Bill Vanderbush

I’ve never felt such urgency to share a message, and it’s striking a chord with so many hearts. God is speaking something essential to all of us right now. Whether you pick up the book or not isn’t the point—embracing this message is what matters. You can experience the full presentation of The Sound of Your Blood for free on my website or YouTube.

Jesus still raises what looks dead, whether dreams, marriages, bodies, churches, or hopes. But He does it in the company of faith, not in the chaos of mockery. Mark 5:35-43

We have marketed the church instead of being the church. Churches as global brands are toppling as God takes us away from our brands and points us back to the Way.

You have been created to be a temple of the Holy Spirit. You are not a duplex.

Has anyone else had a significant drop in spam calls since the Iran conflict started?

I want to make this as plain as possible. There is no place in the Bible where God confronts, rebukes, or corrects any person (prophet, apostle, ordinary believer, or even a pagan) for overemphasizing, exaggerating, or proclaiming His goodness, mercy, love, grace, or kindness as being “too much.” I’ve searched the Scriptures thoroughly, and you won’t find a single instance of God saying anything like, “You’re making Me sound too loving, too merciful, too good.” Instead, the pattern we see over and over is exactly the opposite. God (and Jesus) repeatedly corrects people for underestimating His mercy, for being hard-hearted toward others who desperately need grace, or for trying to project their own small, limited ideas onto Him. Think about Jonah. He was furious that God showed mercy to Nineveh. He sat outside the city and was angry because God was “too kind” in his eyes. But God didn’t rebuke Jonah for thinking He was overly compassionate. He gently corrected Jonah’s lack of compassion and his hard heart (Jonah 4). Consider the older brother in the Prodigal Son parable (Luke 15). He was resentful and angry when the father threw a party for his wayward brother. The father (who represents God) never once rebuked the celebration of goodness and grace. He defended it. Jesus repeatedly pushed back against the Pharisees for their hardness and lack of mercy. He told them, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13, 12:7). Their problem wasn’t that they made God sound too gracious. It was that they made Him too small and too stingy. Even Paul, when he warned against a “different gospel,” was confronting those who were adding law and diminishing grace (Galatians 1). He never once warned against anyone who was magnifying grace too highly. The consistent witness of Scripture is clear. God isn’t offended when we lean hard into His goodness. He’s grieved when we don’t. Proclaim His kindness without apology. If He ever tells me to dial it back, I’ll be sure and let you know.  Bill Vanderbush

Saturday was silence. The body lay in a sealed tomb, guarded by Roman steel. The followers scattered in fear and grief, their hopes, dreams, ambitions, and old lives all buried with Christ. Yet this quiet day spoke of the deep Sabbath rest of a work completed. The King had descended into the farthest reaches of valleys and shadows. Without even realizing it, we were held safe in the finished victory while the old world held its breath. And then…

Start here. Read a short passage of Scripture slowly. Let words give way to presence. The way is gentle, but it is also deep and transformative. This is the invitation Jesus still extends saying, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Not more religious busyness. Not louder sweatier worship. Not better arguments. Just rest. Just love. Just the quiet knowing that in Christ, God has reconciled the world to Himself, by Himself, for Himself. (2 Cor 5) Rest Reconciled.

Christic contemplation doesn’t remove you from the world but rather it transfigures your vision of it. You begin to see every leaf, every person, every ordinary moment shimmering with the glory of God. You learn to wait in quiet awareness until you can discern what God is actually doing and it’s often in the obscure and forgotten places, far from the spotlight. You trade the script of winning at the game of life for the Jesus way of love.

Christic contemplation is not another religious technique to master or a clever spiritual hack to make your life better. It’s far more radical and beautiful than that. It’s learning to sit with Jesus until words fall away and you’re simply resting in the presence of Jesus. It’s the quiet revolution of the soul in a noisy, frantic, anxious age. It is an invitation to stop striving, stop performing, stop trying to get God to bend to your will, and instead to see the world through God’s eyes of love.

When I’m traveling alone, the practice of contemplation has become my greatest joy. In contemplation the soul grows quieter, less driven by reaction, and more able to face the day without being shattered by every wind. There truly remains a rest for the people of God. Heb 4:9

@furious4hope Dan is one of the best articulators of the Gospel I’ve ever known. We’ve been fishing for hours and he is the same on a bass boat as he is on the stage. The message is in him as deep as the message can be. He lives it.

