You’ll be identified as His by one sign only…

Jesus said you are to love one another as I have loved you, a love that will possibly lead to the bloody, anguished gift of yourself; a love that forgives seventy times seven, that keeps no score of wrongdoing. Jesus said this, this love, is the one criterion, the sole norm, the standard of discipleship in the New Israel of God. He said you’re going to be identified as His disciples, not because of your church-going, bible-toting, or song-singing. No, you’ll be identified as His by one sign only: the deep and delicate respect for one another, the cordial love impregnated with reverence for the sacred dimension of the human personality because of the mysterious substitution of Christ for the Christian. – Brennan Manning, The Furious Longing of God

If I had it all to do over again…

I’ve decided that if I had my life to live all over again, I would not only climb more mountains, swim more rivers, and watch more sunsets; I wouldn’t only jettison my hot water bottle, raincoat, umbrella, parachute, and raft; I would not only go barefoot earlier in the spring and stay out later in the fall; but I would devote not one more minute to monitoring my spiritual growth. No, not one. – Brennan Manning

It’s my skin. If I could just tear it off, I’d be like everybody else.

In 1903 Branch Rickey took his Ohio Wesleyan University baseball team to play Notre Dame. When the team arrived at the old Oliver Hotel to check in, the hotel manager said, according to the Rev. Bob Olmstead, a Methodist minister in Palo Alto, CA, “I have rooms for all of you — except for him” — and he pointed to the team’s catcher, Charley Thomas, who was black.

“Why don’t you have a room for him?” Rickey asked.

“Because our policy is whites only.”

“I’d like to have Charley stay in my room,” Rickey responded. “Can you bring in a cot?”

After long deliberations, the innkeeper relented. Rickey sent the ball players to their rooms. But when he got to his room Charlie Thomas was sitting on a chair sobbing. Rickey recounted later, “Charlie was pulling frantically at his hands, pulling at his hands. “He looked at me and said, ‘It’s my skin. If I could just tear it off, I’d be like everybody else. It’s my skin, it’s my skin, Mr. Rickey!’”

Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson Signing 1948

The goal of this is love

5 The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. (1 Ti 1:5–6 NIV)

Trust me, it’s enough

Prayerfully consider taking a few moments every day for the next month, closing your eyes, upturning your palms, and praying, “Abba, I belong to you.” Don’t make it anything more than that; trust me, it’s enough. – Brennan Manning

Being a Good Samaritan is not Enough

On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

God loves the world…

God is Green.

And Christians should be too. God gave man dominion over the earth, not to exploit it, but to care for it. How are we doing?

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. (2 Corinthians 4:7, ESV)

Our Father

Our Father. Familiar words, maybe so familiar that they are no longer real. Those words were not only real, but also revolutionary to the twelve disciples. Pagan philosophers such as Aristotle arrived at the existence of God via human reason and referred to Him in vague, impersonal terms: the uncaused cause, the immovable mover. The prophets of Israel revealed the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in a warmer, more compassionate manner. But only Jesus revealed to an astonished Jewish community that God is truly Father. If you took the love of all the best mothers and fathers who have lived in the course of human history, all their goodness, kindness, patience, fidelity, wisdom, tenderness, strength, and love and united all those qualities in a single person, that person’s love would only be a faint shadow of the furious love and mercy in the heart of God the Father addressed to you and me at this moment. – Brennan Manning

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”

I Offer Myself

God, I offer myself to you, to build with me and to do with me as you will. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do your will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help, of your love, your power, and your way of life. Amen.

"No evil can resist grace forever.” -Brennan Manning

Jackie Robinson and the Pattern of Jesus

Happy Jackie Robinson Day!

Jackie Robinson and the Pattern of Jesus

Radical Forgiveness

I showed this video as part of my message this morning about radical forgiveness. If we see what these Amish people did with amazement and awe, it is because we are seeing Jesus in action. As disciples of Jesus, this is what we are called to. And we can do it if we have the life of Christ in us. If we let Christ live through us.

Amish Grace

Unbelief and Madness

I realized that he had died in order that I might stop turning to him with questions about justice, and believe instead, deep within myself, that the scales had come down overflowing on the side of love, and that even though all, through unbelief and madness, had offended him, he had conquered forever, and drawn all things everlastingly to himself. – Carlo Carretto

7 Questions About Suicide and Christians

“Every Christian dies with unconfessed sin and suicide is not the unpardonable sin.”

This is a really thoughtful article about mental illness and Christians from an authoritative voice. Please read before making stupid comments.

7 Questions about Suicide and Christians

The exclusion of Christ

The exclusion of the weak and insignificant, the seemingly useless people, from everyday Christian life in community may actually mean the exclusion of Christ; for in the poor sister or brother, Christ is knocking at the door. – Bonhoeffer

Not to speaks is to speak, not to act is to act…

Keeping it Simple

“God, here I am and here are all my troubles. I’ve made a mess of things and can’t do anything about it. You take me, and all my troubles, and do anything you want with me.” – Alcoholics Anonymous

From spiritual death to spiritual life

The evidence that Saint Paul had passed from spiritual death to spiritual life was not that he heard a voice, saw a light, and temporarily lost his sight, but that love replaced hatred, that patience replaced his testiness, and that meekness replaced his pride.  - Steve Turner

We ought to be able to love those who are sinful and unkind and selfish…

“When our hearts are occupied with his wondrous love, we remember that he loved us when we were unlovely, and some of us are not very lovely now; we remember that he loved us when we were unlovable, and some of us are not very lovable yet. If he could do that when we were rebellious, and if that same love is now shed abroad in our hearts, we ought to be able to love those who are sinful and unkind and selfish.” - Dr. H. A. Ironside

James Montgomery Boice, The Sermon on the Mount: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2002), 228.

Why do I keep expecting happiness and satisfaction outside of you?

O Lord, who else or what else can I desire but you? You are my Lord, Lord of my heart, mind, and soul. You know me through and through. In and through you everything that is finds its origin and goal. You embrace all that exists and and care for it with divine love and compassion. Why then, do I keep expecting happiness and satisfaction outside of you? Why do I keep relating to you as one of my many relationships, instead of my only relationship, in which all other ones are grounded? Why do I keep looking for popularity, respect from others, success, acclaim, and sensual pleasures? Why, Lord, is it so hard for me to make you the only one? Why do I keep hesitating to surrender myself totally to you?

Help me, O Lord, to let my old self die, to let die the thousand big and small ways in which I am building up my false self and trying to cling to my false desires. Let me be reborn in you and see through you the world in the right way, so that all my actions, words, and thoughts can become a hymn of praise to you.

I need your loving grace to travel on this hard road that leads to the death of my old self and to a new life in and for you. I know and trust that this is the road to freedom.

Lord, dispel my mistrust and help me to become a trusting friend. Amen – Henri Nouwen