Posts
Are the Charismatic Gifts for Today’s Church?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Gifts, The Holy Spirit
Topics: The Church
This week, we have offered a brief series on the Holy Spirit touching on what the Spirit does, how it changes us, and how the fruit of the Spirit is produced. Now we will look briefly at the gifts…
How to Produce the Fruit of the Spirit
Category: General
Tags: Fruit of the Spirit, Imaginative Prayer, Jesus, Peace, Prayer, Seeing is Believing, The Holy Spirit, Transformation
When the New Testament tells us to be loving, joyful, peaceful, kind and so on, it is not giving us a new set of behaviors that we are to strive to accomplish. Striving to attain…
How the Holy Spirit Changes Us
Category: General
Tags: Imagination, Imaginative Prayer, Seeing is Believing, The Holy Spirit
The Bible is full of stories of people who experienced the presence of God. If we are to experience something similar today, we must, through the Spirit, cultivate the spiritual capacity of an inner life…
What Does the Holy Spirit Do?
Category: General
Tags: The Holy Spirit, Trinity, Truth
The true God breaks into our deception-filled world to reveal himself to us in the person of his Son. In and of itself, however, this doesn’t lift the deception of the flesh from our hearts…
Today We Can’t Lighten Up
Category: General
Tags: Racism, Violence
We usually post something light-hearted or funny on Fridays. Not today. Not in the aftermath of the massacre in Charleston. Instead, we wanted to share with you the words of our friend Osheta Moore. You can…
How To Fix The Church: The Kingdom of God (Part 4)
Category: General
Tags: Church, Jesus, Kingdom, Kingdom Living
Topics: Following Jesus
God has leveraged everything on the Church loving like Jesus loved, as outlined in our previous posts in this series. “By this the world will know you are my disciples,” Jesus said, “by your love”…
The Only Thing That Matters Is Love: The Kingdom of God (Part 3)
Category: General
Tags: Jesus, Kingdom, Kingdom Living, Living in Love, Love
Topics: Following Jesus
To say that living in Calvary-quality love is the most important thing in our life is to grossly understate its importance. This stands in distinction from how we typically define the Kingdom of God. But…
The Kingdom of God (Part 2)
Category: General
Tags: Action, Enemy Love, Jesus, Kingdom Living, Self-Sacrificial Love
Topics: Following Jesus
The Church is called to be nothing less than “the body of Christ,” a sort of corporate extension of Jesus’ incarnate body. We are called to replicate who Jesus was by manifesting who Jesus is….
What is the Kingdom of God (Part 1)
Category: General
Tags: Holiness, Jesus, Kingdom, Kingdom Living, National Idolatry, Upside-Down Kingdom, War
Topics: Following Jesus
We all know what the Kingdom of God is, right? But this is precisely the problem. Since we are all to a large extent products of our culture, what seems obviously true and right to…
Lighten Up: Earth Reboot
Category: Lighten Up
It’s a good thing God is so patient and never gives up. But we really should take better care of this place. Cartoon by Shannon Wheeler
The Purpose of the Church
Category: General
Tags: Church, Kingdom Living, Spiritual Warfare
Concerning the preaching of the Gospel, Paul wrote that God’s intent was that “through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in…
The Grand Illusion
Category: General
Tags: Being Present, Practicing the Presence of God, Present Perfect
As long as we buy the lie that Life can be found outside of a moment-by-moment relationship with God, we will determine that our problem is that we simply don’t have enough. If only we…
Rethinking Transcendence
Category: General
Tags: Classical Theism, Cruciform Theology, Philosophy, Transcendence
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
Going back to pre-Socratic philosophers and running through the major strands of the church’s theological tradition, the conception of how God (or, in ancient Greece, “the One”) was arrived at primarily by negating the contingent…
How to Overcome the Flesh Mindset
Category: General
Tags: Flesh, Kingdom Living, Practicing the Presence of God, ReKnew
Unless you have taken intentional steps to change, the way you presently experience yourself and the world around you was mostly chosen for you, not by you. Think about that. You inherited a way of…
Lighten Up: Are You a Theology Nerd?
Category: Lighten Up
Tags: Adam Ford, Humor, Lighten Up, Theology
Are you a theology nerd? Click here, and if you find yourself nodding your head a lot, you probably are. And that’s OK. Image via Adam Ford
The Starting Point of Spiritual Transformation
Category: General
All spiritual transformation is the result of the Spirit removing the veil from our minds and allowing us to see the glory of God uncovered in the One who is his image, Jesus Christ. In…
The Impossible Command of God
Category: General
Tags: Being Present, Practicing the Presence of God, Present Perfect
Topics: Hearing God, Prayer
Paul tells us we are to be “imitators of God” (Eph 5:1). The word for “imitate” (mimetai) literally means to “mimic” or to “shadow.” This means we are to do exactly what we see God…
The Spiritual Value of Doing Nothing
Category: General
Tags: Imaginative Prayer, Prayer, Rest
Topics: Hearing God, Prayer
It is only when we cease from our striving and rest in the unconditional love of Christ that our soul begins to be nourished and restored. It is only then that we can experience a…
Lighten Up: Oldie But Goodie
Category: Lighten Up
Tags: God's Wrath, Lighten Up, Patriot's Bible
We thought we would bring this video back for today’s Lighten Up feature because it’s just too good to let it languish in the archives. Oh, and if you’re wondering what Greg was going to…