1764 results for tag: Greg Albrecht

Why Is Jesus the “Good” Shepherd?

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus used a person whose race and religion was despised as a metaphor of his own work - in the parable of the Good Shepherd he compared himself to a profession that didn't have the best reputation. Why?

Without Him, We Can Do Nothing!

Jesus' parable of the vine yields incredible insight into the nature of our relationship with him.

God’s Grace Is For Everyone

Since Jesus invites us to the kingdom of heaven in spite of what we have done, rather than what we have done, does that mean there are no limits to God's grace?

The Perfect Storm

While the storms of our lives do not define or limit our relationship with God, they can be traumatic and disconcerting. Join Greg as he offers fresh perspective about the blessed assurance we can all have in and through Jesus Christ.

Comfort For Everyone

Christ in us enables us to be wounded healers - transformed by God's grace that we may be vehicles of God's love, offering comfort for others in the same way we have been comforted by God.

Intimacy With God – Greg Albrecht

Here's some breaking news! God is head-over-heels in love with you. He loves you beyond your wildest imaginations. You might respond, "How can he love me that much? He knows all there is to know about me. And of course, anyone who knows that much about me could never really love me." Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch Christian writer who, with her family, helped many Jews escape the Holocaust, once offered a word picture to explain how God loves us—specifically she was talking about how he forgives all our sins—past, present and future. Corrie Ten Boom said that God takes all of our shortcomings, tragedies, flaws and scandals and throws them into ...

Intimacy With God

Here's some breaking news! God is head-over-heels in love with you. He loves you beyond your wildest imaginations. You might respond, "How can he love me that much? He knows all there is to know about me. And of course, anyone who knows that much about me could never really love me." Corrie Ten Boom, a Dutch Christian writer who, with her family, helped many Jews escape the Holocaust, once offered a word picture to explain how God loves us—specifically she was talking about how he forgives all our sins—past, present and future. Corrie Ten Boom said that God takes all of our shortcomings, tragedies, flaws and scandals and throws them into ...

He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

When you were in your early teens, just beginning to discover that the opposite sex existed, you may remember playing the game "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not." The game was all about "love" as we understood it at the time. Back in the "olden days," when we had a crush on someone, and we weren't really sure whether they liked us or not, most of us were too reluctant and shy to find out by more direct means—like asking. Times have really changed haven't they? Back then we would find a flower and begin to pull its petals, playing the He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not game. The last petal left on the flower answered the question, didn't it? If ...

A Canary in a Coal Mine

Years ago coal miners in the United States and the United Kingdom took caged canaries down into the mine with them as an early warning system. Canaries are extremely sensitive to toxic gases such as carbon monoxide and methane. The earliest mines didn't have ventilation systems, so canaries helped detect toxic gases long before humans could. The canaries served as an audible and a visual cue regarding the condition of the air the miners were breathing. As long as the miners could see that the canary was alive, and could hear the canary singing, the miners knew that the air was safe to breathe. A silent, dead canary meant that the miners needed ...

Twice As Much as a Child of Hell

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are. —Matthew 23:15 The Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis includes a fascinating story about a young boy's first encounter with religion and one of its religious professionals. Since Lewis is one of my favorite authors, I've read and studied about his own childhood, and it seems that some of what he is talking about in this fictional story is autobiographical, with a direct relationship to his own experiences with Christ-less religion when he was ...

The Great Reversal

Greg explains that Jesus' parable of "The Workers" in Matthew 20 is a picture of God's grace, and that the kingdom of heaven reverses the values and expectations of the kingdoms of religion. Luke records Jesus saying, "What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight."

The Commands of God and the Tradition of Men

Sin management is the focus of Christ-less religion - attempting to make bad people good, or at the very least better. But Jesus' mission is not about making bad people better. Jesus comes to make spiritually dead people live!

Religious Control Opposes God’s Grace by Greg Albrecht

Friend and Partner Letter from February 2022 I think good preachers should be like bad kids. They ought to be naughty enough to tiptoe up on their dozing congregations, steal their bottle of religious pills…and flush them all down the drain. The church, by and large, has drugged itself into thinking that proper human behavior is the key to its relationship with God. What preachers need to do is force it to go cold turkey with nothing but the word of the cross—and then be brave enough to stick around while [the congregation] goes through the inevitable withdrawal symptoms.—“The Foolishness of Preaching,” Robert Farrar Capon During ...

Knowing the One True God

God is seen and known only by and through Jesus, who came to reveal God. We pray for those who are yet to see and know the One true God.

Whatever Happened to Grace?

God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. His grace is resisted by religious high places, but the spiritual gravitational pull of grace causes it to flow to low places.

Religion Attempts to Overthrow Grace

The early New Testament church quickly learned that they could not deceive or manipulate God. The relationship he offered them, and that he offers us, is one that we can only receive, not gain or earn. We have nothing to offer God that he doesn't already have.

Hooked on a Feeling – Greg Albrecht

Once upon a time, the word "addiction" was used almost exclusively to define and describe dependence on mood altering substances. Addiction is centered on sensory stimulation and gratification. When a particular chemical substance that produces an incredible "rush" or "high" wears off, an individual starts returning to the drug to experience the same feeling again. Substance addiction is further understood as continued involvement with a drug because of immediate pleasure and gratification, in spite of the negative consequences the addict would eventually experience. Today we speak not only of substance addiction but also, in a broader context, ...

Downward Mobility

Jesus disciples all wanted to be rich and famous, but the kingdom of heaven is founded on an opposing value -- serving others rather than serving ourselves. https://www.ptm.org/mp3/FreeDwnld/RCWR262.mp3

Growing Beyond Our Expectations

What did Jesus mean when he said, Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me?

Making a Difference in Christ

Greg explains the real difference between the sheep and the goats of Jesus parable in Matthew 25.