“Just accept me for who I am.” “Don’t judge.” “I just want to be loved and accepted, not preached at.” We are often quick to take offense at the perceived arrogance of someone who tries to tell us how to live our lives. We easily presume that authentic love requires others to fully accept how …
Monthly Archives: August 2020
32581 Obeying God Faithfully
Obedience? Isn’t our life with Jesus a relationship and not a list of rules? It’s funny isn’t it—we’d never begin a romantic relationship with someone who said we had to both love and obey them. In fact, if our new significant other said, “Now that we’re dating, I expect you to obey me,” we’d set …
65509 9. Pride: It’s All About Me
It is no accident that we start our tour of the sin families with the sin of pride. In some sense, pride is the foundational sin. As Bible commentator William Barclay declared, “Pride is the ground in which all the other sins grow, and the parent from which all rebellion against God’s commands. Pride may …
65510 10. Fear: From Doubt to Dread
Fuss and feverishness, anxiety, intensity, intolerance, instability, pessimism and wobble, and every kind of hurry and worry—these, even on the highest levels,” declared spiritual writer Evelyn Underhill, “are signs of the self-made and self-acting soul; the spiritual parvenu.”1 A parvenu is someone who has been raised to a new position but has not yet acquired …
65511 11. Anger: When Mad Is Bad
Some years ago, I (Henry) traveled to Zimbabwe for a conference and spoke about forgiveness. Afterward, a couple asked to speak with me in private. They were from Uganda, and they told me their story. During the brutal reign of Uganda’s Idi Amin, the couple received a note telling them that their twenty-six-year-old son had …
65512 12. Overindulgence: Enough Is Not Enough
In my (Henry’s) early years, one of my biggest problems was with drinking. Though I grew up in a Christian home where drinking was frowned upon, I rebelled in my teenage years and started drinking in bars, at parties, and in the homes of my friends. Early signs of the danger in this lifestyle did …
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65513 13. Dissatisfaction: The Restless Heart
In his autobiography, Just As I Am, Billy Graham told the story of meeting two men on a Caribbean island he was visiting with his wife, Ruth. One of the wealthiest men in the world asked us to come to his lavish home for lunch. He was seventy-five years old, and throughout the entire meal …
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65514 14. Immorality: Sex Misused
Lust is the ape that gibbers in our loins,” declares the character Godric in a novel by Frederick Buechner. “Tame him as we will by day, he rages all the wilder in our dreams by night. Just when we think we are safe from him, he raises up his ugly head and smirks, and there’s …
65515 15. Deceit: Showing a False Face
You may remember the scandal from the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in which a French ice skating judge scored a Russian pair higher than the Canadians Jamie Salé and David Pelletier, who had turned in what was widely considered a superior performance. But do you know how the truth came out? With …
65516 16. Divisiveness: Disturbing the Peace
Visitors to Castle Ward, a country estate near Strangford Lough in Ireland, are treated to the sight of a house divided against itself, literally. One façade is in the classical style, while the other is in the Gothic style. This difference in design extends to the interior of the house, where the rooms that were …
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