August 30, 2026

Today the church is sitting with a strange and serious question: what does Jesus actually look like right now — and does the church want to know? The Aquila Report ran a piece on the ascended Christ as judge — eyes like fire, ruling and ready to condemn. Not the gentle shepherd of the greeting card. The same outlet also published a piece on King Jesus as the one who resolves the false war between science and spiritual reality. Two portraits of Christ that most congregations keep in separate rooms. Wyatt Graham adds a third disruption: biblical seraphim aren't winged humans — they're flying serpentine creatures. Alarming if you've only met them on Christmas ornaments. The point isn't zoology. It's that the Bible's vision of heaven is stranger and more sovereign than the version most of us inherited — and recovering that strangeness might be the precondition for recovering awe.

Desiring God is blunt about what stands between the church and God's forgiveness: one condition, widely skipped. Confess and forsake. Not confess and manage. Relevant Magazine's interview on revival says something adjacent — that prayer and discipline aren't enough if the third ingredient is missing, and most churches are skipping it. On March 30 we were watching the church argue about desire and formation; today the argument is downstream of that, about whether repentance has actually happened or just been performed. Meanwhile The Gospel Coalition is asking a more concrete question: what does it mean for Christ to be present with families of disabled children — not as metaphor, but as practice, as showing up. Aaron Renn adds a civic angle: travel sports are quietly dismantling the community structures that once made that kind of showing up possible. Faithfully Magazine reports that Black churches are back in Washington fighting for ballot access. Different front. Same underlying conviction — that the reign of the Jesus with eyes like fire has something to say about who gets counted.