Posts with the category “bible-reading-plan-2026”

Paul says the Holy Spirit is already at work within us as God’s seal and the guarantee of what is still coming. The God who raised Jesus has not abandoned the work of new creation. God is forming us, strengthening us, and leading us toward the life Christ has opened for us. That means our suffering doesn’t have to become wasted pain.   Read More

“Stay awake, stand firm in your faith, be brave, be strong. Everything should be done in love.” (vv. 13–14) We could easily emphasize the first four and overlook the fifth. Be alert. Stand firm. Be courageous. Be strong. Those sound like fighting words. But Christian strength is always governed by Christian love. Standing firm doesn't give us permission to become cruel. Courage doesn't require arrogance. Strength doesn't justify domination. Faithfulness to truth cannot be separated from becoming like Jesus. Everything should be done in love.   Read More

We may not know exactly how God will gather all those acts of love, obedience, service, creativity, compassion, and witness into the kingdom that is coming. Paul doesn’t explain that. He gives us something better than an explanation. He gives us a promise. Your labor in the Lord is not wasted.   Read More

Sometimes we speak about salvation almost entirely in terms of what happens when we die. Paul’s vision here is much larger. The Christian hope is not escape from God’s creation. It is God’s victory over everything that has corrupted it.   Read More

Whoever we are, whatever gifts God has entrusted to us, Christian worship isn’t a competition for the microphone.   Read More

We don’t need to manufacture evidence that God is real. We trust God because we have experienced God’s trustworthiness. We have received grace. We’ve been forgiven. We’ve seen lives changed. We’ve experienced the Holy Spirit forming us into people who love differently, forgive differently, serve differently, and hope differently. So live from there.   Read More

Christian maturity doesn’t require us to choose between heartfelt worship and thoughtful worship. God desires the whole person. Mind and spirit. Understanding and affection. Truth and praise.   Read More

At the Lord's Table, social divisions were contradicting the gospel. Among the spiritual gifts, people were comparing importance and status. Paul's answer isn't to eliminate differences. It is to teach the Church how grace transforms the way different people belong to one another.   Read More

The Holy Spirit forms us into the likeness of Jesus not by making us identical, but by teaching very different people to love one another as members of the same Body. Pride gives way to service. Comparison gives way to gratitude. Independence gives way to mutual care.   Read More

Communion says something. When we gather around the Table, we proclaim that Jesus Christ gave himself for us. We remember a grace none of us earned. We receive together because every one of us comes empty-handed, dependent upon the same crucified and risen Lord. There’s no premium seat at this Table.   Read More

Our gifts come from God. Our place in the Body comes from God. Our freedom comes from God. The grace that makes us one people comes from God. That means nobody enters worship with permission to diminish someone else whom God has called, gifted, and welcomed.   Read More

Can I do this faithfully as someone who belongs to Jesus? Can I receive this with gratitude to God? Will my choice help someone else move toward Christ or make their discipleship more difficult? Does this reflect the God whose glory I want my life to reveal?   Read More

“No temptation has seized you that isn’t common for people. But God is faithful. He won’t allow you to be tempted beyond your abilities. Instead, with the temptation God will also supply a way out so that you will be able to endure it” (v. 13). This verse is sometimes shortened into the idea that “God won’t give you more than you can handle.” That isn’t what Paul says.   Read More

There is a tremendous difference between changing the gospel to suit people and changing ourselves so people can hear the gospel. One compromises the message. The other looks a lot like love.   Read More

Witness matters. Not because Christians are supposed to spend our lives anxiously managing everyone’s opinion of us. And not because holiness means constructing endless rules so nobody is ever offended. Witness matters because we belong to Jesus and we belong to one another.   Read More

Jesus is Lord. That was true yesterday. It is true today. It will still be true when tomorrow looks nothing like what we expected.   Read More

The gospel has already given believers an identity more fundamental than any status the world can offer. That is where this passage presses into our lives. We can easily imagine that faithful discipleship will begin after something changes. When I'm married. When my family situation improves. When I have a different job. When life becomes less complicated. When people finally understand me... the list goes on, and no matter what we insert here, grace asks: Why not now?   Read More

The gospel doesn’t save a religious corner of our lives while leaving the rest untouched. Christ claims all of us. And that means Paul’s teaching about sexual holiness cannot faithfully become ammunition for Christians to aim primarily at other people. Before these words are ever useful for judging the culture around us, they must be allowed to examine the Church—and each of us within it.   Read More

There's a significant difference between welcoming sinners and celebrating sin. The Church must always be a place where broken people can encounter the grace of Jesus Christ. If sinners aren't welcome, none of us belongs there. But grace doesn't leave us where it found us. The Jesus who forgives us also calls us to follow him, and the Holy Spirit works within us to make us holy.   Read More

What should Christian leadership—and Christian maturity—actually look like? “Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries,” Paul writes (1 Corinthians 4:1). A steward was entrusted with something that belonged to someone else. The responsibility was not to build a personal following or increase personal status. The responsibility was faithfulness.   Read More

