A Personal Journal of Grace and Discipleship

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God,who loved me and gave himself for me.” - Galatians 2:20

From the blog


 

The Exchanged Life: Finding Freedom and Wholeness Through Spirituotherapy

In a world filled with competing counseling models, it’s not uncommon to find contrasting views on what “biblical” or “Christian” counseling truly means. Searching for answers can feel overwhelming, and the terms alone—“biblical counseling” versus “Christian counseling”—can spark endless debates on how, or whether, secular counseling methodologies fit within a Christian framework.

Read More
Keep the Main Thing in Sight
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

Keep the Main Thing in Sight

Archippus received a clear word, see that you fulfill the ministry you received in the Lord. E. Stanley Jones contrasts him with Tychicus. Tychicus lived from a strong center, yet Archippus seems to have drifted into the edges. He likely said yes to many small things and had little strength left for the one thing that mattered.

Read More
A Quiet Strength That Stays Brotherly
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

A Quiet Strength That Stays Brotherly

Tychicus did not try to be a headline. He moved like a steady friend in the background, a beloved brother, a faithful minister, and a fellow servant in the Lord. E. Stanley Jones points to him as a living picture of how grace makes us strong and tender at the same time.

Read More
His Name On My Ordinary
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

His Name On My Ordinary

We are not vessels that only receive. We are cups that pour because Jesus lives in us. E. Stanley Jones reminds us that life in Jesus is not a private glow. It is a public life, words and deeds done in His name with thanks to the Father.

Read More
One New People, One Living Center
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

One New People, One Living Center

E. Stanley Jones walks us to a bright sentence in Scripture that keeps shattering old walls. In the new humanity, there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian and Scythian, slave and free. Christ is all, and in all. Jones tells how this truth rattled a parliament and how it still rattles our hearts. The gospel does not decorate the old order. It creates another kind of people around Jesus.

Read More
The Cross That Unclenched Every Fist
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

The Cross That Unclenched Every Fist

E. Stanley Jones points us to the hill where everything changed. At the cross, Jesus did not simply suffer, He stripped the powers and made a public show of them. The dark authorities that trafficked in fear and accusation were disarmed. Their weapons were taken, their threats hollowed out.

Read More
When Heaven Moves In, Your Humanity Finds Its Home
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

When Heaven Moves In, Your Humanity Finds Its Home

E. Stanley Jones helps us relax into the good news that God is not at war with our created humanity. The clash is not natural versus supernatural. The clash is both of those against the unnatural twist of sin. In Jesus, something decisive happened. The old false center, what Paul calls the flesh, was cut away in a circumcision not done by hands. The Spirit baptized us into the one body of the Messiah. We were buried and raised with Him into an entirely new creation.

Read More
Wholeness In Jesus, Life In Every Part
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

Wholeness In Jesus, Life In Every Part

E. Stanley Jones keeps the spotlight clear. Fullness of life is found in Jesus, not beside Him, not beyond Him. He pushes back on every shortcut that tries to bypass the Incarnation. God did not stay distant. The Word became flesh. In Jesus, the fullness of Deity lives bodily, and in Him we are brought to fullness. That means our real lives, minds and bodies and relationships, can be gathered into one center and made alive.

Read More
All Of God, All The Way Into Our Humanity
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

All Of God, All The Way Into Our Humanity

E. Stanley Jones takes us by the hand and points to a wonder. In Jesus, the whole fullness of Deity lives in a human body. Not once upon a time for a moment, but present tense, dwells. God did not flirt with matter, He embraced it. The incarnation does not despise bodies, meals, work, or relationships. It redeems them. It gives them a future and a goal.

Read More
Rest That Makes Us Holy
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

Rest That Makes Us Holy

Sabbath is not a rule to trip us. It is God sharing His own rest. Andrew Murray helps us see it with fresh eyes. In creation, God finished His work, then He rested, and He blessed that day. He invited humanity into His rest so we would enjoy His love, not strive for His approval. Rest with God, then work from God, that is the pattern.

Read More
Held, Watched, And Brought Home
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

Held, Watched, And Brought Home

Elijah did not schedule his departure. He did not extend his lease on life by personal authority. Scripture simply says that the Lord would take Elijah to heaven by a whirlwind. Today’s reading reminds me tenderly that our times are in God’s hands. We live as stewards, not landlords. That truth does not shrink life. It steadies it.

