Praise is the highest occupation of any being

I try to help people see they're going to have these times in which they turn away, in which they deny Christ and their faith grows cold, their convictions weakened; but Jesus is waiting.

I don't think God is a gender. He presents himself as a father but he comes to us with the tenderness of a mother. In some of the parables, he is the housewife who cleans the house looking for the lost coin. So I think we can miss the point if we get too concerned about the gender of God.

Matthew loved the magi. He gave their story more square inches of text than he gave the narrative of the birth of Jesus. He never mentions the shepherds or the manger, but he didn't want us to miss the star and the seekers. It's easy to see why. Their story is our story.

You want to make a difference in your world? Live a holy life: Be faithful to your spouse. Be the one at the office who refuses to cheat. Be the neighbor who acts neighbors. Be the employee who does the work and doesn't complain. Pay your bills. Do your part and enjoy life. Don't speak one message and live another. People are watching the way we act more than they are listening to what we say.

Are you on the eve of change? Embrace it. Accept it. Don't resist it. Change is not only a part of life, change is a necessary part of God's strategy. To use us to change the world, he alters our assignments.

No person is too hardened.