Grace and Truth

"The Word was the real light that gives light to everyone . . . The Word became flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that he has from the Father as only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:9, 14).

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  • The Lord Acts Only in Faithful Love

    The theme of the fourth week of Advent is love.  I asked my son recently, what comes to mind when you think of God’s love?  He replied, God loves us so much, and also, God is love.  That is the truth, which we read in 1 John 4:8—God is love!   One of the most familiar verses about God’s Read more

  • Shine Joyfully to Delight Your Creator

    “This is the day which the Lord has made, a day for us to rejoice and be glad” (Psalm 118:24). The theme of the third week of Advent is joy.  Gaudete!  Rejoice! As I shared in “I Wish You Joy in the Lord,” God’s will for us is that we always be joyful (1 Thessalonians 5:16, 18). How Read more

  • May the Peace of Christ Reign in Your Hearts

    “Jesus came and stood among them.  He said to them, ‘Peace be with you,’ and, after saying this, He showed them His hands and His side.  The disciples were filled with joy at seeing the Lord, and He said to them again, ‘Peace be with you’” (John 20:19-21). The theme of the second week of Advent is Read more

  • A Hope Which Will Not Let Us Down

    The theme of the first week of Advent is hope.  The Lord has created each of us for hope.  “I know what plans I have in mind for you, the Lord declares, plans for peace, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). In the second book of Maccabees, we read about Read more

  • Have These Words Constantly in Mind

    Our minds can be filled with many things, some good, some not.  We are called to make the mind of Christ our own, to let our minds be filled with everything that is true, pure, and good (Philippians 2:5, 4:8).  But as Wisdom 9:14-15 says, our attitudes of mind can be unstable, “for a perishable body presses Read more

  • As Long as Today Lasts, Keep Encouraging One Another

    In reading the Acts of the Apostles recently, it touched me how often the early Christians spoke words of encouragement to one another (Acts 14:22, 15:32, 16:40, 18:23, 18:27, 20:1-2).  In Acts 14:22, for example, Paul and Barnabas “put fresh heart into the disciples, encouraging them to persevere in the faith, saying, ‘We must all experience Read more

  • They Will Never Be Lost and No One Will Ever Steal Them from My Hand

    Sometimes in life we feel lost.  But just because we feel lost doesn’t mean that we are actually lost.  God is greater than our feelings and knows all things (1 John 3:20).  He knows exactly where we are.   Before we were born, the Lord knew us and called us (Jeremiah 1:5; Isaiah 43:1).  He knit us together in our Read more

  • Healing (Luke 8)

    In Luke 8:43-48, we read about a woman suffering from a hemorrhage for 12 years, whom no one had been able to cure.  She had undergone long and painful treatment from various doctors and spent all she had, but her condition continued to worsen (Mark 5:26).  The woman came to Jesus and touched the fringe of his Read more

  • What We Truly Need This Season, the Gentleness of Christ (Luke 7)

    In Luke 7:11-17, we read about a widow whose only son has died.  Verse 13 says, “when the Lord saw her, he felt sorry for her and said to her, don’t cry.”  Jesus then restored the young man to life and gave him to his mother (Luke 7:14-15).   The Lord’s gentleness and tenderness in this encounter are Read more

  • Generous Love (Luke 6)

    In reading Luke 6, I was especially touched by two themes—first, how intimately the Lord knows each of us, and second, generosity (Luke 6:38).  In Luke 6:7, the scribes and Pharisees were watching Jesus to see if he would cure someone on the Sabbath, hoping to find a charge to bring against him.  Verse 8 says that Read more