Daily Readings by Wild at Heart

Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!  (2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT) We haven’t yet seen anyone in their true glory. Including you. Yes, Mozart wrote symphonies as a child, and Picasso could draw before he could talk. But most human beings are profoundly thwarted in their “calling” because of circumstances that would never let them fly. This i...

I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God,  and I expelled you, O guardian cherub,  from among the fiery stones. (Ezekiel 28:16) So evil entered the Story. I am staggered by the level of naïveté that most people live with regarding evil. They don't take it seriously. They don't live as though the Story has a Villain. Not the devil prancing about in red tights, carrying a pitchfork, but the inc...

Jesus’ freedom is a difficult thing to teach on for many reasons; let me name two. First, there are certain types who will hear this and find it an excuse to live as they please. Many characters in our irreverent age “don’t care what others think.” Their freedom is abrasive and unholy. The freedom Jesus models is not a crass “giving the finger to the world.” Or the church, for that matter. Others...

By “mystery” we don’t mean “forever beyond your knowing,” but “something to be explored.” “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,” says the book of Proverbs, “to search out a matter is the glory of kings” (25:2). God yearns to be known. But he wants to be sought after by those who would know him. He says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jer. 29:13). There...

The new covenant has two parts to it: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh" (Ezek. 36:26). God removed your old heart when he circumcised your heart; he gives you a new heart when he joins you to the life of Christ. That's why Paul can say "count yourselves dead to sin" and "alive to God in Christ Jesus"...

The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.     [John]    Sam, What have you been learning as you pursue your dreams, especially as it relates to writing this book? Has it gone easily? What have you had to do to get breakthrough? [Sam]   You know, sometimes it really should be quite obvious, but it isn’t always. Often I sit down to writ...

The human heart has an infinite capacity for happiness and an unending need for love, because it is created for an infinite God who is unending love. The desperate turn is when we bring the aching abyss of our hearts to one another with the hope, the plea, “Make me happy. Fill this ache.” And often out of love we do try to make one another happy, and then we wonder why it never lasts. It can’t be...

Maybe it would be better to turn our search to the headwaters, to that mighty root from which these branches grow. Who is this One we allegedly come from, whose image every man bears? What is he like? In a man's search for his strength, telling him that he's made in the image of God may not sound like a whole lot of encouragement at first. To most men, God is either distant or he is weak — the ver...

God promises every man futility and failure; he guarantees every woman relational heartache and loneliness. We spend most of our waking hours attempting to end-run the curse. We will fight this truth with all we've got. Sure, other people suffer defeat. Other people face loneliness. But not me. I can beat the odds. We see the neighbor's kids go off the deep end, and we make a mental note: They did...

This motive — reverence for God — is a slippery one. This lets in a great deal of the clutter that gets between us and God, because it seems like the proper thing to do. “Papa, I come to you this morning” has a totally different feel than “Almighty God and Everlasting Father.” Even if you do not start out that way, addressing God with a coat-and-tie formality you would never have wanted between yo...

The point of the story of the prodigal is not primarily about the prodigal. It is about the father's heart. "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him" (Luke 15:20 NIV). This is the kind of Father you have. This is how he feels about you. This is the purpose for which Christ came. Bu...

O Living Flame of Love...How gently and how lovingly Thou wakest in my bosom, where alone thou secretly dwellest; And in Thy sweet breathing full of grace and glory how tenderly Thou fillest me with Thy love. These words, penned by St. John of the Cross in his book Living Flame of Love , capture the heart-cry of every soul for intimacy with God. For this we were created and for this we were rescue...

"I'm just a sinner, saved by grace." "I'm just clothes for God to put on." "There sure isn't any good thing in me." It's so common this mind-set, this idea that we are no-good wretches, ready to sin at a moment's notice, incapable of goodness, and certainly far from any glory. It's also unbiblical. The passage people think they are referring to is Romans 7:18, where Paul says, "For I know that in...

A story is only as good as its ending. Without a happy ending that draws us on in eager anticipation, our journey becomes a nightmare of endless struggle. Is this all there is? Is this as good as it gets? On a recent flight I was chatting with one of the attendants about her spiritual beliefs. A follower of a New Age guru, she said with all earnestness, “I don’t believe in heaven. I believe life i...

Late resurrection Sunday, the two fellows from the Emmaus road come rushing back to town to tell the others they have seen Jesus alive. Let’s pick up the story there: While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts r...

Jesus’ silence before Pilate is stunning. The cynical little martinet dares to ask Jesus, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). Jesus doesn’t even bother answering. He just stares at Pilate, letting him make the next move. You know how the story goes — though Jesus says he could call down more than sixty thousand angels to prevent it, he lets them kill him, and pardons them beforehand for doing it. Becau...

There is only the kingdom, friends. Everything else will slip through your fingers, no matter how strong your grasp. Why do we fight this hope, keeping it at arm’s length? We nod in appreciation but ask it to stay outside our yard. It is as though some power or force is colluding with our deepest fears and keeping us all under a spell. Pascal understood: Nothing is so important to man as his own s...

Jesus said we must take up our cross and die to the supremacy of Self every single day, probably many times a day (see Matthew 10:38; 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; 14:27). We must crucify the exalted, offended Self, that’s clear. But what this looks like in operation has left many dear folks a little confused. The simple thing I do (I’m trying to practice this every day) is to pray, Jesus, I surren...

If we choose the way of desire, our greatest enemy on the road ahead is not the Arrows, nor Satan, nor our false lovers. The most crippling thing that besets the pilgrim heart is simply forgetfulness, or more accurately, the failure to remember. You will forget; this isn’t the first book you’ve read in search of God. What do you remember from the others? If God has been so gracious as to touch you...

A personal walk with God comes to us through wisdom and revelation. You will soon discover that we need both. For a moment the King's grief and anger were so great that he could not speak. Then he said: "Come, friends. We must go up the river and find the villains who have done this, with all the speed we may. I will not leave one of them alive." "Sire, with a good will," said Jewel. But Roonwit s...

The Religious Spirit has turned discipleship into a soul-killing exercise of principles. Most folks don’t even know they can walk with God, hear his voice. He’s stigmatized counseling as a profession for sick patients, and so the wounds of our hearts never get healed. He’s taken healing away from us almost entirely, so that we sit in pews as broken people feeling guilty because we can’t live the l...

The Search is for more of God in our lives as a growing, operational reality. There are a few critical things to believe in order to make this search go well. First off, we must be confident that God wants to give us more of himself. (Do you believe that? What are your current convictions about God wanting to give you himself?) The erosion of our soul by the world and the off-and-on experience mos...

As our soul grows in the love of God and journeys forth toward him, our heart's capacities also grow and expand: "Thou shalt enlarge my heart" (Ps. 119:32 KJV). But the sword cuts both ways. While our heart grows in its capacity for pleasure, it grows in its capacity to know pain. The two go hand in hand. What, then, shall we do with disappointment? We can be our own enemy, depending on how we han...

Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ. (Ephesians 2:4–5) It’s important to grasp what’s taking place in the world, so you know how to live and how to respond. Hatred has become the new “spirit of the age”; the mounting tensions in this country are symptoms of a much deeper reality. The more you understand the essence of human nature and human confli...

Winter tarries long at six thousand feet. Here in the Rocky Mountains, spring comes late and fitfully. We had snow again last week—the second week in May. I've come to accept that spring here is really a wrestling match between winter and summer. It makes for a long time of waiting. You see, the flowers are pretty much gone in September. The first of October, the aspens start turning gold and drop...