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In the following devotional from My Utmost for his Highest, Oswald Chambers’ writes about the experience of utter spiritual exhaustion:

Exhaustion means that our vital energies are completely worn out and spent. Spiritual exhaustion is never the result of sin, but of service. Whether or not you experience exhaustion will depend on where you get your supplies. Jesus said to Peter, “Feed My sheep,” but He gave him nothing with which to feed them ( John 21:17 ). The process of being made broken bread and poured-out wine means that you have to be the nourishment for other people’s souls until they learn to feed on God. They must drain you completely— to the very last drop. But be careful to replenish your supply, or you will quickly be utterly exhausted. Until others learn to draw on the life of the Lord Jesus directly, they will have to draw on His life through you. You must literally be their source of supply, until they learn to take their nourishment from God. We owe it to God to be our best for His lambs and sheep, as well as for Him.

Have you delivered yourself over to exhaustion because of the way you have been serving God? If so, then renew and rekindle your desires and affections. Examine your reasons for service. Is your source based on your own understanding or is it grounded on the redemption of Jesus Christ? Continually look back to the foundation of your love and affection and remember where your Source of power lies. You have no right to complain, “O Lord, I am so exhausted.” He saved and sanctified you to exhaust you. Be exhausted for God, but remember that He is your supply. “All my springs are in you” ( Psalm 87:7 ).

Read the rest of the devotional at RBC ministries.

Have you ever been spiritually exhausted? How would you respond to Chambers’ question: “Have you delivered yourself over to exhaustion because of the way you have been serving God?”

Most Christians have a passing familiarity with the major holidays and notable dates in other religions’ calendars—Jewish holidays like Hanukkah are well-known, as is the Islamic observance of Ramadan. Similarly, most Christians have at least a basic knowledge of those religions’ basic beliefs.

But how much do you know about what Buddhists believe? Do you know how the claims of Buddhism compare and contrast with Christianity’s?

February is a fitting time to learn more about Buddhist beliefs, since it’s when many Buddhists celebrate Parinirvana Day, the day that, they believe, Buddha died and achieved complete Nirvana. A good place to start is an article on the basic beliefs of Buddhism from Campus Life, which also identifies points of similarity and difference between Buddhism and Christianity. A short article at Answers to Tough Questions explains how Buddhist beliefs differ from Christianity.

If you’re interested in further reading, J. Isamu Yamamoto has written a more in-depth article on how Christians should understand and respond to Buddhism in North America (and the article points out that there are different branches within the umbrella of Buddhism, so Christians who’ve studied up on one branch shouldn’t assume they know everything there is to know). Christianity Today has a short discussion of theological issues within Tibetan Buddhism, and an accompanying collection of articles for additional reading. And of course, you can’t beat Wikipedia for sheer volume of information about Buddhist history and beliefs.

So this month, as Buddhists around the world commemorate Buddha’s life and death, take some time to read up on Buddhist beliefs, and consider how you might share your faith with a Buddhist friend or neighbor.

If God loves everybody, what’s so special about the fact that he loves me? Is God’s love for all of us exactly the same, and does that mean there’s nothing individual or unique about our relationship with Him? Those are the central questions in a devotional article from Nehemiah Ministries. Author Blaine Smith explains why humans long for distinctiveness—and why we long for a relationship for God that is unique:

We long, on the one hand, to know that our work and accomplishment are unique–that we’re able to contribute something to human life that no one else can. But we also yearn for distinctiveness in relationships. Much of the thrill of being loved and cherished by someone is the sense of being special that goes along with it. You know that you’re accepted for who you are, and esteemed in a way that’s different from that person’s affection for anyone else.

Yet if God loves everyone in an equal, unbiased fashion, how can there be anything distinctive about a relationship with him? What’s so novel about receiving his love? What possibility for creative accomplishment is there in living for him? You’re simply one of the mass of believers, responding to a vast cosmic love force.

