617 results for author: Greg Albrecht

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

October 10, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “Who goes to hell (or heaven), what the criteria is, how many people are or will be in hell and heaven, etc. – all of these are religious devices.  Some churches basically teach, while many others carefully but strongly suggest, that heaven will be essentially confined to their little congregation or denomination, and that other riff-raff will be assigned a less favorable eternal destination.”  Originally published in: Between Religious Rocks and Life’s Hard Places ------------------------------------- Help Us Help Others - Give Now

Reforming Grace – by Greg Albrecht

For this is what the high and lofty One says—he who lives forever, whose name is holy: "I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite."—Isaiah 57:15 For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.—Matthew 23:12   Over 490 years ago, on the day now known as Halloween—October 31, 1517—a young Roman Catholic priest named Martin Luther posted 95 theses, or statements, on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. These 95 issues were a summary of what this ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

October 8, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “Remember the Old Testament prophets?  They were a lonely bunch.  They were always outnumbered by the false prophets – who always seemed to enjoy greater success and credibility.  The false prophets had huge followings, somewhat like mega-church pastors. I didn’t say all mega-church pastors are false prophets, but of course some might be!  When it comes to the true gospel, size doesn’t matter. British writer George Bernard Shaw once commented on the silliness of establishing truth by numbers.  At the time the population of Great Britain was about fifty million people.  ...

For those Who Are a Little Banged Up – Greg Albrecht

A Little Banged Up: In the Academy Award nominated movie “Seabiscuit” the phrase “You don’t throw away a whole life just because he’s banged up a little” initially refers to a horse no one wanted. Seabiscuit was a feisty, hard to handle, undersized and overlooked thoroughbred race horse with a temper—a horse with an attitude—a horse who only seemed to eat and sleep too much. No owner wanted to risk investing in such a horse. The movie tells us about Tom Smith, a trainer who specialized in rehabilitating injured and abused horses who was hired to work for Charles Howard, played by Jeff Bridges, who was beginning to acquire a ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

October 5, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “Paul tells us in Romans 6:23 that our paycheck for everything that we do, good and bad, is death.  But in the same breath, in the same verse, he tells us that the good news is that eternal life is free of charge.”  Originally published in: Bad News Religion ------------------------------------- Help Us Help Others - Give Now

Cheap and Costly – Greg Albrecht

Comment: As a new visitor to your ministry and your resources I agree with much I have read. You may wish to read Chapter One of "Cost of Discipleship" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “Christian Religion” preaches grace regularly, which you seem to have overlooked.  But, as you correctly point out, the problem is that religion preaches “Cheap Grace” instead of “Costly Grace”—the former too often results in genocides, racism, and general anti-Christ behaviors/dispositions. “Cheap Grace” hinders a Christian from allowing the Holy Spirit to place Christ in the world through his or her (discipleship), disabling the continuance of ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

October 3, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “Have you ever just wished that someone would believe you? Have you ever been so depressed that you could only hope that someone – at least your parent or sibling or friend or spouse – would believe you?  That’s what God always does for you and me.  He always believes us.”  Originally published in: Spiritual Soup for the Hungry Soul, Volume 3 ------------------------------------- Help Us Help Others - Give Now

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

October 1, 2023 - Quote for the Day “When I was in the second grade, my mother attempted (with little success) to attract some of my attention away from playing baseball to playing the piano.  During my years of enforced piano lessons I became aware of (and later in awe of) the musical genius of Johann Sebastian Bach – often known as JSB. After my baseball and piano playing days were over, I learned of a superscript/subscript Bach placed on almost all his compositions – ‘SCG’ (Soli Deo Gloria) – Latin for ‘to God alone be the glory.’  While my attempts to play the piano always fell short of doing justice to the ...

News or Good News? – by Greg Albrecht

Friend and Partner Letter from October 2023 “If some great catastrophe is not announced every morning, we feel a certain void. ‘Nothing in the paper today,’ we sigh.”  Paul Valery, French poet, 1871-1945 Long before the advent of cable news, with its 24-hour news cycle – long before our frantic and frenzied culture where “news” is immediately reported (never mind the factual details, because networks and “news” sources want to say “you heard it here first”) Paul Valery commented on the oh-so-human tendency to love hearing and reading the horrifying and the sensational.  “If it bleeds, it leads” was ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

September 28, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “Narcissus is a character in Greek mythology celebrated for his exceptional beauty.  Early in his life Narcissus did not know how truly beautiful he was until the day he saw his own reflection in the waters of a spring, and seeing his own image he fell in love with himself.  Based on this mythological character, the word ‘narcissism’ began to be used about 200 years ago to describe an excessive degree of self-centeredness and selfishness.  Like Narcissus, we are intrigued and mesmerized by our own images in this 21st century Western world.  We’ve peered into the mirror of ...

How Free is Free Will? – by Greg Albrecht

Red Pill or Blue Pill? How much choice does any individual human actually have? We speak of "free will"—but how much of a choice to accept God's grace does anyone have, given the brainwashing and propaganda to which they are subjected? How much of a choice to accept God's grace does a young boy in a radicalized Muslim school have? How much of a choice to accept God's grace does someone have who is ensnared by some ultra fundamentalist church, where performance-based religion rules?   Being in Christ is a divine invitation to an eternal relationship, open to everyone. But being in Christ is not an automatic, ...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

September 26, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “Our spiritual transformation is not a process where we sit and watch.  God does not force us to grow.  We must consent to our growth.  We consent initially, when we are spiritually re-born.  We consent on a daily basis, as we yield to our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Lord of our lives.  As we consent to him we grow, and with growth comes growing pains.  God mercifully and carefully and gradually changes us.  He challenges us.  He works with us, teaching us and slowly and inexorably making us his very own handiwork (Ephesians 2:10).  Our spiritual transformation does involve just one decision ...

Does God Give Ultimate Authority to Human Leaders? – Greg Albrecht

Question: I have heard people say that they feel the leader of their nation has the God-given right to take military action without having any human question them. This seems to extend ultimate authority to human leaders, in the name of “the Bible says so.” What do you say? Response: When it comes to extending ultimate authority without question, people who religiously attend a brick-and-mortar building on a regular basis may be even more likely to blindly follow a charismatic leader. The tendency to radically place faith in human leadership, whether in the religious or secular world, is historically aligned with religious devotion...

Reflections Along the Jesus Way

September 24, 2023 - Quote for the Day: “The stubborn insistence of the Christ-less perspective of Christendom at large about the appalling fabrication of eternal torture in hell as a just punishment for sinners is one of the most evil, reprehensible and diabolical of all dogmas and teachings – all in the name of God!” Originally published in: Letters to My Friends ------------------------------------- Help Us Help Others - Give Now

Join Us For Our Sunday Sermon

"The Time Has Come!" The best time to plant a tree is 20 or 30 years ago… the second best time to plant a tree is today! Join us for our Sunday Sermon. https://ptmorg.dreamsites.io/mp3/FreeDwnld/CWR710.mp3