God Includes You
We include our friends in our plans, in our lives. When someone gives you great seats to a game, you think of friends you can invite. When Memorial Day or Labor Day rolls around, you include your friends in the plans for the cookout. Jesus declares that as His friend, you know the Father’s business […]
Our Identity As Children
Romans 8:14-16 says, All those led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children. The phrase […]
Not Only Servants
In John 13, Jesus washes His disciples’ feet, holding high the value of serving. He challenges them to embrace their identity as servants. Moments later Jesus tells His disciples that they are more than servants. He calls them friends. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. […]
Living Our Identity
Our identity in Christ necessitates rejecting an identity built on something else, on something less. In the research behind Transformational Discipleship, believers consistently showed that they know this to be the case. When asked about denying selfish impulses, believers expressed their understanding of the privilege of living a new and transformed life. Transformation is seen […]
Dinner with God
While on this earth, Jesus spent a lot of time at a house in Bethany where two sisters, Mary and Martha lived. One day Jesus visited for dinner. As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a […]
Discipleship and Identity
The apostle Peter viewed discipleship, in part, through the lens of identity in Christ. When he wrote the epistle of 1 Peter, he was writing a group of Christians who were struggling with how to live in the world as they were experiencing intense persecution. The root of the hostility toward them was the fire that […]
Check Your Mark
Deuteronomy 15:12, 16-17 reads: If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, sells himself to you and serves you six years, in the seventh year you must let him go free. But if your servant says to you, “I do not want to leave you,” because he loves you and your family and is […]
Choosing the Title of Doulos
People love job titles. One corporate executive revealed to me that to keep employees happy, her company is overly generous with titles. The title “vice president” is attached to many positions. The corporate brass knows that titles motivate people. And it is easy to give a title to someone who is willing to work longer […]
Church Identity: How Your Church Must Be Unique
No matter the denomination, socio-economic makeup, ethnic mix, city, or geographical region, a church must have Jesus as her foundation (1 Corinthians 3:11) and her chief cornerstone (Ephesians 2:19-21). At the same time, a local church is a unique expression of God’s Church. Tim Keller, in his book Center Church, writes: “Church models are in […]
Whose Am I?
Think back to your middle school years. So much of your day depended on your relationships. You worried about whom you would sit by on the bus because, in your mind, that indicated who you were as a person. Or you cared greatly about where you would sit during lunch. Or whose locker you would […]