The Key to Sanctification: Look to Christ
"We don’t grow in obedience simply by striving harder in our own strength; we grow by gazing at Christ—the beauty of who he is and all he has done for us through his life, death, and resurrection. We must marinate our minds in the glories of the gospel by regular participation in the God-ordained means of grace—Bible intake, prayer, corporate worship, and the ordinances. The more we truly see and experience Christ’s love for us through these means, the more our affections for him grow, and we are spurred to obey as a result." -Sarah Rice
Me, Disciple? Encouragement for Those Who Feel Inadequate
“In a discipling relationship, the most important voice heard isn’t yours, but the Lord’s. He’s spoken in the Scriptures, the whole of the Old and New Testaments. His Word is our authority, is true and trustworthy, and contains all we need to know God and to live for him. When we rightly understand that our words and wisdom are not enough for the women we disciple, we can depend upon the Scriptures—the words of the living God—to powerfully build her up.” - Cheryl Marshall
Praying with a Broken Heart
“Often we think that we need to offer polished prayers—prayers that somehow show the Lord (and others around us who might be listening) just how godly we are—but the Lord’s love for us is deeper than that. He loves hearing our voices, and he wants to hear what is on our hearts. We can come to him with gritty, desperate prayer. We can ask big questions and express our confusion without shame. God does not want to leave us in this place of desperation, but he is willing to hear words that start there. Lament requires us to be real about the pain of life rather than covering it with a glossy spin.” -Helen Thorne
All We Have Left Undone
“The story he writes in our lives and the lives of those we care for is not determined by our own ability to love perfectly. We can pray with confidence that God is working his will in all our lives according to his steadfast love and faithfulness.” -Faith Chang
God is Sufficient for Your False Guilt
“Too often, I find myself stuck replaying all the ways I could have done better, loved more, anticipated and therefore better responded, and so on. Some of it comes from conviction of sin. Some of it comes from cultural narratives or others' expectations of me. But some of it is actually feeling badly that I didn't manage to be sovereign and perfect.” -Bethany McIlrath, “God is Sufficient for Your False Guilt”
When Commands are Invitations
“As soon as you see a command over your life as also being an invitation into life, it transforms your attitude to obeying it. You no longer obey because you have to, but because you get to. Of course that does not make it easy or stop it being costly (just ask Zacchaeus). But it does make it joyful.” Carl Laferton, “When Commands are Invitations”
When Father’s Day Hurts
“In less than one year my mother’s father, my father’s father, and my daughter’s father died. We were blessed by their lives of faith—lives that were dedicated to loving God and loving others. At their funerals, we told their stories of coming to faith and how they lived as true servants of the Lord. We reflected on their greatest legacies, the disciples of Jesus they left behind. Even with all this hope, the Father’s Day after they died seemed completely covered in a cloud of grief and pain from their deaths.” Alyson Punzi, “When Father’s Day Hurts”
Hosting a Summer Bible Study
“When you reflect back on summer 2024, what glorious truths from God’s Word will come to mind? What deepening relationships will you rejoice over? What shared memories will you treasure? It’s exciting to imagine! Truly, a summer Bible study is an incredible way to enjoy the Lord and enjoy your community. May God bless you as you seek to know him and his Word more deeply this summer!” Caroline Saunders, “Hosting a Summer Bible Study”
How to Think About Summer
“Remember, God understands our humanity in all our limits and weaknesses (Phil. 2:6–8). God himself gives us the grace to wade out of the muddy waters of self-pity, regret, and self-loathing. We don’t have to look too far in Scripture to know how God would have us spend our time or what his will for our lives is.” Kelly Ottaway, “How to Think About Summer”
Hope for the Guilty
"Have you ever felt the weight of your guilt before God? Maybe you feel burdened by what you’ve done and the consequences of your actions. Maybe you feel ashamed when memories of past sins are aroused. Maybe you feel dirty, as though you can’t even approach God in such a state. Maybe you feel like Joshua in Zechariah 3. As with Joshua, God knows your sin and your guilt, and he knows you’re powerless to clean yourself up on your own. Yet, the One we’ve sinned against offers us a pardon. If we turn from our sin and trust in Christ for salvation, he cleans us. He forgives our sin, pardons us, makes us new, and adopts us into his family!" -Ashley Chesnut, “Hope for the Guilty”
Accepting the Holy Spirit’s Help: What Pentecost Teaches Us About Self-Sufficiency
“The stubborn strain of self-sufficiency is found throughout Scripture, and we’re no different in our modern context. Our culture praises those who do it all, do it perfectly, and do it themselves. Even within the church, we can use our obedience to God’s good commands to prove our own self-sufficiency. But when we refuse the help Jesus promised us, we become exhausted by our feeble attempts to prove ourselves or ashamed because we could never do enough. However, Jesus hasn’t asked us to strive in our own efforts; he’s invited us to be empowered by his Spirit.” Accepting the Holy Spirit’s Help: What Pentecost Teaches Us About Self-Sufficiency by Bethany Broderick
What is There to Celebrate on Mother’s Day?
