Front Porch Theology

  Final Unmasking Third Series – Sermon Thirty-Five Original by George MacDonald Paraphrase by Dale R. Howie The very idea of being unmasked—that everything hidden within us will one day be brought into the light—is terrifying to most of us. In the Final Unmasking , MacDonald continues the discussion of righteousness begun in the previous sermon. There he redefined righteousness from the Western idea of legal rightness to the biblical vision of relational rightness. He moves us from contractual thinking to covenantal life. Here MacDonald asks the question that quietly lives in every heart: “Will all my weaknesses, evil habits, pettinesses, and wrong thoughts I cannot help be revealed to all?” How we answer that question depends entirely upon who we believe God to be. If our God is merely a judge, we will hide among the trees as Adam and Eve did. If He is our Father, we will run into His arms and ask Him to expose everything that keeps us from becoming His children in ...

The Inheritance Third Series – Sermon Thirty-Six Original by George MacDonald  -   Paraphrase by Dale R. Howie "Trust the Wind" The Inheritance is the final sermon in this series, a bookend with its matching pair, Sermon One, The Child in the Mist. This sermon is a reflection and summary of what we have seen and learned throughout this journey.   Our Abba, our Heavenly Father, is the beginning and the end, and everything in between. He is not simply the One who gives the inheritance; He is the inheritance. What we receive in the end is Them, Father, Son, and Spirit. And what They have desired from eternity past is us.   If we have not discovered the first light of heaven in our relationship with our Father, Brother, and Teacher, then heaven itself would be foreign, alien, like hell to us. For heaven is not merely a place we go; heaven is the fullness of continuous fellowship with God.   The inheritance is not something separated from God that He place...