Chris Bobblett Ministries

06/08/2026

My hope is to recover a fresh hearing of Jesus, particularly among those of us who believe we already know Him well. There is a subtle danger in religious familiarity. We can become so accustomed to talking about Jesus, studying Jesus, and defending Jesus that we stop listening to Him.

History reveals a sobering pattern: familiarity becomes assumption, assumption becomes indifference, and indifference eventually hardens into a kind of contempt—not always open hostility, but the quiet conviction that there is nothing more to see, nothing more to learn, nothing left to surprise us. We become attached to our ideas about Christ while drifting from the living Christ Himself.

The tragedy is not that Jesus is difficult to understand; it is that presumed familiarity has often blinded us to depths of His beauty, goodness, and revelation still waiting to be discovered. Few things are more dangerous than believing we know Him too well to be challenged by Him, corrected by Him, or astonished by Him.

My hope, then, is simply this: that we might hear Jesus again with fresh ears, encounter Him with renewed wonder, and allow the Spirit to reveal dimensions of His character that our assumptions have too often obscured. For no matter how long we have followed Him, infinite glory can never be exhausted by finite understanding.

06/06/2026

RELEVANT Magazine recently highlighted the work of neuroscientist Andrew Newberg, who has spent decades studying what happens in the brain during prayer, worship, and spiritual experience.

His research has included Franciscan nuns, Buddhist monks, Pentecostal worshippers, and others seeking meaningful encounters with God.

One of his most fascinating findings is that there is no single “God spot” in the brain.

Encountering God engages entire networks of attention, emotion, memory, empathy, and relationship. Over time, repeated spiritual practices literally help shape and strengthen neural pathways. In other words, the way we relate to God affects the way we think, feel, and live.

But perhaps the most thought-provoking implication is this:

The image of God we consistently behold matters.

If our spirituality is organized primarily around fear, threat, suspicion, and constant vigilance, those patterns tend to reinforce anxiety and stress responses. If our spirituality is organized around trust, love, compassion, and communion, those patterns tend to cultivate resilience, empathy, peace, and emotional well-being.

Neuroscience cannot tell us who God is.

Jesus does that.

Yet it is remarkable that the God revealed in Christ seems to produce exactly the kind of transformation the New Testament describes.

Jesus did not come announcing a God who was distant, unpredictable, and looking for reasons to reject people. He revealed a Father running toward prodigals, welcoming sinners, healing the broken, embracing the outcast, and forgiving His enemies.

John wrote:

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18)

Paul wrote:

“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (Romans 12:2)

And again:

“Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Long before brain scans existed, Scripture was already teaching a profound truth:

We become what we behold.

The goal of the Christian life is not greater fear of darkness. It is deeper communion with Light.

Not obsession with the enemy, but fixation on Christ.

Not constant anxiety over our failures, but growing awareness of His faithfulness.

The more clearly we see Jesus, the more fully we discover who God has always been.

And perhaps, as both Scripture and neuroscience suggest, the more we behold Him, the more we are transformed into His likeness.

06/05/2026

Somewhere along the way, we forgot something sacred.

We learned to sort people into categories before we learned to see them as image-bearers.

We have watched race used to justify hatred. Religion used to justify exclusion. Politics used to justify contempt. Sexuality used to justify dehumanization. Nation against nation. Tribe against tribe. Group against group.

And every time we decide that one life matters less than another, humanity loses a piece of its soul.

The tragedy of our age is not merely disagreement—it is the growing inability to honor the dignity of those who are different from us.

We do not have to agree on everything to recognize the value of every person.

The gospel calls us higher.

Before there were labels, there were people.
Before there were sides, there were neighbors.
Before there were arguments, there were image-bearers.

Every life carries divine worth.
Every face reflects something of the Creator.
Every person deserves dignity, respect, and honor.

The world teaches us to divide, dismiss, and devalue.
Jesus teaches us to see.

