The Practical Disciple

  Happy New Year! I hope you had an amazing 2011 full of God’s blessings. I love looking back at the prior year with gratitude and forming intentions for the New Year. As I have been preparing for the New Year an acronym began to form in my mind and a scripture verse came to mind. First, the verse– For this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in … Read entire article »

  I am so grateful for everyone who reads The Practical Disciple and hope that your Christmas has been filled with many blessings. From my home to your home, “Merry Christmas.” You are a blessing,   John A. The Practical Disciple    p.s. Email subscribers and click here to goto the original post.     … Read entire article »

13“If because of the sabbath, you turn your foot From doing your own pleasure on My holy day, And call the sabbath a delight, the holy day of the LORD honorable, And honor it, desisting from your own ways, From seeking your own pleasure And speaking your own word, 14Then you will take delight in the LORD, And I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; And I will feed you with … Read entire article »

Thought #1: You Only Truly Meaningfully Possess What You Are Thankful For   During a spiritual renewal weekend that I just attended someone at a discussion table raised a question that has really gnawed at my conscience. “What if tomorrow when you awoke, the only things you had were the things you thanked God for today?” Wow! What a frightening thought for me. Some days I would awake and be a wealthy man, other days I would awake utterly impoverished.   It strikes me that whether that literally happens or not, it does happen everyday. You can have everything, but if you pass the day never realizing the value of your blessings, what do you really have? The opposite is true as well. If you … Read entire article »

The following post is a distillation of a sermon I preached this past Sunday. If you enjoy the post and would like to hear the full sermon you can do so using this embedded player.   [Audio clip: view full post to listen]   Or, you are welcome to right click on the link below to download the sermon.   http://www.thepracticaldisciple.com/audio/thin_places.mp3   Here’s the post… Celtic Christians have a wonderful expression for places where we more readily seem to experience God. They refer to these places as “thin places.” Thin places are those places where for some inexplicable reason God seems more present.   I have experienced a number of thin places. The sanctuary at our church is a place where I almost immediately feel peace and proximity to God. I don’t frequently slip in there … Read entire article »

In a couple of prior posts I have mentioned “body holiness.” Essentially observing body holiness is about honoring God with our bodies. There are two main ways we do this:   1) Use our bodies in ways that honor God. We can do this by serving God with the strength of our bodies by literally laboring on mission projects. Or, we can honor God with our bodies by lifting our hands in prayer … Read entire article »