The greatest of all power is the conscious abdication and relinquishment of it. The outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross signify that if we are to be like him (Matthew 4:19; 5:48) we must surrender that almost insatiable human appetite to pull things in to ourselves, to hold on to them and to control. Finding strength and power in helplessness, vulnerability and letting go seems contrary to our nature. But Jesus demonstrated that accepting our loss of control and…
Do you really know how to love? For Jesus, loving others is what it’s all about. But do we, as a people, really know how to love? Or are those who profess to be the modern-day followers of Jesus more like the Pharisees, who outwardly drew near to God but had hearts that were far, far away from him? Are we merely whiting our social media sepulchers when we present an image to the world designed to manipulate how others…
I distinctly recall taking what I thought would be my last mortal breath. Life and circumstance had beaten me down and whittled me away to a mere shadow of my former self. I was rapidly wasting away. At 90 pounds less than what I weighed just a few months before, my active heart rate was 32-33 beats per minute. My digestive system was paralyzed. I couldn’t eat. I was on a feeding tube. And, as much as I wanted to…
Pornography is evil. I’ll never deny that. But, for the religious, it has become a convenient scapegoat, hiding an even more insidious evil we don’t like to talk about. The ego/the natural man (whatever you want to call it) … it will always find a person, group or thing—something or someone “out there”—on which to project its problems. This great evil, this plague, this thing “out there” attacking us and assaulting us diverts our attention and focus away from where…