Perhaps one of the most prophetic acts in our generation is simply this: to recover the courage to treat every human life as sacred.

We can do better.
We must do better.
And by God’s grace, we will.

06/04/2026

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06/03/2026

I’ve been thinking about how patient God is in the story of Scripture.

God has always met people where they were.

Not because where they were was the fullness of His heart, but because love meets us in our broken story and slowly leads us into a better one.

The ancient world was soaked in sacrifice.

People believed the gods were angry, distant, and needed blood to be satisfied. Sacrifice was the religious language humanity understood.

So God met Israel there.

He entered that world.

He regulated it.

He limited it.

He redirected it.

Not because God needed sacrifice.

We did.

We needed a way to understand guilt, cleansing, covenant, worship, and restored fellowship. God met humanity in the sacrificial imagination of the ancient world — but He never intended to leave us there.

You can see the trajectory beginning to unfold.

David caught a glimpse:

“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire…”

Hosea saw another piece:

“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

Micah began to understand the heart of it:

“What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Then Jesus comes and says:

“Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

That is not Jesus rejecting the Old Testament.

That is Jesus revealing where the Old Testament was always heading.

The story was moving from sacrifice to mercy.

From shadows to substance.

From ritual to relationship.

From appeasement to revelation.

From “What must we offer to God?” to “Look what God has offered to us in Christ.”

Jesus does not show us a God who needed blood before He could forgive.

Jesus shows us a God who stepped into our violent, sacrificial world to lead us out of it.

The cross is not God validating our need for victims.

The cross is God becoming the final victim to end our need for victims.

God met us where we were.

But in Jesus, He shows us where He was always taking us.

Mercy.

Forgiveness.

Restoration.

A better story.

06/03/2026

I’ve been sitting with the cross again — not just as a doctrine, but as a revelation of what God is really like. And I keep coming back to a question:

What if the cross was never about Jesus changing God’s mind about us, but about Jesus revealing that God’s mind was already made up in love?

Many of us were taught, sincerely and faithfully, that God could not forgive unless someone was punished first. But I wonder if that sometimes makes forgiveness sound more like payment than grace.

Because in Jesus, we do not see a God who needs to be appeased before He can love. We see God in Christ forgiving while humanity is doing its worst.- “Father, forgive them…”

That sentence changes everything.

The cross certainly reveals the seriousness of sin. Sin is so destructive that when perfect Love came among us, we crucified Him. But the cross also reveals something even greater:

Our violence did not change God’s heart.
Our sin did not stop His mercy.
Our rejection did not cancel His love.
The powers killed Jesus.
Religion accused Him.
Empire executed Him.
Humanity rejected Him.
But God raised Him.

And maybe that is the good news:
Not that God needed violence in order to forgive, but that God overcame our violence with forgiving love.
Not that sacrifice changed God, but that mercy was revealed in Christ.

Not that Jesus saved us from the Father, but that Jesus perfectly showed us the Father.

I’m still learning to let Jesus define God for me.
And the more I look at Him, especially crucified and risen, the more I see a God who is better than I ever imagined.

06/02/2026

One of the greatest challenges in the Christian life is not learning something new. It's letting go of something old.

Jesus said you cannot put new wine into old wineskins.

Most of us have heard that verse preached as a warning against becoming stagnant. But what if it goes deeper than that? What if the old wineskins aren't just old habits... What if they're old ways of seeing God?

What if they're inherited assumptions, religious traditions, theological systems, and deeply rooted beliefs about God's character that we've carried for years?

Many believers sincerely pray:
"Lord, show me more."
"Lord, help me grow."
"Lord, lead me deeper."

But growth requires more than new information.
It requires transformation. The biblical word for that is repentance—not merely feeling sorry for sin, but a change of mind. A reorientation. A new way of seeing.

And sometimes the Spirit of God answers our prayer for growth by confronting the very beliefs we have built our faith upon.
That is where many become uncomfortable. Because new wine is wonderful until it begins stretching old wineskins.