Maturity isn’t measured by how much Christian information we’ve accumulated or how confidently we can defend our preferences. The Holy Spirit forms a people whose lives increasingly resemble Jesus—humble, holy, loving, and committed to one another.   Read More

The world looked at the cross and saw defeat. God revealed victory. The world saw weakness. God revealed self-giving love powerful enough to redeem creation. The world measured wisdom by status, rhetoric, influence, and power. God revealed wisdom through a crucified Messiah. And the same Spirit who revealed Christ to the Corinthians continues forming the Church today. This is one reason discipleship can't simply be the accumulation of Christian information.   Read More

The Corinthians had many issues Paul needed to address. But before dealing with any of them, he brought them back to the center. We probably need the same reminder. Jesus is not one loyalty among many. Jesus is the center from which every other part of our lives must find its proper place.   Read More

We need enough humility to listen and enough wisdom to recognize error. We need enough grace to distinguish between disagreements Christians can faithfully live with and teachings that actually pull us away from Jesus and the gospel. And notice where Paul's confidence finally rests. Not in the church becoming clever enough to identify every danger. “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” The church must remain watchful, but victory belongs to God.   Read More

Faithfulness doesn't require us to know exactly how the whole story will unfold. Sometimes God places a destination on our hearts that gets us moving, while the work God accomplishes along the way becomes far more important than we could have anticipated.   Read More

God’s promise through Israel was always moving toward blessing the nations. Jesus, the Messiah from David’s family, has fulfilled those promises, risen from the dead, and opened the family of God to people from every nation. The church in Rome was living evidence that God keeps promises. So are we.   Read More

Holiness is never only about what I am free to do. The Holy Spirit forms us into people who love God and neighbor so deeply that we willingly consider how our choices affect the people around us. Sometimes grace gives us freedom. Sometimes love teaches us to restrain that freedom for someone else’s sake. That's not weakness... it's Christlikeness.   Read More

We don't have to mirror the anger around us. We don't have to join every fight. We don't have to treat neighbors as enemies because the world has divided them into opposing camps. We don't have to grasp for power as though everything depends upon us winning...   Read More

After eleven chapters describing the mercy and faithfulness of God, Paul finally turns and says, in effect: Now live like people who have received that mercy...   Read More

Paul has looked at Israel and the nations, promise and unbelief, judgment and mercy, covenant and grace. He sees a story far larger than anything human beings could have planned. Then he remembers whose story it is. “Everything is from him and through him and for him. To him be the glory forever. Amen” (v. 36). There is freedom in that confession.   Read More

Our place in the tree should make us grateful, not arrogant. Who have we decided is probably beyond God's reach? Whose unbelief, resistance, failure, or distance from God have we begun treating as permanent?   Read More

The Law wasn't a failed experiment that Jesus replaced. Israel’s story, its promises, and its hope were moving toward the Messiah. Jesus is where the road has been leading. And now, Paul says, God’s saving grace has come near.   Read More

We aren't shaped by mercy simply so that we can enjoy having received mercy. We are shaped into people through whom God’s mercy can reach the world. That fits the larger story Paul has been telling from the beginning of Romans. Grace creates a new people. The Spirit forms them into the likeness of Christ. And then God sends them into the world as living evidence of what new creation looks like. The Potter is still working.   Read More

Christian assurance is not confidence that nothing painful will happen. It's confidence that nothing painful gets to have the final word. The world still groans. Sometimes we still groan with it. But the Spirit is present in the groaning. God is still working. Christ is still interceding. Grace is still forming us.   Read More

We say no to sin because the Spirit is enabling us to say yes to God. We surrender what doesn't belong in a holy life because God is already at work forming something new within us. This is the cooperation with grace that lies at the heart of our Wesleyan understanding of sanctification. God acts, and we respond. The Spirit leads, and we follow.   Read More

The person in Romans 7 knows the good. Wants the good. Even delights in the good. And still cannot produce the good. It's a sobering diagnosis of the human condition, but it's also an important word for anyone seeking holiness.   Read More

Holiness isn't about earning God's approval through better behavior. We already stand in grace because of Christ. Holiness is learning to live consistently with the new life we've been given. Grace doesn't excuse sin; it frees us from its mastery. Every act of obedience is another step away from Egypt and another step toward the life God has always intended for His people.   Read More

Holiness is possible because grace is powerful. Not because we become disciplined enough to repair everything Adam’s rebellion damaged. Not because we finally become good enough to outrun sin. But because the reign has changed. We belong to Christ.   Read More

Because we have peace with God, we also have access to God. Paul says we now "stand in grace." The picture is one of being welcomed into God's presence—not as strangers hoping to avoid rejection, but as children who belong in their Father's house. The relationship no longer depends on whether we feel close to God on a particular day. It rests securely on what Christ has already accomplished. That truth becomes especially important when life is difficult.   Read More

Abraham’s story points beyond itself to Jesus. Christ was handed over because of our sins and raised so that we might be declared right with God. The resurrection is God’s announcement that sin and death have been confronted, the promise has been fulfilled, and all who trust in Christ are welcomed into the covenant family.   Read More