It takes just as much effort to make a person feel small as it does to dignify them: surprisingly little. #speaklove.

Your work ethic should be high, but your striving should not.

Your work is your offering, not your identity. This definition matters, because it protects us from both over-valuing and under-valuing what we do. It elevates work to an expression of worship, while removing it from a position of idolatry.

Worship is an act of defiance. Defiance against the lies of the Enemy. Defiance against the idolatrous allegiances of the world. Defiance against the low horizon of our circumstances. And? Our defiance has its greatest effect when we worship together.

You learn God not through your ears but through your feet: following the Rabbi. - Eugene Peterson.

Self-denial is not the same as self-neglect. Self-denial resists the “false self”—the self that performs, that earns, that shape-shifts in order to get love. Self-neglect is enslaved to it.

But it raises an important question for us all: how are we embodying the gospel in this way? How are we speaking up for the vulnerable—not only in ethically clear-cut situations—but the “morally complicated” ones as well?.

Of course, this is the heart of the gospel: that none of us is an innocent victim, and all of us are “morally complicated”. And Jesus rescues us anyway.

One of the things that made Jesus so scandalous is that he helped people who were morally complicated. Everyone can agree on standing up for clear-cut victims like children, but prostitutes? Adulterers? Tax collectors? His mercy toward them was controversial.

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The lesson? Process with God before people.

Want to know the secret to David’s restrained reactions to Saul:. His unrestrained reactions to God in the Psalms. Because David processed the worst of his rage and despair and bitterness with God first, he didn’t unleash it on Saul, and defile himself in the process.

Everyone is made in the image of God full stop. Our language and our posture towards one another should reflect this.

Church, we cannot be a distinct witness in our culture while using dehumanizing rhetoric. The moral incoherence is glaring. I am constantly shocked at how often people “take a stand” using the very rhetoric of this heresy.

A true “cultural trend” is one that transcends partisan or ideological lines—that is to say, it’s everywhere—& for our culture, this is a BIG one:. The degradation of the imago dei. It shows up in how we talk about unborn lives, immigrant lives, Palestinian lives, Israeli lives.

Wrestling is inherently intimate. You cannot wrestle a person without being close to them, & this truth has shaped how I relate to God. We live in a culture that relies on materialism, comfort, & easy spiritual answers to avoid that wrestling. But we sacrifice depth as a result.

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This is true of relationships, but it’s also true of the Church.

Here is the hard truth about trust:. A person cannot rebuild your trust if you refuse to let them. They can do the work, but the only way YOU can fully restore trust is by allowing them to demonstrate they’re trustworthy. It’s scary & vulnerable, but it’s also the only way.

RT @BethMooreLPM: Undone over this flash flood tragedy at Camp Mystic girls camp in the Texas hill country. Please pray with me for these b….