Identity Security

We live in a larger story. This is not the land of the white picket fences with a chicken in every pot. We don’t live in Oz or the Kansas of its wizard. There is an incredibly good ending to our story, but it often isn’t on this side of eternity. Joy comes. Here. Joy is available. Now. It is birthed in the unchanging love of our Father. To know God’s love is to be able to stand in gusts and gales, and though our bodies be knocked over, our souls remain…

‘People often ask me what Mother Teresa was like,’ writes Shane Claiborne in his book *The Irresistible Revolution*. ‘Sometimes it’s like they wonder if she glowed in the dark or had a halo. She was short, wrinkled, and precious, maybe even a little ornery, like a beautiful, wise old granny. But there is one thing I will never forget – her feet. Her feet were deformed. Each morning I would stare at them. I wondered if she had contracted.…

Beauty is transcendent. It is our most immediate experience of the eternal. Think of what it's like to behold a gorgeous sunset or the ocean at dawn. Remember the ending of a great story. We yearn to linger, to experience it all our days. Sometimes the beauty is so deep it pierces us with longing. For what? For life as it was meant to be. Beauty reminds us of an Eden we have never known, but somehow know our hearts were created for. Beauty speaks of heaven to come,…

Did you know God “wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4)? He wants each of us to live in such a way that we influence others for their spiritual good. Jesus used two words—salt and light—to illustrate our mission. Salt, which flavors and preserves, permeates the food on which it is sprinkled, causing a significant difference in flavor. Christians are to function the same way, by spreading the appeal of…

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" "You will not surely die," the…

Ancient scholars Jerome and Tertullian referenced stories of how in ancient Rome, after a general triumphed in an epic victory, he would be paraded atop a gleaming chariot down the capital’s central thoroughfares from dawn to sunset. The crowd would roar. The general would bask in the adoration, reveling in the greatest honor of his life. However, legend has it that a servant stood behind the general the entire day, whispering into his ear, Memento mori (&ldquo…

AW Tozer once said that what comes to mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. Why? Because the way you see and think about God shapes the way you see and think about everything else. If you answer the question “who is God?” with “the giant dictator in the sky,” your behavior, how you move through your day, will probably be marked by fear and hesitancy, hoping you don’t mess up and get smited for it. If you answer…

If I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. PHILIPPIANS 2:17 Are you willing to sacrifice yourself for the work of another believer—to pour out your life sacrificially for the ministry and faith of others? Or do you say, “I am not willing to be poured out right now, and I don’t want God to tell me how to serve Him. I want to choose the place of my own sacrifice. And I want to…

To live as an authentic, ransomed, and redeemed woman means to be real and present in this moment. If we continue to hide, much will be lost. We cannot have intimacy with God or anyone else if we stay hidden and offer only who we think we ought to be or what we believe is wanted. We cannot play the ezer role we were meant to play if we remain bound by shame and fear, presenting only to the world the face we have learned is safe. You have only one life to live. It would be…