JONATHAN R. BAILEY

Our Scarred Captain

If we’d only substitute Jesus’ body for our spouse’s or worse—our child’s, we’d see the horror they saw.

Jonathan R. BaileyMay 19, 2018Suffering, Crucifixion

Our Ancient Foe

To understand temptation we have to probe its source, we have to drive towards the origin point.

Jonathan R. BaileyMay 12, 2018Temptation, Satan

Cooperating with Grace

Practicing the Spiritual Disciplines is about cooperating with grace, it's simply sowing seed upon the soil of our soul.

Spiritual DisciplinesJonathan R. BaileyMay 5, 2018Grace, Spiritual Discipline

Silence

We only have to practice silence once to recognize the depth and distraction of our soul.

Spiritual DisciplinesJonathan R. BaileyApril 28, 2018Practice, Silence

Training with Disciplines

The classical exercises of the spirit are ways that athletes of Christ have actually taken up their cross.

Flourishing Versus Flawlessness

God doesn't expect us to be flawless, He expects us to flourish.

Spiritual DisciplinesJonathan R. BaileyApril 14, 2018Sin, Spiritual Discipline

The Divine Necessity of Pain

Every profession or artform or craft involves good pain as a key ingredient to the maturation process.

MortificationJonathan R. BaileyApril 7, 2018Mortification, Spiritual Discipline

Death is a Door

This is what we have to remember about mortification. Pain, crucifixion, and death are vehicles to a new kind of life, resurrection life.

MortificationJonathan R. BaileyMarch 31, 2018Crucifixion, Resurrection

Short-Circuiting Surrender

Are we not willing to surrender and follow Him, like Simon and Andrew, to rearrange our life around Him?

AwakeningJonathan R. BaileyMarch 24, 2018Awakening, Surrender

Further Up, Further In

Those of us who’ve had dramatic experiences of rebirth must remember that our awakening experience is a continuous, unfolding of more and more light, more and more goodness, more and more transformation.

AwakeningJonathan R. BaileyMarch 17, 2018Awakening, Conversion

Cultivation to Consummation

Have we awakened to the Creator’s unyielding love, surrendered with a kind of desperate joy, given our lives over to it?

AwakeningJonathan R. BaileyMarch 10, 2018Surrender, Love

An Unrelenting Fire

What we often fail to recognize is that not only are we unconditionally loved but God’s conditioning us for love, to become love.

AwakeningJonathan R. BaileyMarch 4, 2018Love, Spiritual Formation

Waking Up

Over a lifetime we’re given opportunities to relinquish the life we’re living, moments that are especially poignant and pregnant with light.

AwakeningJonathan R. BaileyFebruary 25, 2018Surrender, Awakening

Surrender

Jesus' request split Simon and Andrew's life in two: “Follow Me and I will make you become fishers of men.”

AwakeningJonathan R. BaileyFebruary 18, 2018Follow Me, Surrender

The Lost Likeness

The story of the human race is the ongoing desecration of that divine image within, which has resulted in our lost likeness.

AwakeningJonathan R. BaileyFebruary 11, 2018Christlikeness, Image of God

Solitude

Spiritual athletes must learn to build solitude into their schedules.

Spiritual DisciplinesJonathan R. BaileyFebruary 4, 2018Dallas Willard, Solitude

Map

What I've found in the lives of Ancient Christians is a kind of map – a map of spiritual country.

Jonathan R. BaileyJanuary 28, 2018

Virtue

Virtues are like flowers planted in our garden, vices are like invading weeds.

Virtue/ViceJonathan R. BaileyJanuary 21, 2018Vice, Virtue

The Poison in the World

It's crucial that we recover and understand the eight vices because they put a name on what enslaves us, offering us a glimpse of what must be mortified.

Virtue/ViceJonathan R. BaileyJanuary 14, 2018Vice, Mortification

Twistings

The vices have come to take root inside of us with tiny twistings and miniature choices.

Virtue/ViceJonathan R. BaileyJanuary 7, 2018Desire, Vice