Real Faith Is Refined In The Fires

I Get Asked, 'what Do You Miss Most About Being A Pastor?' I Think It's The Intimacy, The Incredible Gift Of Intimacy. You Go Through Death With Somebody, With Their Families, And There's An Intimacy That Comes Through That That Is Just Incomparable.

My Job Is Not To Solve People's Problems Or Make Them Happy, But To Help Them See The Grace Operating In Their Lives.

This Kingdom Of God Life Is Not A Matter Of Waking Up Each Morning With A List Of Chores Or An Agenda To Be Tended To, Left On Our Bedside Table By The Holy Spirit For Us While We Slept. We Wake Up Already Immersed In A Large Story Of Creation And Covenant, Of Israel And Jesus, The Story Of Jesus And The Stories That Jesus Told. We Let Ourselves Be Formed By These Formative Stories, And Especially As We Listen To The Stories That Jesus Tells, Get A Feel For The Way He Does It, The Way He Talks, The Way He Treats People, The Jesus Way.

Feelings Are Great Liars. If Christians Worshipped Only When They Felt Like It, There Would Be Precious Little Worship. We Think That If We Don’t Feel Something There Can Be No Authenticity In Doing It. But The Wisdom Of God Says Something Different: That We Can Act Ourselves Into A New Way Of Feeling Much Quicker Than We Can Feel Ourselves Into A New Way Of Acting. Worship Is An Act That Develops Feelings For God, Not A Feeling For God That Is Expressed In An Act Of Worship.

Worship Does Not Satisfy Our Hunger For God; It Whets Our Appetite.