Jesus did not arrive safely, comfortably, or legally secure. He fled by night, crossed borders, and lived in fear of returning home—because a politician wanted him dead. The Gospel doesn’t leave us room to sanitize this reality. If how we treat refugees is how we treat Jesus, then the question isn’t whether Christ was a…
I know a single mother who is struggling to get by. She measures a successful week in singular dollars, hoping to find just enough to complete all of her tasks and pay all of her bills. There is no end of her difficulties in sight, and there are a hundred systemic and personal complications keeping…
The poor relationship between Denethor and Faramir in The Lord of the Rings is startling. How could a father so deeply care for one son while despising the other so much? Clearly, Tolkien was overplaying his hand here while trying to create drama for his story. Except we’ve read this story before, for Jacob’s family…
“We’ve decided to have a prayer tunnel, and everyone is welcome to come up on stage and walk through it,” the woman announced. I excitedly and fearfully got in line with hundreds of others as I was very hungry for a deeper experience of the Holy Spirit. As I entered the prayer tunnel, everyone around…
When I lead people through inner healing, I work with the Holy Spirit through the visions he brings to their minds. But this method stops working sometimes when the Holy Spirit needs to address deep, deep trauma. The first time this happened, the Holy Spirit was unmistakably clear with me about why: “I don’t want…
I didn’t know much about the prophets when I was a kid, but if it was possible to be one when I grew up, I wanted to be. They were the ones who saw miracles, healed people, raised the dead, had dreams and visions, met with angels, and talked with God. That was the kind…
There are many reasons people get hooked on porn. Over time, the Holy Spirit showed me an unexpected reason as to why I was trapped: I found worth in it. It taught me that my body had power—power to make another person feel really good and really special, which made me feel like I was…
I called up the youth pastor and told him a better way in which he could do things. My plan was simple, really: all he had to do was relinquish control and put me in charge of the youth band. Oh, I was sixteen and in the youth group, by the way. I learned my…
After telling some neighborhood kids the story of the woman caught in adultery, Shane Claiborne asked them what they thought Jesus wrote in the sand. “If this doesn’t work, run, woman!” one of the kids joked.1 While scholars might propose serious suggestions for what Jesus wrote, no one can know for sure. The Bible invites…
Jamin Bradley 