“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (4:7). Everyone who loves. Well, then. If someone…
John doesn’t want us to be afraid. He knows Jesus. How many times, John remembers so well, Jesus said, “Don’t be afraid.” John wants us to be wise. He…
I’ve spoken of purification, obedience, and rejecting the world. We reject the world when we say Yes to Christ and No to the panorama of alluring sins in vogue…
In Communion, we experience God and our fellowship with Him. How humbly he comes among us! During many of our Communion celebrations, in our praying we say, Christ has…
What is world-born is world-bound; what is Spirt-born is heaven-bound. With Jesus, the spirit-born are called to live differently from the world-born. Scottish pastor and biblical scholar William Barclay…
We make progress in love together in Christ. When love is returned in kind, the obligation of love is not burdensome. Where love is not returned, any thought of obligation…
Ours is a fellowship of confession. Fellowship begins with Christ. The Greek word we translate as fellowship is koinonia, which could also be translated as participation, communion. We have…
Have you ever been ready to put something off? Why do today what can wait until tomorrow. Our work doesn’t vanish. We go to sleep thinking about it; we…
Jesus allows himself to be bound—the one bound by nothing. In his binding we are being set free. You were bound; maybe you remember. We can feel as if…
How solemn and holy, how intimate and joyous, the Passover!—celebration of freedom, God’s power to set free, claim, and keep His own in the face of all the angry…