How do we know what real spiritual experience of God is? And then how do we have it? How do we actually move toward it?
The Psalms are a journal—almost a kind of instruction manual from the inside—with people who are experiencing God and explaining a…
What does experience of God actually consist of? How does it happen? And how do I know if I’m experiencing God?
Psalm 63 shows several principles of what a real experience of God is and consists of. Each principle can be used as a test on your own he…
We have a tremendous hunger for spiritual experience. But how do we experience God? And how do we know we’re experiencing God?
The Psalms are an amazing resource, because in the Psalms you have someone describing their experience of God from the insi…
If you want to get the gist of who Jesus is, you have to look at a whole number of encounters Jesus had with individuals. The gospels are filled with encounters Jesus has with all sorts of people: with the powerful person, with the powerless person, …
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Some people dwell on Christ’s power and authority and majesty, and other people dwell on Christ’s vulnerability and tenderness and grace. But it’s critical not to, because of our own temperaments, screen out one side of Jesus as if it’s incompatible….
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This text tells us something that’s easy to ignore, that’s often missed: that Jesus is the final word. Jesus claims a finality here, and because he claims his salvation is completely by grace through him, the Pharisees and the Herodians get together …
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The message of Christmas is the message of the gospel. It’s the essential message of Christianity. And in Luke 1, we have one person’s response to that message. At Christmastime you’ll be hearing this message. The question is, “How should you respond…
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The theme of forgiveness is something that’s in so much of opera, theater, and literature—because it’s a very important issue in human living. So our theme comes in the form of a question: should we always forgive?
Forgiveness is always easy when you…
Why is it that we celebrate Christmas with gift giving? We don’t do that at Easter. We don’t do that at Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July. At anniversaries and birthdays, we give one person gifts, but at Christmas everybody gives everybody gifts. Wh…
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We’ve been looking at Christian practices, or spiritual disciplines, by which our character changes. Now, instead of looking at one practice, we’ll look at how a number of practices come together to create one particular character quality: self-contr…
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