The deepest level of worship is praising God in spite of the pain, thanking God during the trials, trusting Him when we're tempted to lose hope, and loving Him when He seems so distant and far away. At my lowest, God is my hope. At my darkest, God is my light. At my...
As you have often heard me say, if you do not transform your pain, you will most assuredly transmit it. Healthy religion on the practical level tells us what to do with our pain—because we will have pain. We can’t avoid it; it’s part of life. If we’re not...
Our entire being is fashioned as an instrument of praise. Just as a master violin maker designs an instrument to produce maximum aesthetic results, so God tailor-made our bodies, souls and spirits to work together in consonance to produce pleasing expressions of...
One other picture that will always be a part of my memory of that week is the way people all across the land crowded into their places of worship. ...My fear is that we are beginning to think and act like we are on our own again and we can do it alone. ...We need God...
Music is a lovely gift of God which has often wakened and moved me. Music drives away the devil and makes people forget all wrath, unchastity, arrogance, and the like. My heart bubbles up and overflows in response to music, which has so often refreshed me and...
The New Testament is filled with evidence that God never intended to confine the outpouring of the Spirit to one historic day.
So Jesus' practice of table-fellowship was not only an expression of the good news of God's kingly rule. It was also an implicit critique of a Pharisaic definition of acceptability, of a Pharisaic practice which classified many fellow Jews as sinners, effectively...
The reason for the imparting of eternal life is that God is love. It is the nature of God to love, and God is faithful to that nature. This love impels the Divine Source to send the Son, one who shares this nature and whose very essence is this sharing. Although the...
To understand the story, we need to note how Jesus got into the desert in the first place--into this lonely and heart-breaking place where he was to face the hardest challenge he had yet known. Surely it was the devil who took him there. But the story says that Jesus...
It is only the infinite mercy and love of God that has prevented us from tearing ourselves to pieces and destroying His entire creation long ago. People seem to think that it is in some way a proof that no merciful God exists, if we have so many wars. On the contrary,...