“Motherhood. It brings with it such complicated grief; yet in the midst of that grief, there lies a beauty endowed by the Creator. Because since before the fall, motherhood has been God’s very good plan to show us more of himself. Since the fall, its complexity often clouds out the beauty, leaving us wondering at times what there is to celebrate on Mother’s Day.” What is There to Celebrate on Mother’s Day? by Madelyn Istrate
The Sacred Invitation of Lent: How the Freedom to Lament Leads Us to Hope
“We are invited into deeper communion with Christ when we soberly observe the time leading up to Holy Week. The celebration of Resurrection Sunday is all the more joyful when we have intentionally denied our flesh of certain worldly desires, just as Jesus denied his flesh by willingly giving up his life on our behalf. So this is the sacred invitation of Lent: that we learn to grieve our sin and our brokenness; leaning into the gift of godly lament. Through this, may we be healed, and may he receive glory.” The Sacred Invitation of Lent: How the Freedom to Lament Leads Us to Hope by Ashley Setterlind
Can Lament Be Worship?
“Have you ever felt like it was wrong to be honest about your grief? Perhaps you’ve told yourself, “It could be worse” or “At least...” Maybe someone said something that made you feel that by crying too much or lingering too long in mourning you weren’t living in faith or hope. But platitudes, conciliations, or guilt don’t help us much to navigate grief. It is painful to live in our cursed and broken world. This is not the pristine world God created. We were not meant to feel betrayal or disease. We were not meant to witness death or severed relationships. But we do. We live in the in-between—between Christ’s victory over death on the cross and when Christ will return and fix all the brokenness. While we wait, we face death, but we have access to rich grace in the face of death. We have lament.” Can Lament Be Worship? by Alyson Punzi
The Worth in Our Waiting by Jenn Hesse
“The Lord gradually opened my eyes to his deeper purposes for that hard season of waiting. He wasn’t pressing me under his thumb as a harsh faith lesson. Instead, he wanted more for me than any earthly desire. Through waiting I came to realize that God’s plan is always the long game. He created us in Christ for good works he prepared beforehand (Eph. 2:10). He is committed to complete the good work he started in us at salvation (Phil. 1:6). By His Spirit we are being transformed into his image from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18). Waiting might feel like wasted time to us, when nothing is happening and we’re not able to reach our goals. That’s not how time works with God. His Word shows us that waiting is open season for sanctification. In the interval between wanting and receiving, he actively grows us to become more like our Savior.” - The Worth in Our Waiting by Jenn Hesse
When Justice Feels Far
“I bet you’ve breathed long enough to see injustice. Our chests tighten as the question of justice sticks in our minds like a bee stinger hard to remove. So, we who follow a just God turn to him and ask “How is this just?” We know he rules. We know he is good and righteous. We see the discrepancy between God’s character and this world, and we want to know if he is doing anything. We’re not alone in these questions. They are the questions God’s people have been asking for millennia. We stand in their legacy as we ask, and we can read what the Lord spoke to them in the Scriptures to know what he would say to us as well.” - When Justice Feels Far, by Taylor Turkington
In Your Trials, Remember What Is True
“Maybe you’re single, and you want to be married. Maybe you just learned your mom has cancer. Maybe your husband has been unfaithful. Maybe your baby is in the NICU. Maybe you’re juggling multiple responsibilities and don’t know how to be “all in” with any of them. Whatever it is, your hard is your suffering. Like a wounded animal, vulnerable to a predator’s attack, we’re more prone in our suffering to the enemy of our souls. But God’s Word teaches us how to ‘be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might’.” - In Your Trials, Remember What Is True, by Katie Faris
God's Sovereignty in Our Suffering
“We don’t need to know all of the answers for why *fill in the blank* is happening before deciding to trust God. Our pain doesn’t have to make sense before God uses it for his greater purpose. Even as we groan earthside, Scripture reveals reasons to rejoice over the results of suffering in our lives—endurance, character, and hope (Rom. 5:3-5). Our dependence on God is never so apparent as during periods of suffering. Sometimes, the character he wants to develop in us for his glory can only come through hardship. We can learn to receive this as a gift; that our Master Gardener’s pruning produces the fruit of his Spirit in us.” - God's Sovereignty in Our Suffering by Ashley Setterlind
Advent Hope Far as the Curse is Found
“This Advent season, let us wait together with great expectation for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us live in the light of Jesus’s birth, death, and resurrection and set our hope on his second advent—when we will dwell with God and he will wipe away every tear and death will be no more. Let us fix our eyes on the promise of his blessing that every single thing will be made new and whole and perfect and beautiful—far as the curse of sin and death is found.” - Advent Hope Far as the Curse is Found by Lainee Oliver
Outward Comfort for the Inward Ache
“Two months ago, I lost my sister. In my sorrow, I learned two things. The first is this: the gospel is big enough to hold up all our hurts. The pain of this world does not get to have the last word. Not in my sister’s life. Not in my life. And the second? Love is a verb and is best lived out in workaday ways. It doesn’t have to be flashy. It just needs to be faithful. It just has to show up. Hygge is not a necessary component to healing the hurt of searing loss. But, it certainly helps. If we let it, the comfort we provide to those in grief can be a tangible tool to show them the love of Christ.” - Outward Comfort for the Inward Ache by Jamie Erickson