The truth is, Jesus did not come to change God's mind about humanity. He came to reveal God's heart toward humanity.
As Paul says, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself."

Jesus is not the kinder version of God.

He is the clearest revelation of who God has always been.
The cross did not reveal a God who finally decided to love us.
It revealed a God who has never stopped.

And when that revelation begins to challenge old images of an angry, distant, reluctant, or transactional God, the wineskins start stretching.

Some embrace the process. Others resist it.

Not because they don't love God. But because old paradigms often feel safer than new revelation. Yet throughout Scripture, God is continually inviting His people forward.

From shadow to substance.
From fear to love.
From law to life.
From performance to participation.
From religion to relationship.

Perhaps the question isn't whether God wants to pour out new wine. Perhaps the question is whether we are willing to become new wineskins. Because the tragedy is not that God has stopped speaking. The tragedy is that sometimes we become so attached to old containers that we cannot receive what He is saying.

Maybe the Spirit is not trying to destroy your faith.
Maybe He is trying to enlarge it.
Maybe He is not taking something away.
Maybe He is preparing you to hold more of the goodness, beauty, and grace that has always existed in the heart of God.
Maybe it's time for a new wineskin.

06/02/2026

The Pagan God We Smuggled Into the Cross

"God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not counting their trespasses against them." — 2 Corinthians 5:19

Few ideas have shaped modern Christianity more than the belief that Jesus died to satisfy the wrath of an angry God. For many believers, the story goes something like this:

God is holy.Humanity sinned.God's justice demanded punishment.Jesus stepped in and took the punishment we deserved.Only then could God forgive us.

Most Christians have never stopped to ask a simple question: Where did this story come from? Because when we read the Gospels, that does not seem to be the story Jesus tells.

The Pagan Pattern

Throughout the ancient world, pagan religions operated according to a common assumption:

The gods are angry.The gods demand sacrifice.Blood must be shed to appease divine wrath. Whether among the Greeks, Romans, Canaanites, or countless other ancient religions, sacrifice functioned as a way of calming offended deities.

Humans offered gifts, animals, and sometimes even their children in hopes of satisfying divine anger. The formula was simple:

Angry god + sacrifice = peace.

Sound familiar?

Many modern atonement theories have unknowingly baptized this pagan formula into Christianity.

The names have changed.

The sacrifice is now Jesus.

But the underlying story remains remarkably similar.

God is angry.Someone must suffer.Justice demands blood.Only after punishment can forgiveness be offered.

The problem is that this story looks far more like paganism than it does Jesus.

One of the most remarkable truths in the New Testament is that Jesus never presents Himself as changing God's attitude toward humanity.

Instead, He consistently reveals the attitude God has always had.

Jesus did not come to make God loving.

Jesus came because God is loving.

"God so loved the world that He gave His only Son..." (John 3:16)

Notice the order. Love comes first.

The cross is not the cause of God's love.

The cross is the demonstration of God's love.

God was not reconciled to us.

We were reconciled to God.

The New Testament never says God needed to be converted from wrath to love.

It says humanity needed to be converted from fear to trust.

The Cross Reveals God

The clearest revelation of God is not Sinai.

It is Calvary.

If we want to know what God is like, we look at Jesus.

And what do we see?

We see a God who forgives His enemies.

A God who heals those who oppose Him.

A God who refuses retaliation.

A God who absorbs violence rather than inflicting it.

A God who prays: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The cross is not God taking out His anger on Jesus.

The cross is God in Christ allowing human violence to do its worst and then overcoming it through resurrection.

As theologian J. Denny Weaver writes, the cross exposes the powers of violence rather than revealing violence at the heart of God.

The crucifixion reveals what sinful humanity does to God when He appears among us.

The resurrection reveals what God does in return.

He forgives.

