Outward appearances can be deceiving: the church in Philadelphia was small and insignificant but strong in its loyalty to Jesus. Jesus comforts the church with a vision of his power and intimate presence.

Worship is the act of valuing something as having supreme worth. The Christian worship of God includes treasuring his grace through thanksgiving and prayer, and treasuring his image in our neighbor through deeds of love and justice.

Facing pain and hardship apart from God’s grace often leads to one of two extreme coping responses: triumphalism and despair. But the promises of God enable us to endure with honesty and hope; with the assurance that hardship is a loving Father’s way of nurturing his children.

Sometimes forgiveness is easy. At other times, absorbing the cost of someone

Every day, judicial verdicts are pronounced over us in the court of cultural values: we’re fit or fat, successful or failures, powerful or powerless, good parents or bad parents, etc. Embracing these “verdicts” sentences us to a life of self-centeredness, exhaustion and bitterness. Only when we embrace the heavenly verdict of acceptance and justice pronounced through Jesus are we freed to extend radically other-centered love and forgiveness even to those who harm us.