What Dan Mohler teaches is simply amazing. It is contrary to so much of the beliefs people have embraced as Christianity. The ending of this 12 min clip will indeed find many in disagreement, or convicted which is better. But you can’t deny the truth he lives by, it’s clearly the gospel, it’s clearly for all to receive. It’s believing truth that brings this kind of freedom Holy Spirit is drawing his bride into ❤️ if we have an ear to hear? Why won’t preachers preach this? Maybe not the ending part he shared, but certainly the identity part.

Flying out of Austin last Friday and Atlanta Monday morning has been an extraordinary experience in the art of patience processing and people watching. TSA employees are showing up to work knowing they’re going to come face-to-face with thousands of frustrated people and not get paid for it. The sheer number of truly selfless, kind, quietly heroic people there are in the world floods my soul with fierce hope.

The morning rush is over! We’re expecting normal lines for the rest of the day & if anything changes, we’ll be sure to share here. For tomorrow, about 32,000 people will fly out, which isn’t record-breaking busy but that’s busier-than-normal for a Tuesday.

@SenTedCruz Every member of Congress should be FINED every day that they allow a shutdown. The fact that they still get paid when there’s a shutdown is corrupt.

TSA agents missed full paychecks today after Senate Democrats blocked full DHS funding for the fourth time. Wait times are growing, officers are quitting to support their families, and national security is being treated like a political game. Stop using TSA agents as pawns. Fund DHS now.

@nicksortor Every member of Congress should be FINED every day that they allow a shutdown. The fact that they still get paid when there’s a shutdown is corrupt.

🚨 INSANE: Americans attempting to fly out of Austin Airport this morning were forced to wait SO LONG that many of them had to give up their tickets with NO REFUNDS Thank a Democrat, folks! Their DHS shutdown is costing everyday Americans hundreds—or even THOUSANDS—of dollars in forfeited airfare “We've NEVER seen lines like this… This is far, FAR outside of the airport. Weaving in and out of the airport, stretching far outside. It's not even just out the door. It's out the door and as far as we can see!”

To clarify, I should have included John 1:29 (the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world) and Hebrews 9:26 (once and for all He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself). It doesn’t mean we can’t sin. The penalty and condemning power of sin have been fully removed (Romans 8:1; Colossians 2:13-14), so our core identity is now rooted in being forgiven and reconciled. Sin may still tempt or even occur, but it no longer has the final say over who we truly are in Christ. His finished work has rendered sin’s grip impotent.

@BillVanderbush @WesleyLHuff Romans 8 doesn’t say that the whole world is “without condemnation” but rather that there is now no condemnation “for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

The term "theological liberalism" is thrown around a lot. When push comes to shove though, it still boils down to Richard Niebuhr's summation of what theological liberalism truly is: "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross" (Kingdom of God in America, 193). Liberal/progressive Christianity is more than that but it is no less than that, and it will always come down to it. Niebuhr's words 89 years ago are just as applicable in 1937 as they are today.

Today in your churches may you NOT hear a message about a god whose love is finite, who created from nothing but cannot rescue from ruin, and whose justice ultimately triumphs over mercy. That is a message that bears no resemblance to the God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. The Christ who heals without discrimination, who forgives from the cross those who know not what they do, who descends into the depths to proclaim liberty to the captives. May you hear the Gospel proclaimed today revealing that God looks like Jesus.

The outrage-merchants and scandal-mongers of our day are not merely passive reflectors of a debased public appetite. They are its high priests, entrepreneurs of exposure, deliberately pandering to the lowest registers of the soul. They are not so much feeding an appetite as fattening it for slaughter. They are merely peddling narcotics to a culture that has forgotten how to be still before the face of God.

Gossip is the sacrament of the fallen intellect, It feeds the illusion of significance without welcoming conversion, offers intimacy without vulnerability, and delivers the dopamine of superiority without the labor of love. The Gospel, however, announces the upending of every unholy hierarchy of power, the unseating of every idol, and the summons to become last of all and servant of all.