Read More
River, Not Reservoir: Letting Christ’s Love Flow Through You
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

River, Not Reservoir: Letting Christ’s Love Flow Through You

There is a difference between holding love and letting it flow.

I used to live like a reservoir. I wanted to love well, so I gathered everything I could—patience, kindness, forgiveness, endurance—and stored it like water behind a dam. But when life demanded more than I could give, levels dropped. The cracks showed. I felt the emptiness that comes from loving in my own strength.

Read More
Already Here, Already Indwelling
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

Already Here, Already Indwelling

The Holy Spirit is not a distant promise we keep trying to pull down. Peter’s proclamation in Acts is simple. Turn to Jesus, receive forgiveness in His name, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Evan Roberts presses this home like a friend at the kitchen table. We would not ask the Father to send the Son again while Jesus was standing right beside us. In the same way, we do not beg for the Spirit to come when He has already been given.

Read More
When the Sky Breaks: Hearing Christ in the Wounds of the World
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

When the Sky Breaks: Hearing Christ in the Wounds of the World

The sky tears open. Rain falls like nails on the earth. I once heard U2’s Bullet the Blue Sky as the sound of my own ache—howling wind, stinging rain, a city groaning through thin walls. The Edge’s guitar stretched a line of pain across the horizon, and Bono’s voice carried it like a lament. I thought the song was only protest. Then I learned to live from Christ within, and I heard a second layer. The same storm became a prayer.

Read More
Setting The Channel Of My Mind
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

Setting The Channel Of My Mind

Some thoughts lift us. Some thoughts drain us. The psalmist said he hated vain thoughts, then added that he loved God’s law. C. H. Mackintosh takes that contrast and walks it right into our Monday minds. He does not shame the believer for being tempted by mental noise. He simply points to a better way.

Read More
Traveling Light, Running Free
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

Traveling Light, Running Free

Some days the race of faith feels simple. Other days it feels like we are sprinting in a winter coat with pockets full of keys. Today’s page helps us name why. Stephen Kaung reminds us that there are sins to lay aside, and there are also weights that are lawful and respectable, yet heavy. They are not evil in themselves, but they slow the soul.

Read More
Scarlet Hope At The Window
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

Scarlet Hope At The Window

Rahab’s story reads like a window thrown open to the future. Her house sat on Jericho’s wall, yet her gaze turned away from the city’s noise and toward a coming rescue. She trusted the God of Israel, tied a scarlet cord in her window, and waited. Ordinary rope. Bold faith. A sign that said, I belong to the Lord when He comes.

Read More
Cleared Conscience, Open Communion
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

Cleared Conscience, Open Communion

Zacchaeus did not bargain with Jesus. Grace visited his house, and something new sprang up inside him. He stood and said he would give and repay. Not to earn a place at the table. Because the Lord had already brought salvation home. Today’s page reminds me that restitution is not a side topic. It is what love looks like when the Spirit turns us toward the people we have wronged.

Read More
Living Normally, Indwelt Fully
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

Living Normally, Indwelt Fully

Blessed are the forgiven. Psalm 32 sings it softly, then strong. Today’s page from His Victorious Indwelling reminds me that drawing others to the Lord does not begin with a sales pitch. It begins with the quiet joy of communion. Bellett says our influence rests on our own fellowship with the Lord. That lands simply. People notice when a heart is at rest in Jesus.

Read More
When Confession Becomes a Doorway to Worship
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

When Confession Becomes a Doorway to Worship

Prayer is not a performance. It is an adjustment of the heart to the will of God. That is how T. Austin-Sparks guides us today from James 5:16. He reminds us that our prayer moments are not for polishing ourselves by effort. They are God’s gracious invitations to align with His heart in honest confession, quiet surrender, and thankful worship.

Read More
All Things Already Given
Believing Thomas Believing Thomas

All Things Already Given

Paul’s words land like a clear morning after rain. All things are yours, life and death, the present and the future, because you belong to Jesus, and Jesus belongs to the Father. Ray Stedman lifts our chin to see the horizon that grace opens. Not a cramped life spent guarding our little pile, but a wide country where sons and daughters walk with the Giver Himself.

Read More
 

About This Journal