Knowing & Being Known

After being diagnosed with a brain tumor, Christina Costa noticed how much of the talk around facing cancer is dominated by the language of fighting. She found that this metaphor quickly started to feel exhausting. She “didn’t want to spend over a year at war with [her] own body.” Instead, what she found most helpful were daily practices of gratitude—for the team of professionals caring for her and for the ways her brain and body were showing.…

What you hear from God is determined in part by the attitude you carry into any conversation with Him. Our mind-set toward a conversation with God is affected by these things: Our Prior Relationship With God — Each of us has a history with God that began even before birth (Jeremiah 1:5). He ordained us to be on earth, and He has a plan and purpose for us, even though we may not have recognized them. However, until a person has received Jesus Christ as his personal…

I always felt it strange that God needed to command us to love him. (It is the first and greatest of all the commandments.) Now I see better. When God calls us to love him as our “first love,” it is not only because he deserves to hold that place in our hearts, but also because he knows what pain will come when we get that out of order. If you give the part of your soul that is meant for God to lesser things, they will break your heart because they cannot…

Jesus said of those who follow Him: My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. (John 10:27-29)What a great statement of hope and comfort this is to us! We can know the voice of the Lord. As we follow His voice and do what He says, we&rsquo…

“Courageous speech has always held us in awe. From the first time we spoke back to our parents as angry, stuttering teens, or had to stand tongue-tied before a roomful of people, feeling naked as the day we were born. There is, after all, something bare and revealing about speech. Perhaps because we intuit the physical intimacy behind the sound of words and the way they are spoken, and that much against our wishes our words tell the listener a good deal more than we…

I love the story of a certain man whom Jesus interfered with, much to his initial chagrin. Remember when Jesus met the man possessed with many demons in Luke 8? So they arrived in the region of the Gerasenes, across the lake from Galilee. As Jesus was climbing out of the boat, a man who was possessed by demons came out to meet him. For a long time he had been homeless and naked, living in the tombs outside the town. As soon as he saw Jesus, he shrieked and fell down in…

Moses was apprehensive about accepting God's invitation to liberate the people. During the dialogue, God chooses to reveal His personal name to Moses. God says His name is, "I am."In Hebrew, the meaning comes across with much more meaning. Let's unpack this for a moment. When God speaks His name, the Hebrew word is "Ehweh," which means "I am and will be." When Moses or others use God's name, the Hebrew word is "Yahweh," "…

As a boy, Ming found his father harsh and distant. Even when Ming was ill and had to see the pediatrician, his father grumbled that it was troublesome. Once, he overheard a quarrel and learned his father had wanted him aborted. The feeling of being an unwanted child followed him into his adult years. When Ming became a believer in Jesus, he found it difficult to relate to God as Father, even though he knew Him as Lord of his life. If, like Ming, we haven’t felt loved…

It stars Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando. Set in the Vietnam War, Apocalypse Now is a 1979 epic war film. The use of the word ‘apocalypse’ is based on the popular misunderstanding of the word as ‘destruction’. The Greek word apokalupsis, translated ‘revelation’ (Revelation 1:1), is made up of two Greek words – apo (out of) and kalupsis (‘hiding’). The word actually means ‘disclosure’. In the book of,…