Restored in Him

Australia’s regent honeyeater bird is in trouble—it’s losing its song. Though once an abundant species, just three hundred birds now remain; and with so few others to learn from, the males are forgetting their unique song and failing to attract mates. Thankfully, conservationists plan to rescue the honeyeaters by singing to them. Or, more precisely, play them recordings of other honeyeaters singing so they can relearn their heart song. As the males pick up…

Some days it’s as if we’re walking perfectly in sync with the Lord. And other days we can’t seem to find Him anywhere. Though many of us try to control this ebb and flow of feeling near to Him, the pattern is likely to continue this side of heaven. That’s why we need to take Jesus’ invitation seriously: “Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). Participating in the process of our sanctification&mdash…

The new covenant has two parts to it: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezek. 36:26). God removed your old heart when he circumcised your heart; he gives you a new heart when he joins you to the life of Christ. That's why Paul can say "count yourselves dead to sin" and "alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 6:11). The story of the Incarnation…

Somber eyes peer out from the painting Simon of Cyrene by contemporary Dutch artist Egbert Modderman. Simon’s eyes reveal the immense physical and emotional burden of his responsibility. In the biblical account from Mark 15, we learn that Simon was pulled from the watching crowd and forced to carry Jesus’ cross. Mark tells us that Simon was from Cyrene, a big city in North Africa with a large population of Jews during Jesus’ time. Most likely Simon had…

The resurrection of Jesus was the first of many, the forerunner of our own. He paved the way, as the saying goes. The fact is that Christ has been raised from the dead. He has become the first of a great harvest of those who will be raised to life again. (1 Cor. 15:20 NLT) God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of…

Tony Bullimore, aged fifty-six, was one of Britain’s most experienced transatlantic yachtsmen. He was feared dead after his sixty-foot yacht, *Exide Challenger*, capsized amid the icy vastness of the Southern Ocean, two months into the Vendée Globe round-the-world race. The keel came off ain fifty-foot waves. The boat went over. In his book, *Saved*, Bullimore described it as being like the Niagara Falls upside down. For four days he was entombed in a dark,,…

“ESCAPE.” The billboard shouts the benefits of having a hot tub installed. It gets my attention—and gets me thinking. My wife and I have talked about getting a hot tub . . . someday. It’d be like a vacation in our backyard! Except for the cleaning. And the electric bill. And . . . suddenly, the hoped-for escape starts to sound like something I might need escape from. Still, that word entices so effectively because it promises something we want:.…

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…

What is it that God wants from you? He wants the same thing that you want. He wants to be loved. He wants to be known as only lovers can know each other. He wants intimacy with you. Yes, yes, he wants your obedience, but only when it flows out of a heart filled with love for him. “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me” (John 14:21). Following hard after Jesus is the heart’s natural response when it has been captured and has…