A mother’s deep affection for her newborn child is completely understandable. The nine months they’ve spent journeying together—and a surge of maternal hormones—create an instant, fierce attraction to that red and wrinkled infant gazing solemnly into her eyes. A young couple’s giddy delight in each other at the wedding altar is completely understandable. Months of shared memories and reverent promises have propelled them to this moment—along with a surge of powerful biochemicals. Nothing...

What kind of person gets angry when a wretched, broken sinner is restored by the grace of God? Are there really people that selfish? The answer, according to Jesus, is sadly “Yes”—and they sometimes congregate in churches. In Jesus’ famous story, an arrogant younger brother forces his father to liquidate the family holdings to fund his portion of the estate, yet finally comes to his senses while wrestling pigs for food in a far-off land. Broken by his foolish choices, he makes his best...

It’s usually said with a cynical smile and an eye roll: “My good deed did not go unpunished.” And it nicely sums up the exasperation we feel when life doesn’t seem fair, when hard work isn’t rewarded, when doing the right thing brings only more trouble and heartache. But what if the more accurate summary of our lives was actually the inverse: “My bad deeds did not get punished.” According to the Bible, our faith in Jesus means that we’ll never get what we deserve—and we will be deliriously...

These hours between midnight and dawn test the patience of the world. We stumble through the hallways of dark houses. We seek companionship in all-night TV channels and books that used to put us to sleep. We hide from pain or grief that won’t let us close our eyes. Why must dawn wait? Why must the hope of day stretch out so far away? If we could, we’d reach out and pull the first gray light of morning toward us–wrap ourselves in a little bit of hope and cheer. But dawn isn’t within our...

Fast-forward, if you can, to scenes our hearts are aching to be in. Redeemed at last from all the brokenness, the pettiness, the pain of earthly life, we stand before the throne with those from every nation, tribe, and people, breathing in the air of heaven and singing at the top of our lungs, “Salvation belongs to our God” (Rev 7:10). Does even one hand go up to get the Lord’s attention? — “I need to be sure my good deeds are recorded, that my sacrifice is written down...

It’s a pandemic for the ages.   Even though we’re more “connected” than ever, a tidal wave of loneliness has washed around the world. Eight billion cell phones aren’t enough if people talk to fewer friends, never share a walk or meal, or leave important things unsaid. Our bodies and our minds insist that we be with someone. And so the first name given Jesus in the Gospels is “Immanuel”—“God with us”—the One who shares the walk, who shares the meal; the One who promises to never leave us...

We are wary for good reasons. We’ve had too much of hurt, of wounds, of promises that didn’t deliver. Nothing “too good to be true” should ever be believed. But grace presents us with impossibly good things—all backed up by the God who cannot lie and never exaggerates. “As far as the east is from the west, so far He removes our transgressions from us” (Ps 103:12). “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you” (Eze 36:26).Was there ever better news? Can the God we’ve so...

It takes a lot to surprise the authors of the Bible.  In the pages of Scripture, we find unflinchingly honest stories about every kind of failing—adultery, murder, cruelty, abuse. Nothing human is foreign to them.  But they were startled—even shocked—at the undeserved and unexpected mercy of God for broken people like us.  Listen to Paul: “Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But...

When warm light floods the living room and laughter visits along with friends, we bless the grace of God for making all our good days better.    But when the rain slants heavily across our midnight loneliness, is grace still real? Is God still good?   The greatest saints this world has known are full unanimous on this: God’s grace is undiminished by the dark, the cold, the prison cell, the illness and the tears.   For just such hours and just such years the witness of God’s Word is clear: “He...

A century ago, the poet wept: “Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold.”  And after greater blood and anarchy, who dares to argue with him? Pollyannas need not apply.   And yet, sweet children are still softly kissed before they dream each night. Young lovers stroll and plan for lives that still unfold. The vendor at the corner store still offers us a smile with every morning’s purchase.  What keeps our world above the “blood-dimmed tide” that threatens to engulf us?   According to the Word...

Name any virtue dear to you, and there’s one grace behind it. Even the Bible’s best-known virtues— “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23)—grow from one even more remarkable quality: humility. Love means putting others before ourselves; joy is joining in another’s glee. Peace emerges when we quiet the clamoring of ego; kindness acts to bless another. Faithfulness means being loyal to someone other than ourselves. Gentleness...

When we were children, practicing was frequently the bane of our existence. Endless loops of cursive handwriting; sticky valves on rented clarinets; stubborn keyboard ivories that mocked our stubby fingers. Practicing brought little joy as we outlasted clocks. But then, perhaps, we found some sweet proficiency—some pleasing skill still short of smooth perfection. We scored the winning soccer goal; our fingers or our voices shared a recognizable tune.  And so it is as we learn grace. Against...

