Category: Interior Life

Our lack of holiness can be very frustrating. We have the desire to be holy and to be Christlike but we struggle with our disordered desires for pleasure. Our culture provides many opportunities to satisfy our sensuality. As the passage below from Titus teaches, we have grace from God to reject worldliness and to be self-controlled. How do you make progress overcoming your key fault? Below is an exercise to help us receive God’s grace and to activate our will. It follows the general format of lectio divina. Do part or all of it and change it as you desire. For the complete guide go here. Purification Exercise: Read twice: Titus 2:11-14 (ESV): “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we Continue Reading →

How much do you reflect on the idea that the people of God will have the glory of God? Revelation 21:11 promises that in the coming New Heaven and New Earth believers will have “the glory of God”. But this promise is not confined to Revelation ‒ it is a major New Testament theme. In a previous post we looked at the future luminosity of the body of Christ which is one dimension of God’s glorification of his people. Now we will consider what the New Testament says about this glorification in general. Warning: this is a very encouraging subject! It is surprising how often Scripture speaks of the glorification of believers. Apparently, this is an important truth for believers to keep in mind. Some of the mentions of this theme in the New Testament include (Bible quotes are from the ESV translation): • In John 17:22 Jesus states in Continue Reading →

In Revelation 19:8 we learn that the Bride of the Lamb (i.e., believers) will be “bright”. This is a significant theme for believers in the New Testament and I refer to this theme as “luminosity”. The glorification of believers is a major New Testament theme and this is one aspect of that theme. I suspect that when scripture mentions the glorification of believers, which it does often, luminosity is implied. You will be luminous with the light of God shining through you. God wants his saints to literally shine, and to shine in a way that is almost blinding. I have found this mentioned two other times in the New Testament. Jesus states it plainly in Matthew 13:43: “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” (This is an allusion to Daniel 12:3: “And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of Continue Reading →

“He has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.” II Pet. 1:4 (ESV) This is one of the most astonishing verses in the Bible and has been one of the cornerstones of spiritual growth since the earliest centuries of Christianity. The Greek-speaking fathers of the Church were devoted to the idea that we could regain the original image of God because we can actually participate in God’s nature now. God promises that we are forgiven, that we are united with Christ, that the Holy Spirit works to purify us and that we will be citizens of the New Earth in the next age. As we live according to these truths we mature, which means we are actually acquiring the traits of God’s Continue Reading →