Open the gates to all who are righteous, allow the faithful to enter. Isaiah 26:2 Read: Isaiah 26:1-7, John 10:1-10 Pilgrim’s Progress Stage 2 Part 2 Relate: The door opens, and a figure named Goodwill appears. He doesn’t inspect Christian from a comfortable distance. He doesn’t ask for references or require a demonstration of worthiness. He…
The silence between the knock and the answer is real. What happens in that silence reveals something important about the nature of our seeking.
“My wayward children,” says the Lord, “come back to me, and I will heal your wayward hearts.” Jeremiah 3:22 Read: Isaiah 6:1-8, Luke 15:11-32 Pilgrim’s Progress Stage 1 Part 13 Relate: Christian weeps. Not the vague, atmospheric weeping of the opening pages, but the specific, targeted grief of a man who now understands exactly what he…
There is no recovery without honesty, and Evangelist, who loves Christian enough to be hard on him, refuses to skip the honesty.
Read: Galatians 3 Pilgrim’s Progress Stage 1 Part 11 Relate: Christian follows the advice of Mr. Worldly Wiseman and turns toward the village of Morality. The path seems fine at first. It even seems like the right direction, the burden is the problem, and Legality has a reputation for solving that exact problem, so the logic…
The life Worldly Wiseman describes, orderly, respectable, burden-free through the careful cultivation of moral living, sounds genuinely appealing.
Help is just someone who is there at the right moment. He does the necessary thing. And then he steps back out of the limelight.
April Mission’s Update from Kyiv
Enthusiasm, however sincere in the moment, is not a substitute for the kind of faith that keeps going through thick and thin.
The Slough of Despond is not an obstacle placed there by an enemy. It is not a punishment. It is simply the natural consequence of a person who has just come alive to their own sinfulness.
Obstinate and Pliable are people who are in our churches, in our small groups, in our families… and in our own mirrors?
He is running toward a gate he has never seen, because a man he barely knows pointed toward a light in the far off distance.
You cannot see it from a distance and demand proof before you take a step. The gate only reveals itself to those already walking.
He simply says, “Go that way. The gate is there. Knock and it will be opened for you.”
Faith, when it’s real, tends to disturb the peace of the people around us before it transforms them.
THE RIVER WALK 