“Just do your best, and pray that it’s blessed, and Jesus takes care of the rest.”- Keith Green “You can’t drive forward by looking in the rearview mirror.”- Anne Graham Lotz In Chapter 3 of The Wall Around Your Heart, Mary DeMuth discusses four ways to revere God in the way we handle our difficult […]
“Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or a sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”- 1 John 4:20 (NIV) In Chapter 3 (“May Your Name Be Kept Holy: Allow God to Be God”) of The Wall […]
“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry ‘Abba! Father.’ “- Romans 8:15 (ESV) “If I be his child, then I have a portion in his heart here, and I shall have a portion in […]
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.”- Matthew 5:43-45 In Chapter 2 (“Our Father in Heaven: Live in Your Father’s […]
Not a Fan (Zondervan, 2011) Not a Fan: Becoming a Completely Committed Follower of Jesus is the first book by Pastor Kyle Idleman. His second book, Gods at War, previously was annotated in Crown’s bibliography. Pastor Idleman begins by observing that whenever Jesus spoke to a large crowd, most often the message He preached would […]
As Mary DeMuth concludes Chapter 1 of The Wall Around Your Heart, she asserts that the most important thing we can do to help our relationships is to be obedient to God in whatever He asks of us. There is power in obedience. God often uses difficult people to shape and conform us to Jesus. […]
” . . . let us run with confidence the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith . . .”- Hebrews 12:1-2 “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”- Luke 6:25 In Chapter 1 of The Wall Around Your Heart, author Mary […]
“This God- his way is perfect; the word of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.”- Psalm 18:30 Several years ago my wife Vicki and I were driving home from the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, WI. Vicki’s favorite shortcut between Baraboo and Madison is the […]
“Now that we know what we have- Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God- let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all- all but the sin. So let’s walk right […]
“I’ve learned that prayer is not just about trying to get God to do what we want God to do but about getting ourselves to do what God wants us to do. Training us to be the kind of people God wants us to be.”- Shane Claiborne (Red Letter Revolution, 2012) As Mary DeMuth begins […]
“We love because he first loved us. . . . And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”- 1 John 4:19,21 In her Introduction (The Fortress Heart”) to The Wall Around Your Heart, Mary DeMuth sates that there is a pathway through the devastation of painful situations: prayer. […]
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”- Luke 9:57-58 In commenting on this passage at the beginning of […]