Whenever I allow anything but tenderness and compassion to dictate my response to life--be it self-righteous anger, moralizing, defensiveness, the pressing need to change others...I am alienated from my true self. My identity as a child of God becomes ambiguous,...
Every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself: "These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself. The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God, precious...
Luther said, "Remember your baptism." How can people do that? In Luther's church, most of the baptisms were of infants. They were brought by their mothers and fathers and they were baptized. So how could they remember their baptisms? Luther knew that when they became...
The same breath is blown into the flute, cornet, and bagpipe, but different music is produced according to the different instruments. In the same way, the one Spirit works in us, God’s children but different results are produced, and God is glorified through them...
That he seeks worshipers is unparalleled, for nowhere in the entire corpus of Holy Scripture do we read of God’s seeking anything else from a child of God. God desires worship above all else. ————————Gender-neutral version: That God seeks worshipers is unparalleled,...
But sooner or later we must distinguish between what we are not and what we are. We must accept the fact that we are not what we would like to be. We must cast off our false exterior self like the cheap and showy garment that it is. We must find our real self in all...
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?You are a child of God.Your playing...
I used to say that if I ever wrote a book, its title would be Nothing Truly Radical Happens After Age Six, Except Grace. Grace, that experience of unconditional love, breaks through the whole system and can change anything. All of Christian life could be described as...