Spiritual Formation
I’ve had a setback. I fear that something I really wanted to see happen may not happen. How many times in my career have I dreamed about something, developed plans around it, got my team on board with it, spent money on it, and then it came up short? I fear that this will be…
Below is an example of how I filled out my Gospel Break template earlier this week: Gospel Break: What is the Gospel? Father, your Gospel says that you had compassion on us sinners. Despite our infidelity towards you, You were faithful to us. We were dead in our sins. We despised you, we replaced you,…
As believers, our goal is to love God with all we have and are and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We discussed in a previous blog how that comes only when we see how much God loved us first. Unfortunately, we often only know intellectually that God loves us; we may struggle to truly…
How do you come to really believe that God loves you with all He has and is? You believe it intellectually. You’ve seen it in the Gospel. But how do you get to a point of functionally believing something as big as that? How could the God of the Universe possibly love you, specifically? How…
Love transforms us. When we know something we’re doing bothers someone we really love, we stop doing it. When we know that something brings someone we really love joy, we give it to them. Our lives are not what they could be because we are not functionally convinced that God loves us with all He…
Okay, this may sound overly simplistic at first, but hear me out. The first commandment is that we are to love God with all we have and are. But when we sin, there is always the same one-two punch that Satan delivered to Adam and Eve: First, he gets us to believe that we can…
“Now Christ is the visible expression of the invisible God. He existed before creation began, for it was through him that every thing was made, whether spiritual or material, seen or unseen. Through him, and for him, also, were created power and dominion, ownership and authority. In fact, every single thing was created through, and…
Last weekend the DJ/musician Avicii (age 28) and “mini-me” actor Verne Troyer (age 49) both died of alcohol-related issues. These were tragic deaths related to an addiction, so I wanted to provide some perspective. Perhaps alcohol isn’t your poison, but Christians – and our Christian counselors at 1st Principle Group – have more to say…
“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.” – Cormac McCarthy If you’re new to this series, I’ve been exploring a “theology of emotions.” I’m going to conclude the series this month by looking at how to do all of this in a way that glorifies God while also helps…
“No feeling is final.” -Rainer Maria Rilke If you know me well, you know how much I love the band U2. If you want to hear me nerd-out to anything, U2 is probably where I get my “nerdiest.” When I was in 5th grade, I heard one of their songs on my sister’s mix tape…