But thankfully, that isn’t the end of the story, as Blaine explains—God may love His children equally, but there’s nothing “generic” about that love. Read the complete devotional at Nehemiah Notes.

Perhaps the greatest example of friendship we have in the Bible is David and Jonathan. They made a covenant with one another and throughout their lives protected and loved each other deeply. When Jonathan died, David said “Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women.”

They had an intense friendship. An enviable one too. After all, who wouldn’t want a friend that would defend you even in the face of death?

What about you though? How important are friendships to you? Would you ever make a covenant like David and Jonathan?

Share your thoughts!

What’s it like to feel your faith slipping away? Christianity Today published an interview with David Bazan, a well-known musician and the former frontman for the indie rock band Pedro the Lion. Bazan is a former evangelical Christian who no longer counts himself as a believer, but he continues to speak (and sing) about God and the doubts that led him away from the Christian flock.

Bazan’s departure from Christianity was a sad and reluctant one, and his former faith continues to haunt him, as this quote illustrates:

Christian spirituality has played a huge part in your music. Will it continue to play a role?

In some ways, I hope not. But I can’t imagine that it won’t. It’s still the central question of my life. I read a lot about theology and church history. I’ll never get a vacation from this. I’m not kidding when I say that this is the central question of my life.

Bazan is certainly not the only person to abandon the Christian faith; but the circumstances of his departure make for an edifying read. Bazan didn’t reject his faith to become an angry, bitter atheist; nor did he simply drift away from Christianity due to apathy or a lack of commitment. Rather, his departure was prompted by, among other things, a sense that the Christianity he practiced was actually interfering with the ethics he wanted to pursue.

The interview doesn’t get too specific about those obstacles, but one obvious question that occurs to me is whether the hurdles that drove Bazan from the faith truly were fundamental elements of the Christian faith, or if they were human “additions” to the faith. It’s also interesting (and a little disturbing) to see the powerful role that fear played (and continues to play) in his spiritual life.

What’s your reaction to the interview? What might you ask or say to Bazan if you had the chance to talk to him about Christianity?

In the Gospels, Thomas famously doubts Jesus’ resurrection. Thomas even went so far as to say that unless he could put his fingers where the nails held Jesus to the cross that he wouldn’t believe Jesus had been raised. A week after Thomas’ proclamation, Jesus appeared to the disciples and Thomas called Jesus his Lord and his God. Thomas’ first-hand knowledge strengthened his faith.

In the following devotional, Our Daily Journey with God reflects on the relationship between knowledge and faith:

The preacher asked his audience whether they believed he had a $20 bill in his closed hand. After a woman said that she believed he did, the speaker announced that he would destroy her faith by opening his hand and showing the money. “Now that you know I have a $20 bill,” he said, “you can no longer have faith that I do.”

If the preacher is correct, then the return of Christ will destroy the faith of His followers, for our faith will now be sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). And Jesus would not have told Thomas, “You believe because you have seen Me” (John 20:29), but rather “Because you have seen Me, you are no longer able to believe.”

The preacher mistakenly thought that empirical proof destroys faith. Instead, proof strengthens faith by eliminating the uncertainty that often accompanies it (Hebrews 11:1). Firsthand evidence confirms our knowledge, which bolsters our faith.

Faith is not the opposite of knowledge. Faith actually rests on knowledge. The more we know, the more we’re able to believe. Knowledge itself is not sufficient for faith, for even demons believe and tremble (James 2:19), but it’s impossible to have faith without it.

Read the rest of the devotional at ourdailyjourney.org.

Have you had any experiences where knowledge has strengthened your faith?

Recently, I’ve been reading and watching stories that deal with time travel. It hasn’t been a wholly intentional move; in particular, the last book I read snuck it in without warning a hundred pages from the end. Interacting with so many stories with time shifting elements has made me start to wonder why it’s such a popular trope.

