City Church Houston

Christianity looks at the exclusive claim in this passage, a passage that Jesus later quotes, not as exclusively legal but existentially loving. The way he talks about love is not a modern understanding of love driven by emotion. But this love of God is driven instead by covenant. He is committed to us. And as a response to his relentless love toward us, we love him. His love and our obedience can...

In bringing us the Ten Commandments, God is not just bringing the law but bringing himself. When we reimagine the law the way it was originally designed it is not enslaving, but liberating. We flourish when we function within our design. The law also functions as a mirror. It drives deeper than the external ethics. It drives deep to the heart of the matter. The law isn’t there to be a consultant o...

Love must be understood in the larger biblical context that God is also a consuming fire. Coming near to him, his fire will shape your life. God speaks his words out of the fire, and you can meet with God there and not be consumed. And the words he gives there become transformative. His fire is disruptive, but it brings new life, and that spreads to others. Sometimes Christians are on fire in a wa...

What do we need to enjoy a full life? How do we find life at its fullest? We need words, direction, and the wisdom to listen. God made us, so he knows better than we do about how to find a full life. We desperately need God’s Word. It is wise for us to listen to it because we are people of the wilderness. The wilderness is a dry place where temptation and doubt are prevalent, and it is where God m...

When life centers around me, it will always be meaningless. When our work feels meaningless, you can always find meaning in it when you find God in it. No matter how meaningful your work feels, it can feel meaningless unless you find God in it. Jesus makes our work meaningful and sometimes does so in mysterious ways.

Naaman is one of the least likely people to find God, but God finds him. Naaman is a picture of faith and work and a face of growth. The hero in this story is a slave girl who forgives Naaman. God sends the message of salvation through the suffering servant.

What is the thing in your life that makes you feel unknown, isolated? For Naaman it was leprosy. But his leprosy became an occasion for finding God. Naaman looks for God in the way he learned how from his culture. But God is not an extension of our culture; he is the judge of our culture and our hearts. Naaman’s obstacle to finding God was pride. He tried to buy his way to God, but the deeper issu...

Before we love, we have to know we are loved. The king in this story provides us a glimpse into God’s heart. The cripple in this story shows us a glimpse of our heart. To grow spiritually is to see yourself as both. You may feel forgotten, but God, the ultimate King, knows you and invites you to eat every meal at his table. Then, once you have received, receive also the challenge to become like th...

Human friendship addresses the human need to draw close to God. When you have mutual affection, part of you will cry out, wherever you’re going, that’s where I want to be. And it’s a relationship that will make you sad when it ends. We are made for holy friendships with one another, and connecting with others is connecting with God.

Growing in godliness is growing more into the image we were originally designed for. Hannah grows in her godliness through suffering. Her suffering is complex: the pain from not being able to have children and the pain from being in a polygamous marriage, and then all the cultural expectations that go along with those things. She offers her prayer to God, and she is at peace. She knows her God, wh...

Job is more known more for his perseverance than his patience. He goes on a spiritual journey that has lingering agony, which brings up some of the big questions we have about suffering. His friends are no comfort, but God is not indifferent to our suffering. God reframes Jobs suffering, and ultimately God enters into our pain to endure the ultimate odyssey of agony for us. Jesus is our faithful f...

Joseph uses his power to care for other people, and he looks outside of himself to find self control in the midst of temptation. In temptation, the aim is not curbing sexual desires, but reorienting our desires. Jesus is the sustaining presence in those trials and in adversity. Through Christ’s adversity, he makes possible the privilege of belonging to him until the end of our days.

True knowledge is inseparable from belief in the goodness of God in your life. You were destined for a spiritual life, so stop throwing yourself in the trash. God has a plan to restore our broken world.

In difficult seasons, it’s sometimes hard to see true things. We don’t typically question the goodness of God when things are good, but we do when it seems like the darkness will not lift. But suffering can lead us to intimacy with God himself. We all want a friend like Ruth, and Ruth would be listed on the first page of the New Testament in Jesus’ genealogy. Her ultimate son would be the only tho...

In Genesis 12, we see in a nutshell God’s story of redemption. Abraham teaches us about faith and connectivity to God.

Jesus loves us and he wants us to pursue godliness, but it is important to get that in the right order. Religion puts imperatives before the indicative that Jesus loves us. We are loved by Jesus regardless of what we do, and we also need to not forget the indicatives. What is true of Jesus is true of you.

To know the living God is to know God in hope. When you realize you are called by him to know him, there is security. The wealthiest person in the universe is delighted to receive you as a gift. Find hope in that you are God’s trophy of grace that he has fashioned through Jesus Christ. We can experience the Pentecost reality, find power in it, and have grounding hope through it because of the work...

Apocalyptic literature can fire up the praying imagination when the beasts of life come at us and when we see the beasts in our own heart. There is a God who is in control. In destabilizing times, where are your eyes fixed? Jesus takes the fire and faces the beast for us.