Most people picture judgment as a scale. Everything they have done on one side. Everything they should have done on the other. And most people, if they are honest with themselves, have already done that math — and they don't like the answer. The life on the scale is too thin. Too few
Read MoreThere's a reason a lot of people keep faith at a safe distance. It's not that they don't believe in God. It's that they have tried to be better — really tried — and it didn't work or only lasted a short time. They know their record. They know the patterns that keep repeating, the things they meant
Read MoreMost people hear the word righteous and picture someone who doesn't have any fun. They think of rules and the miserable face of a prude. They think they have to give up everything good and become religious. So, they quietly back away — because who wants that? It's one of the most
Read MoreThere are some things you can hear, consider, and set down. You weigh the idea, file it somewhere reasonable, and move on. The resurrection of Jesus Christ has never worked that way. From the first time the disciples announced it in Jerusalem to our sharing the gospel today, the
Read MoreJames K.A. Smith is a teacher of practical theology — how people actually live what they believe. His central argument is that human beings are not primarily thinking creatures who happen to have bodies. We are embodied creatures whose formation happens through physical practice.
Read MoreIn 1975, a Kodak engineer named Steve Sasson built the first digital camera in a lab in Rochester, New York. It weighed eight pounds. When he showed it to his executives, they didn’t ask how it worked. They asked why anyone would want to take a picture that way — there was nothing
Read MoreWilliam Ury spent decades at Harvard studying what happens when people hit a hard no. In his book Getting Past No, he describes the instinct that takes over the moment someone blocks your path — you push harder, make your case again, find another angle. It almost never works.
Read MoreThere is a version of the Holy Spirit that gets passed around in church culture that is mostly about comfort. The Spirit is peace. The Spirit is reassurance. The Spirit is the feeling you get when things are finally quiet inside. That version isn't wrong — but it is incomplete, and it may be There is a version of the Holy Spirit that gets passed around in church culture that is mostly about comfort. The Spirit is peace. The Spirit is reassurance. The Spirit is the feeling you get when things are finally quiet inside. That version isn't wrong — but it is incomplete, and it may be
Read MoreThomas Watson Sr. built IBM into one of the most dominant companies in the world. He was not known for softness. In the early years of the company, a salesman cost Watson a government bid approaching a million dollars — a deal IBM desperately needed. The rep walked into Watson’s
Read MoreIn Acts 15, the early church faced a defining question: on what terms did Gentiles belong to the people of God? Jewish believers who had come to faith in Jesus were insisting that Gentile converts must be circumcised and keep the law of Moses. The debate threatened to fracture the
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