Category: Level: Beginner

God actually adopts us into His family as His child when we believe in Christ (Rom. 8:15)! It seems too good to be true, but you are a child of God. This is our new core identity and we need to remind ourselves of this daily. When we remember who we are, we will find strength to become more like Christ. When people adopt a child they often go to great expense and effort. God did the same thing for us: the Son came to earth as a human and endured opposition and execution just so that God could adopt us as a child of God. And once He adopted us, we became one of His heirs (Rom. 8:16). In fact, Scripture says that Jesus is our brother (Mt. 12:49-50 (Mk. 3:34-35); Heb. 2:11, 17) and just as He receives an inheritance from the Father so too we are fellow Continue Reading →

In my early 30s I had gone through over a year of excruciating physical and emotional pain. One day I was standing in the yard looking out over the sea and reflecting on what I was feeling, and I realized that I was angry at God. This was not welcome news, but I accepted it and started to tell God why I was angry at him. Even though I was afraid to express anger at God I pressed on because I trusted his forgiveness. When I was done there was no sense of rejection from him, on the contrary it was a big release and birthed a deeper relationship with God. It was okay to have my bad and tell him all about it because I had a forgiveness mindset. It’s interesting how a forgiveness mindset changes our view of ourselves and others. Without a forgiveness mindset our natural attitude Continue Reading →

(This is the first part of an article I wrote titled “Christformation And Embracing Forgiveness” that appeared on the Renew.org website. You may click on the link to access the whole article.) What is God up to in our lives? When we look throughout Scripture, we see that, above all, God is restoring his image in us so we can be fruitful members of his eternal community of love. Restoring God’s image is another way of saying “becoming like Christ,” or as I like to put it, “Christformation.” I would like to explore the importance of embracing forgiveness in order to progress in Christformation. Throughout Scripture, we learn that God has forgiven our sins through the cross of Christ: “Christ died for our sins” (1 Corinthians 15:3, NIV). I want to persuade you to fully believe in this forgiveness from God. In fact, I want us to believe in this Continue Reading →