Viewing entries tagged
grace
No matter what your religious background is, you should be at least a little outraged at the message that a child’s presents somehow correlate with their moral behaviour. As others have pointed out, the presents that children receive mostly reflect the relative wealth of their parents, not whether they’re on some list of morally superior children.
When people say that they think they’ll go to heaven because they’re a good person, not only do they think they can define what good is, but they assume they know how good is good enough.
Maisie Williams has accomplished more in the first 25 years of her life than most of us could hope to in a lifetime. Knowing that, it’s surprising, perhaps, to hear her admit that she often lies “in bed at night telling myself all the things I hate about myself.” How do you deal with feelings of shame that seem to punish and condemn you?
An unchristian message about discipleship or the Christian life is one where our effort is the only solution to the problem. It’s the message that says, “Be a good person” and “Just try harder.” Or worse yet, “You’re a terrible person; look how bad you are.” These messages create Pharisees, not Christians. So how do you avoid teaching an unchristian message from the Bible? Let me offer four questions to ask any time you prepare a talk whether it’s for a youth group, a Sunday School class, or even your own kids.
Christians love the Parable of the Prodigal Son. And why wouldn’t we? There’s drama, loss, family tension, crisis, and reconciliation – all the ingredients of a great story! While it’s one that we love, there are lessons that we seem to keep missing when we read it. Jesus’ parable wasn’t just told as a beautiful illustration of the gospel. It was told in response to the grumbling of the religious elite over his eating and drinking with sinners (Luke 15:1-2). There are 3 lessons we can’t afford to miss.
In 2016, Jerry Bridges passed away from heart failure. His writings, perhaps more than anyone, have made a deep impact on my life. I share them with you in the hopes that maybe you’ll add one of them to your summer reading list.
What do you do when your child has disobeyed you or broken your rules? The temptation is to play the part of a sentencing judge. Lying to your sister? Go to your room! Stayed out too late? You’re grounded. If all we do is hand out sentences and demand obedience, there is no good news in our parenting.
I watched the 80’s throwback movie “Blinded by the Light” recently, and not being a Bruce Springsteen fan, it was mostly the non-Boss music that made me reminisce. Hearing the Pet Shop Boys took me back to my high school days and the music that was so much a part of my life at a time of life when music seems so important. One song that stood out to me was “It’s a Sin,” the second hit from the Pet Shop Boys after their debut single, “West End Girls.” As I listened to the chorus, it struck me that I remembered more of the melody than the lyrics. I think I spent more time dancing to the song than actually listening to its message. Now, so many years later, I read the lyrics of lead singer Neil Tennant and reflected on them with sadness and regret. His words give voice to many people’s experience of religion, so even if you’ve never heard of the band, you may relate to their message.
There’s probably one passage more than any other that’s usually read at weddings. It’s the great chapter on love from 1 Corinthians 13. It’s an appropriate passage for married couples to reflect on, but it wasn’t written for them. This passage on love was written in a prolonged discussion of church ministry. It shows us how love turns volunteering into ministry and how a lack of love can make serving something less than it was intended to be.
I’m old enough now to remember when the Lord’s Prayer was recited every morning in the public schools that I attended. Repeating those words every day influenced how I thought about God, to some extent, but it didn’t really teach me how to pray. If I recited a 10-line poem to my wife every day and that represented the sum total of our communication, I’m not sure we’d still be married! In the same way, just reciting the Lord’s Prayer isn’t how we speak to the God who invites into a relationship. Besides, right before teaching the disciples this prayer, Jesus warned them against mindlessly repeating empty phrases (Matthew 6:7), so it’s clear that mere repetition wasn’t His goal. The Lord’s Prayer doesn’t tell us what to pray so much as it teaches us how to pray. Let me share 3 ways it can do that.
