The most common mistake Christians make in worship today is seeking an experience rather than seeking God. They look for a feeling, and if it happens, they conclude that they have worshiped. Wrong. In fact, God often removes our feelings so we won’t depend on them....
Worship in truth is worship that arises out of an actual encounter with God, a response to the experience of knowing God’s real presence and activity in our daily lives. This has nothing to do with sentiment, thinking religious thoughts or having aesthetic experiences...
Resurrection is not a deferred consolation—”the opium of the next world.” It is the power which enables this life to be reborn. The hope is directed, not towards a different world but towards the redemption of this one. In the Spirit, resurrection is not merely...
Believers throughout the centuries have tried to describe God, but very few have been satisfied with their descriptions. Their words turn out to be too frail to do the job. …The best any of us has ever been able to do is to describe what the experience of God is...
Christians, too, must maintain the mystery of God, must let God be God. But Christians do know how to respond to that mystery, how we can go toward God. We must follow the example of Jesus and join him in his journey. We must put all that we have in the service of the...
The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out...
In my experience it’s much easier to act like a Christian than it is to react like one. Anyone can put on an act. But your reactions reveal what is really in your heart. And if you love God with all your heart, you won’t just act like it. You’ll react like it. from...
We can define the Kingdom of God as the redemptive presence of God. The redemptive presence of God can be found in everyday personal experiences. Whenever people love one another, bear one another’s burdens, work to build up a just and peaceful community—wherever...
Although taking the risk of openness to new experiences with God can be scary, we will find the resulting growth in faith rewarding and exhilarating. The commandment against worshiping idols includes more than physical statues. We create an idol when we become set in...
The first way in which a soul is united with God is through salvation, solely by grace, This is followed by a period in which a saved soul comes to know God through a series of experiences, some of which bring it into closer union with him and some take it further...