When all our boasts are at an end; when no one’s left we might impress; when all our tales of make believe have not made anyone believe—we stare into the mirror that reveals our brokenness and pain. Hard as it is, this is the moment richer life begins. Reduced by circumstance and time to being honest with ourselves, we reach for help we cannot give ourselves. “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa...

I sing the solo grace “that saved a wretch like me,”—and so I should. Without it, I would be forever lost and never found. But grace is more than what God does for me, though there may never be a hymn to fully capture that. Grace is the Spirit moving in a hundred hearts when reconciliation is proclaimed from pulpits or on hillsides. “For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that...

The finest things that we can say are sometimes framed as negatives. Here’s one: “Love never gives up, never loses faith” (1 Cor 13:8). That’s why we celebrate what the Bible so often calls God’s “steadfast love”—His unchanging, unyielding, untiring affection for every human being. He doesn’t warm to us when we are nice on sunny Tuesdays—or grow remote and cold when we stay home from church. He doesn’t offer, like some parents, affection earned by good behavior. He doesn’t icily withdraw into...

Make covenants, not resolutions, as you walk into the year, for covenants give us company in keeping what we pledge. A resolution with no witness is too often just a wish, a good intention with nothing but our declining willpower to make the vital difference.  The covenants we really need are bigger than our diets and more urgent than our visits to the gym. We need companions to whom we’ll make the most important promises of all: to tell each other just the truth; to remind each other of how...

Each year, as New Year’s Day arrives, believers wrestle quietly with one of the Apostle Paul’s most puzzling assertions: “One thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal” (Phil 3:13-14).   How—exactly—is it possible to “forget what lies behind”?   The year just lived was full of slights and insults:  they fester unforgettably each time that face or name appears.  The year just past brought wounds—both planned and unintentional....

It’s the most frequently portrayed scene in all of human history.   Four-year olds sketch out the wise men, sheep, and cattle.  Sculptors craft three human figures beneath a simple roof, and we fill in the rest. Churches erect elaborate crèches, some with anxious animals, some with freezing actors. Billions of gilded Christmas cards imagine this one moment in its gentle innocence.    Why does the story of a humble birth 2000 years ago transfix a weary world? Because it is supremely a story of...

Our fascination with the stars is as old as . . . one gorgeous night in Eden. As darkness first descended on God’s rich, untrammeled world, there was no fear, no threat, no shying from the shadows. A dazzling panoply of stars entranced the first two humans ever subject to their brilliance, mystery, and power. We name the stars to tame them—just to counterfeit some ownership over what we never can control. We search for patterns, figures, shapes. We stare as fragments of their shining streak...

It’s a tough time to be selling “Peace on Earth.” In the Christmas Shoppe at the megastore, elves and reindeer move briskly out the door. Nativity scenes in warm pastels are inner-lit with bulbs and cheer. Miles and miles of twinkling lights unwind from endless shelves. But who is buying “Peace on Earth?” At first, it seems a quaint anachronism, harking back to simpler times and well-tuned carolers. But now, we fear our neighbors will think us terribly insensitive to be flaunting anything of...

It’s a story filled with angels, and so a story filled with grace. An angel reveals to an aged priest that his wife will bear a son named John. The angel Gabriel announces to a virgin that she will be the mother of the promised Messiah, whose very name announces our salvation. Her fiancé—like Joseph of old, a man of dreams—is counseled by an angel to welcome the gracious plan devised by heaven to save the world. Another angel declares to startled shepherds that the Messiah has been born in...

“If you would tell me, tell me true,” a wise old man once said. “There isn’t time enough for lies.” And when we’ve polished all our trophies, and sung again our victory songs, we come at last to stories too painful to be false. Each honest story unwraps our wounds, our hurts—as well as those we’ve given. We grieve the loved ones whom we’ve lost—a spouse; a friend; a much-loved child—though some of them still live and breathe. We mourn the loss of innocence; we’ve soaked up toxic sums of...

We are wary for good reasons. We’ve had too much of hurt, of wounds, of promises that didn’t deliver. Nothing “too good to be true” should ever be believed. But grace presents us with impossibly good things—all backed up by the God who cannot lie and never exaggerates. “As far as the east is from the west, so far He removes our transgressions from us” (Ps 103:12). “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you” (Eze 36:26).Was there ever better news? Can the God we’ve so...

Where does kindness come from? Nothing in the narrative of evolutionary biology can tell us why one human would act with compassion or thoughtfulness toward another. In a world where survival alone is supposed to be the highest goal, nothing disinterested happens. All human behaviors should only produce results for the one doing them. Yet kindness exists. Parents nurture children, and not only to perpetuate their genetic line. Friends do “unnecessary” things for each other—providing emotional...