Most of our conflicts and difficulties come from trying to deal with the spiritual and practical aspects of our life separately instead of realizing them as parts of one whole. If our practical life is centered on our own interests, cluttered up by possessions,...
00496 – Opening the Gates of Hell?
I would not want to spend eternity with the self-satisfied souls who think they deserve heaven, while everybody else belongs in hell. Can I damn another fellow being without tasting hell myself? Can I hate other Christians without plunging my own heart into hell? When...
00472 – Happiness in Spite of Circumstances
The happiness which brings enduring worth to life is not the superficial happiness that is dependent on circumstances. It is the happiness and contentment that fills the soul even in the midst of the most distressing of circumstances and the most bitter environment....
00461 – Bringing God’s Presence Near
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...
00425 – Religion Must Have Deep Conviction
We modernists have often gotten at our faith by a negative process. We do not believe this. We do not believe that. We have given up this incredible idea or that obsolete doctrine. So we pare down and dim out our faith by negative abstractions until we have left only...
00416 – Discipleship: Not Part of Social Club
Discipleship, we know from the life of the Christ whom we follow, is not membership in a clerical social club called a church. Discipleship is an attitude of mind, a quality of soul, a way of living that is not political but which has serious political implications,...
00401 – Being “Born-Again”
Jesus was not interested in making people religious, but leading them to a loving relationship with himself, and therefore with God. He offered forgiveness and healing to sin-sick souls as the basis of new life, opening up a path of discipleship, compassion and...
00373 – Becoming More Fully Human
My life depends on ignoring all touted distinctions between the secular and the sacred, the physical and the spiritual, the body and the soul. What is saving my life now is becoming more fully human, trusting that there is no way to God apart from real life in the...
00318 – Christ’s Birth Has a Purpose for Us
The birth of Christ in our souls is for a purpose beyond ourselves: it is because his manifestation in the world must be through us. Every Christian is, as it were, part of the dust-laden air which shall radiate the glowing epiphany of God, catch and reflect his...
00296 – What Lies Within
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.