Perhaps the greatest challenge to violent atonement theories comes from Paul:

"God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself." (2 Corinthians 5:19)

Notice carefully what Paul does not say.

He does not say God was pouring wrath on Christ. He says God was in Christ.

The Father was not standing over against Jesus as His enemy.

The Father was present in the Son, reconciling the world.

The cross is not divine child abuse.

It is divine self-sacrifice.

God absorbs the consequences of human sin into Himself.

He enters our darkness.

He bears our hostility.

He endures our violence.

And He responds with forgiveness.

The cross also exposes one of humanity's oldest addictions: scapegoating.

When societies face fear, conflict, or chaos, they instinctively look for someone to blame.

Someone must pay.

Someone must suffer.

Someone must be sacrificed.

Throughout history, humanity has solved problems through violence.

The cross reveals the innocence of the victim.

Jesus is the scapegoat who refuses to stay buried.

The resurrection vindicates the One humanity condemned.

In doing so, God forever exposes the lie that violence can save us.

Violence only creates more violence.

Only love heals.

The New Testament's dominant image is not an angry Judge requiring payment.

It is a victorious Lamb.

Christ conquers not through force but through self-giving love.

The powers of sin, death, and darkness are defeated not by greater violence but by greater love.

This is why the early church often described the cross as a victory.

Christus Victor.

Christ has triumphed over the powers.

The enemy has been defeated.

Death has been swallowed up in victory.

Humanity has been invited into reconciliation.

The God Revealed in Jesus

The ultimate question is simple:

What is God like? The answer is Jesus.

Not a different God.Not a kinder version of God.Not God balancing love and wrath.

Jesus is the exact representation of God's nature.

If we do not see violence in Jesus, we should be very cautious about placing it in the Father.

If Jesus would rather die for His enemies than destroy them, then we have discovered what God has always been like.

The cross was never about changing God's mind about humanity.

The cross was God's declaration that nothing could change His mind about humanity.

And that is good news.

The God revealed in Jesus is not demanding a sacrifice.

He becomes the sacrifice.

Not because He needs blood before He can forgive.

But because love willingly enters our suffering to rescue us from sin, death, and the powers that enslave us.

The cross is not the appeasement of God.

It is the revelation of God.

And the God revealed there looks exactly like Jesus.

So here is the good news:

God has always loved you.

Jesus came to show you what God is like.

Through His life, death, and resurrection, He defeated sin, death, and the powers that enslaved humanity.

He has reconciled the world to Himself and established His Kingdom.

Now He invites you to trust Him, receive His life, and participate in His Kingdom today.

05/31/2026

Since we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit." — Galatians 5:25

Notice Paul's language.

He doesn't say, "Since you have the Spirit, ignore Him."He doesn't say, "Since the Spirit lives in you, just do whatever feels right."

He says, "Keep in step."

That is active participation.That is relationship.That is conversation.That is attentiveness.

You cannot keep in step with Someone you never acknowledge.

Yet many believers speak regularly to the Father, pray to Jesus, study about God, but rarely pause to engage the Holy Spirit—the very presence of Christ dwelling within them.

How often do we check in?

How often do we ask:"Spirit of God, what are You saying?""What are You doing in this situation?""How are You leading me today?"

It is difficult to follow a Guide you never speak to.It is difficult to discern a voice you never stop to hear.It is difficult to walk with Someone you treat as a doctrine rather than a Person.

The Holy Spirit is not merely a theological concept to affirm.He is the living presence of God within us.

Teacher.Comforter.Counselor.Guide.

Maybe the greatest challenge for many Christians is not learning more information about God, but slowing down long enough to walk with Him.

Today, before you rush into the next task, meeting, or distraction, pause and simply ask:

"Holy Spirit, what would You like to say to me today?" Then listen.

You might discover He has been speaking all along.

05/30/2026

"All those evil doctrines about God that work misery and madness have their origin in the brains of the wise and prudent, not in the hearts of children."
---George MacDonald