Posts by Peter Churness

Seven Things I Tell Myself Every Morning

Some time ago when I was in college I finally got tired of learning the same spiritual truths over and over again only to forget those lessons and have to relearn them (usually the hard way). Then one day in my college apartment it occurred to me that we had this amazing new technology called writing and that I could actually write down and recall to mind on a daily basis some of these key truths.  Over the next several years I added to my personal “top truths” list until I landed on seven that would be foundational for me over the next 20 years. (Actually there were eight, but seven was a more spiritual ...

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Are You Desiring Too Little?

Matt 19:29: And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. The call to live the Christian life is a call to follow Christ. It’s a call to take up ones cross as he did and to surrender to the will of the Father. It’s a call to a life of total obedience. And yet connected to this call to live the Christian life is something that we sometimes miss - an appeal to desire. It’s not an appeal to earthly desire, but rather to a desire for something greater than anything ...

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The Friendship and the Fear

Recording artist Matt Redman's 1997 album was entitled The Friendship and the Fear. The phrase is a profound one and contains within it one of the keys to living the Christian life. The concept of friendship with God is central to us as believers. In 1 John 3:1 we read, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” Jesus said to his disciples, “I have called you friends, for everything I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). And Paul prays, “…that love may be the ground into which you sink your roots and on which you ...

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