You and I are living, breathing icons of the living God. Who gets to make a claim on your life? Who is the highest authority? The one whose image you bear.
Tag: Christ
After enduring the anxiety of death and all the chaos of hell, Jesus rose as the King of kings, the crowned Prince of heaven who was victorious over all his enemies. And the first words this champion king spoke to his fearful disciples was “Peace be with you.”
Stop trying to prove to yourself whether or not you’re lovable if that’s what you’re doing. If you’re anything like me, you’ll never find a reason within yourself. Instead, search the heart of God and listen to Him say to you “I love you.”
We have not been left in our sin any more than Jesus has been left in the grave.
Do you realize that Jesus considered you precious? He considered it a joy to redeem you. That’s the love we are rooted in. It’s not our own fickle, fleeting, weak love. It is our Lord’s eternal, unshakable, true love. Jesus is worth the pain. He’s worth the awkward, sheepish shame that so often comes with repentance. He’s worth imprisonment. He’s worth celibacy and ridicule. He’s worth the cost of obedience.
We’re a gnarly, messy bunch of branches. We didn’t earn the life Jesus fills us with, and we’ve still got a long way to go before we’re completely pruned. But God in His infinite love and power and mercy chose to graft us to Jesus so that we might abide in Him. And this invitation is open to all.
Is hell the same for everyone? A student of mine essentially asked this question after a Bible study a number of weeks ago. Here’s his exact question, and my response: “Hey Patrick, there’s been a question on my mind for a while. It’s when you rescinded a statement that you made earlier when you said
In John 4, Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman drawing water from a well in the middle of the day. 1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and
Take Note Of This 