With the power of God and a commitment to breaking free from unhealthy family patterns, we can foster healthy relationships in the new family of Jesus.
Remember, being emotionally healthy adults who love well is a great gift we can give to the world.
The Advent season is a season of waiting, but our whole life is an Advent season, that is, a season of waiting for the last Advent, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, "God is in the Manger"
Christian philanthropy accounted for 70% of all American philanthropy in 2022 at $300 billion total. Christians also out-gave the U.S. Government in addressing global poverty.
- Barna
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Whatever folks might say or think, the church remains a seismic value-add to the world.
@LiquidChurch4Us A CONSTANTLY needed reminder in my life. Another way I think of it - Believing truth about God is one thing. Trusting in the truth of who God is, is another matter entirely.
We need to believe, not just that the facts of the gospel are true. We need to believe IN the living truth of the gospel. There’s a world of difference between believing that Jesus is full of grace & truth and trusting that His grace is toward us and that He is true for us.
You do not need to be extraordinary. You need to be the ordinary inhabited by the extraordinary life of God. A word, a meal, a cup of cold water, have the capacity to bring the life of God to this world and delight His heart.
Actions & attitudes that flow from our lives are determined by whether we see the world around us as GLORY STARVED or GLORY SOAKED. If our world is soaked in God’s glory, we can love, show mercy, kindness & grace. If glory starved, we’ll put others down, demean & be self-serving.
On this day, in 1555, Nicholas Ridley & Hugh Latimer were burned at the stake for preaching justification by faith alone. Latimer said, “Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light a candle in England, by God’s grace, that shall never be put out.”
MORALISTIC PHARISEE:
I disregard you because you aren’t as virtuous, well-behaved, and doctrinaire as I am.
'GRACE' PHARISEE:
I disregard you because you aren’t as kind, accepting, and inclusive as I am.
God help us all.
In the upper world hell once rebelled against heaven. But in this world heaven is rebelling against hell." Chesterton
“Enemy-occupied territory---that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed" - Lewis