“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”- Luke 9:24 In Chapter 3 of All In, author Mark Batterson counterintuitively asserts that he’s convinced it is true that the key to self-fulfillment is self-denial (shorthand for delayed gratification). That’s how we’ll discover that authentic […]
The he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”- Luke 9:23 NIV) “If Jesus is not Lord of all, then Jesus is not Lord at all.”- Mark Batterson Mark Batterson begins Chapter 3 (“Draw the Line”) of All In […]
“For you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.”- Psalm 63:7 “No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.”- William Blake During my childhood years in Evergreen Park, IL, our next door neighbors, the Millars, had a large cage in their family room […]
“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.”- Joshua 3:5 “If you aren’t hungry for God, you are full of yourself.”- Mark Batterson As Mark Batterson concludes Chapter 2 of All In, he states that anytime God is ready to do something amazing in our lives, He calls us to consecrate […]
In Chapter 2 (“The Inverted Gospel”) of All In, author Mark Batterson reminds us that, in the sixteenth century, astronomer Nicholas Copernicus challenged the prevailing belief that the earth was the center of the universe. He turned the scientific world upside down by proclaiming that the earth revolved around the sun. Likewise, Pastor Batterson states, […]
“This is the message that we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”- 1 John 1:5 Mark Batterson begins Chapter 1 (“Pack Your Coffins”) of his most recent book, All In, with an account of some brave missionaries known as one-way missionaries. […]
In his Introduction to Part 2 (“Identity: Who We Are”) of Transformed, Caesar Kalinowski asks us to imagine performing as a one-person trapeze act. Obviously, it doesn’t work- we’d need a partner to catch us. Similarly, our new identity in Christ is lived both individually and collectively (as the church). Pastor Kalinowski states that the […]
“And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”- Romans 8:11 As Caesar Kalinowski continues Chapter 2 of Transformed, he states that his grasp of the […]
“And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.”- 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 In Chapter 2 (“A New Way of Being”) of Transformed, Caesar Kalinowski states that, at times, Christians […]
As Pastor Caesar Kalinowski concludes Chapter 1 of Transformed, he tells of the time when he was a new believer and was befriended by a man named Johnnie, an older Christian who taught Caesar much about servanthood. Nowhere was Johnnie’s servant heart more apparent than when he was in a public restroom. Johnnie always would […]
One Way Love (David C. Cook, 2013) The full title of Tullian Tchividjian’s latest book is One Way Love: Inexhaustible Grace for an Exhausted World. Pastor Tchividjian emphasizes that in our performance-oriented society, the need for God’s inexhaustible grace has never been more urgent. Real life is long on law and short on grace. While […]
Today marks the beginning of five blogs from the book Transformed by Caesar Kalinowski. In Chapter 1 (“Who Are You”) the author observes that, as Christians, we’re often puzzled that we continue to sin in the same old ways, thus seeing little real change in our lives. Similarly, we may wonder why our doubts, fears, and […]