Move on! Drop the negative influence! Cancel the crazy ones in your life! That is not the call of Jesus, but it is the call of our modern culture. Jesus commands us to love not just our neighbors, but also our enemies. I never thought I would have enemies. It all sounds a bit dramatic but, as life goes on, you might find there is a group of people who you have offended in one way or another. Some of... Read more
Readers of this blog should be no strangers to me advocating for the biopsychosocial-spiritual model of health and wellbeing. Today I want to address the sometimes thorny topic of how spirituality can and should be incorporated into healthcare. Clearly I am not talking about bashing people over the head with the Bible and trying to convert them. But as retired mental health nurse Sandra Delemare said in our recent interview, "Spiritual care is asking someone how they are and really listening to the answer because you genuinely want to know" Read more
Raised With Christ is Warnock’s answer to years of sermons (his own included) that stopped short of resurrection’s full weight. Drawing on Scripture and classic theological voices, this book walks readers through what it actually means to be “raised with Christ” — not as a doctrine to affirm once a year at Easter, but as a daily reality that reshapes identity, hope, and how believers face death itself. Read more
How the church lost sight of the centrality of a personal relationship with Jesus and how we might recover it It was a joy and a privilege to interview Gary York, the author of Christ in You: Experiencing Intimacy with Jesus. This article reflects our conversation, organized in the form of a list of reasons why the average Christian today seems to have a very different experience of their relationship with Jesus than previous generations. Gary explains this deficit beautifully... Read more
"Oh, may His precious name be engraved on our hearts, and sound sweeter than music to our ears. For He has loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and will save to the uttermost in defiance of all our sins, fears, and enemies!" Read more
When our hope's are dashed, and we do not understand, God is still trustworthy. In my recent interview with Tim Challies we looked back over more than 20 years of personal blogging. Deciding all those years ago to share our journeys online has meant that we have both lived our lives in view of our readers. And that has inevitably meant being open about our challenges. We have both gone through some significantly difficult situations. Just still being Christians after all these years might be seen by some as an achievement. But in our interview Tim credited his preservation to God Himself rather than anything special about him. Read more
What makes a person read an entire multi volume edition of a 300 year-old preacher’s published works? Keith Pummer kept reading because Newton kept leading him to Jesus as he read a small portion day after day. It took long-term discipline and commitment until he got to the end. There is something profoundly counter-cultural about that image of someone deciding to take on a task like that and step by step progress through the journey he had set for himself.... Read more
"I find vanity engraved in capital letters, on myself and everything around me. I am surrounded by mercies, and so completely satisfied with my outward condition, that I could hardly wish a single circumstance changed. Yet I feel emptiness, and so I sigh and groan." Read more
Some might think that Newton’s previous assessment of himself which we discussed in the last post was that of a relatively young Christian. Did things change? In this letter written in 1772 we see that his impression of himself didn’t improve, if anything he had grown to understand himself even better, and did not like what he saw. In his introspection he does not become condemned and passive, however. I love his phrase “here hope revives”. What gives you... Read more
I’ve been thinking just a little bit about how little we value real communion with God today. Well, let’s speak personally about this, how little that I value truly knowing God. How often do we all spend our time with other people devoted purely to leisure or idle conversation, rather than to help one another to know God. I want to share with you a letter that John Newton wrote about this. He wrote it after one of his many visits to Yorkshire, where he... Read more
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