The biblical imagery of the heart is one of the most misunderstood. Many will assume that references to the “thoughts of the heart” mean that what is intended is the rational faculty of the mind. Others will see the heart language in the sentimental terms dictated by the Valentine’s Day greeting card industry – syrup […]
Sometimes what we see in the Bible is not what we experience in everyday life. Sometimes this is a good thing! For instance, think about these examples: In Genesis we see that God’s response to the wickedness of the human heart is to flood the Earth and destroy every creature from the face of the […]
A Friday morning chat with Terry about conversations, and then reading Pete Sanlon’s book on Augustine—including a feature on Augustine’s conversations with God—set me up for this post. It’s a topic worth revisiting on a regular basis even apart from these reminders. Conversations are the threads that make up the fabric of life and our […]
This post has been written by Gretchen, a great friend of Cor Deo. Gretchen has attended Cor Deo Intensives in Portland, OR, and we really appreciate her comments on the site. ———————————– Just a few words of a telephone conversation, overheard quite by accident, changed my life forever. Why? Because they were the words of my […]
My life-changing response to God’s love—my conversion—came through a conversation with Christ. I was a young skeptic—ready to dismiss my Sunday-School charade of faith—when a chain of unlikely events caught my attention. Was God at work? Did he actually exist? Or, more to the point, if he did exist was he trying to catch my […]
Yesterday I was in conversation with a Polish church leader who vulnerably admitted something the rest of the group could relate to easily. “In the first years of my ministry I was extremely conscious of my dependence on God and aware of the need for God to work despite my weaknesses. However, as the years […]
Everything. God wants everything we have, and all of who we are. Not more and not less. God’s ambition for us is heart-based: he wants whole hearts. That includes our mind, soul, and strength. Or, in contemporary terms, our time, our employment, our money, our devices, our attitudes, values, marriages, plans, and everything else we […]
Knowledge can be interesting, useful, and random. This morning I experienced random knowledge on a BBC radio program. The presentation featured an expert on the properties and uses of lithium. He helped connect two worlds for me. On the one hand I knew that lithium is used to treat bipolar disease. On the other hand […]
This week’s entry was originally written by Ron on his blog: Spreading Goodness. It’s so good we wanted to share it! ——————————————————– The Council of Nicaea in 325 worked hard to summarize a sound understanding of the Triune God in the face of Arian error. They explained how Jesus, the Son, exists in eternal relationship with the Father. […]
The human problem is far greater and deeper than we’ve ever imagined. Not only are we all guilty before God, but we are also dead-hearted toward God and we don’t have His Spirit uniting us with Christ or with each other. This was not God’s design. He made us to live in the freedom of […]