I think the reason we keep telling story after story of returning to the past is because it allows us to envision a world without guilt and regret.

We can go back and say “yes!” when we said “no!”, save ourselves or others from making a terrible mistake, or maybe even keep ourselves from sinning. We think it would allow us to keep tweaking our lives until we were perfect—or at least what we think is perfect. It’s an attractive proposition because it might even let us manufacture a life that didn’t need forgiving. We could, in short, create a sort of simulacrum of God’s grace cobbled together through an alternative timeline of correct choices.

Yet, as many of the characters in these stories realize, attempting to recreate the world to your own design usually introduces more problems than it originally had. Most time travel stories end with the characters foreswearing the ability to mess with the past. There’s an admission that our problems and mistakes are worthwhile in the light of a future guided by a small minority’s whims and ideals.

Also, it’s interesting to me as a Christian to read stories where secular authors come to the conclusion that, in the end, the original Creator’s intention with His Creation is better than anything humanity could come up for it. It’s a strong statement about man’s place in relation to an all-knowing God.

What about you though? Why do you think people are fascinated with time travel? Or do you personally find it uninteresting?

Last year, while looking through my local bookstore for a particular book by C.S. Lewis, I stumbled across several books of his that I wasn’t at all familiar with. I’d venture to say that most English-speaking Christians (and no doubt many non-English speaking ones as well) know Lewis’ Narnia books quite well. And some of his more overtly theological books, like Mere Christianity or The Great Divorce, are well-known and easy to find.

But the subject of Lewis’ lesser-known works came to mind again today when I came across a lengthy analysis of one of Lewis’ more obscure works of social commentary. It sounds fascinating—and it makes me wonder what other Lewis books are worth tracking down. A check of Wikipedia confirms that Lewis authored a truly huge number of books and essays.

What’s your favorite C.S. Lewis book? Is it one of his Narnia classics, or a work that has so far passed under the radar of mainstream notice? If you’re a Lewis expert, what books of his would you recommend to someone who has read his well-known works and wants to explore his ideas further?

Share your thoughts!

Have you hit a wall in your personal or spiritual life? This devotional from Daily Encounter reminds us that we need to be open to the possibility that change in our own lives is sometimes necessary to move forward.

The devotional cites Rick Warren asserting that most churches fail to grow beyond a few hundred members because they fail to make the necessary organizational changes to make it possible, not because the Gospel message has lost its appeal. In the same way, sometimes we sabotage our own spiritual development or evangelism efforts because we don’t recognize when it’s time to make changes:

No, we don’t want to make changes where change is not to our advantage, but there are times when we do need to make changes. When it comes to communicating the gospel, while the message itself never changes, our way and means of communicating it have to change in order to communicate effectively to the particular group we are addressing. One size doesn’t fit all!

Also, whether we approve or disapprove, many things around us change and if we don’t adapt, we get left behind….

A few years back, Moody Monthly, the highly respected Christian magazine, discontinued its publication after its 103-year history. Why? Because of the economy, the proliferation of Christian magazines, and because of technology. Moody Monthly, like so many other ministries, has had to turn from printed hard copy to electronic means of communication, not only to become more effective in their ministry, but also to survive.

Read the full devotional at Daily Encounter.

Are you evangelism efforts falling on deaf ears? Is your devotional life stalling out, or your personal life running up against an insurmountable obstacle? A little change in how you think and act might make a big difference!

In the days immediately following the Haiti earthquake, there was much discussion of ways that we could help the rescue and rebuilding efforts. Many Christian ministries and organizations, some of them already at work in Haiti, stepped forward with plans to help.

I’m interested to hear how your own church responding to the Haiti crisis. Did your pastor address it (and the always-difficult question of “how could God let this happen?”) in a sermon? Did your church donate funds, collect supplies, or otherwise get involved with any relief efforts? Are you satisfied with the way your community responded?

Share your thoughts!