examination. We don’t like to be reminded that are sinners and we don’t like to be told what to do. How many of us really want to know what God wants us to do – especially if it involves change?
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Sacred words are a means of grace, a sacrament of Christ, a tool of the Spirit. Attentive listening with “ears that hear” is our way to appropriate these words, receive the sacrament, and be shaped by the Spirit. Listening is not passive or non-participatory. It is a spiritual discipline. We do not simply listen; we listen worshipfully!
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One common denominator explains Jesus' rejection, trial, and crucifixion: The tyranny of expectations! Expectations are powerful. Because of this, they can be easily abused - even oppressive. The tyranny of expectations holds the potential to sabotage every area of our lives - from the daily pulse of everyday existence to our relationships with others and our participation in community life.
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There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in us by our vital relation with reality. The truly spiritual life is not an escape from reality but a total commitment to it. Acceptance is the virtue that allows us to gratefully embrace all God's gifts.
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Waiting makes me feel unproductive, ineffective, and inconvenienced. Raised in a fast and furious culture I delight in instant gratification and immediate solutions. I hate waiting. And I don’t think I’m alone. Waiting on God has deep spiritual significance. It has deep connections to the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and love.
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When we approach the will of God as a way of life, we live for God right where we are. We recognize that a concern for God’s will is not primarily about big events or future decisions. We discover that God’s will is about life in the present – in the big and the little events. This prevents us from using God’s will as an excuse for self-absorption.
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Top Ten Experiential Truths That Shape My Teaching
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Certainly, we must resist naïve optimism. But we must not do this by embracing pessimism, cynicism, or apathy. We resist it by clinging to a hope that unites with faith and love to
optimistically impact our world in the present. Of all people, Christians have every reason to be optimists, even when facing the deepest darkness and most challenging struggles.
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It is impossible to be labeled as a glutton, a drunkard, a friend of sinners, and even a demon-possessed person (like Jesus was) when one is a separatist. Our call is not to maintain a spotless reputation in the Christian subculture but to be a shining light in a dark world.
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Worldliness is trivialized when it is reduced to a laundry list of do's and don'ts. Worldliness is completely misunderstood when fear of it is used as a reason to separate from the world.
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PowerPoints, Resources, and Book Recommendations from Teknon's 2004 Fall Retreat.
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God’s will challenges our natural tendency to egocentrism and calls us to a theocentric perspective of life. We tend to harbor the illusion that the world revolves around us and our desires. After all, our experience is more real to us than anything else. This causes us to be skeptical and dismissive of what we do not experience. Tragically, this is our sin.
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