Posts with the tag “mark-series”

Most of us have areas of life where we are trying to hold new things in old containers. A new commitment poured into old patterns. A new desire for God poured into a schedule with no room for Him. The wine is not the problem. The container is the problem. Jesus is putting new wine in you. Make sure you are becoming the kind of container that can hold it.  Read More

Every sculptor says the same thing. The finished piece was always inside the marble. The work is removing everything that does not belong until what was always intended is finally revealed. Here is what Scripture says about the finished version of you. The ancient teachers described the resurrection this way: God raises you first in exactly the condition you were in when you died. Same body. Same face. So everyone can see it is really you. And then the healing begins. And the transformation accelerates into something Daniel could only describe as shining like stars forever and ever. You are not the finished version. The chisel is still working. And what is inside the marble is more luminous than you have probably let yourself imagine. Read the full post.   Read More

Most of us have developed a habit of cleaning up before we come to God. We treat access to Jesus like a reward for progress rather than a resource for people who have none. But nobody lowered their friend through a roof because things were going well. Desperate measures are for desperate people. And desperate people are exactly who Jesus kept showing up for.  Read More

A physicist, a chemist, and an economist are stranded on a desert island with one can of food and no way to open it. The physicist says smash it. The chemist says heat it. The economist says: assume a can opener. Assume the problem away. Build your entire framework around a tool you do not actually have. Here is what kept me up this week. There is a day coming when the books will be opened. Every account will be reviewed. And on that day, assuming a can opener will not work. But Yom Kippur has always been a picture of something else entirely. A day when God silences the accuser and wipes the ledger clean in one moment. The question is whose account you are standing in when that day arrives. Read the full post.   Read More

Most of us are carrying something we have not brought to Jesus because we are not sure He wants to deal with it. We have made a quiet decision that this particular brokenness is ours to manage and His to overlook. But the leper did not make himself more presentable before he came. He came as he was. And Jesus reached out and touched him before He said a word. The touch came before the healing.  Read More

Uncle Ben made it famous: with great power comes great responsibility. But here is the problem for most believers. It is not that we fail to take responsibility seriously. It is that we have drastically underestimated the power we are actually carrying. The lessons of Scripture describe the gifts of the Holy Spirit as tokens of the Messianic Era — a down payment on the age to come, pressing the power of the future kingdom into the present moment. Every person in whom the Spirit dwells is walking around with a deposit of eternity inside them. You are not a reservoir. You are a riverbed. And the city around you needs what you are carrying. Read the full post.  Read More

There is a gap between the authority we have declared and the authority we have actually handed over. We say Jesus. But the voice that wakes us up at two in the morning belongs to someone else. This week, notice the voices. Not to fight them. Just to name them. Because you cannot submit to the authority of Jesus in a room where you cannot hear Him over everyone else.  Read More

Every few years a story surfaces that follows the same basic pattern. A charismatic leader. An intense community. Sacrifice and devotion. And then the collapse. The secular world draws the obvious conclusion: the problem is religion. The problem is authority. But that misses the actual diagnosis. The problem is never that people submitted to authority. The problem is that they submitted to the wrong one. Jesus walked into a synagogue and the people immediately knew something was different. He taught as one who had authority, not as someone who had borrowed it from someone else. In the last days, Scripture says the counterfeits will be convincing enough to mislead even the elect. Which means discernment has never mattered more. Read the full post.  Read More

Most of us have nets. Not fishing nets. The thing we keep holding onto that keeps us from full availability to Jesus. Simon and Andrew were not doing something wrong. The nets were their livelihood, their identity, their plan. The nets were not the problem. Holding them when Jesus said follow was. You already know what yours is. You knew it Sunday.  Read More

The Eisenhower Matrix divides your to-do list into four boxes: urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, and neither. It is one of the most useful productivity tools ever invented. But it has one fatal flaw. It assumes you are working with the right definition of important. Jesus walked up to ordinary people doing ordinary work and announced: the time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. And the early disciples reorganized everything around that single declaration. That is not a productivity hack. That is an eschatological reordering. And it is still the invitation on the table. Read the full post.  Read More