Share the Post: Scripture Focus: But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their
Share the Post: Recently This Week magazine reported an amazing story of a Pakistani election commissioner admitting that he had participated in what he called the “rigging” of a parliamentary election. “We converted losers into winners,” said Liaquat. He confessed that he couldn’t sleep after what he called “stabbing the country in the back.” He resigned and was arrested. (March
Share the Post: Scripture Focus: So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, he was appalled that
Share the Post: Years ago I came across a phrase that grabbed my attention. It was a season of my life when I was paying close attention to my own “spiritual state,” and as a result, seeking to develop particular spiritual disciplines. The phrase, a long obedience in the same direction, comes from Friedrich Nietzsche. This was his statement: “The
Share the Post: There is no if about death. The question is more accurately put, “When a person dies, shall he or she live again?” Not one line of the New Testament was written… not one sentence was penned apart from the conviction that He of whom these things were being written had conquered death and was alive forever. Death
Share the Post: “In the crushing, in the pressing You are making new wine In the soil I now surrender You are breaking new ground…” New Wine by Hillsong Worship My story of crushing and pressing really began in the middle of the pandemic. That’s when I gradually realized that the seminary training I received no longer aligned with reality.
Share the Post: Scripture Focus: Daniel soon proved himself more capable than all the other administrators and high officers. Because of Daniel’s great ability, the king made plans to place him over the entire empire. Then the other administrators and high officers began searching for some fault in the way Daniel was handling government affairs, but they couldn’t find anything
Share the Post: The preaching must have been powerful. In a recent cartoon, as he leads his parents from worship, Dennis the Menace confronts the preacher. “What happens when everyone stops sinning? What will you do?” While we are not strangers to sin, Dennis stuns us with his statement and questions. We may not reflect or talk much about
Share the Post: Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone. Colossians 4:5–6 Growing up, I was admonished to always keep public discussion polite. Conversations that involved politics, religion, and the like were forbidden except in the
Share the Post: Scripture Focus: After the death of Moses the Lord’s servant, the Lord spoke to Joshua, son of Nun, Moses’ assistant. He said, “Moses my servant is dead. Therefore, the time has come for you to lead these people, the Israelites, across the Jordan River into the land I am giving them. I promise you what I promised
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie
“There is only one Sunday that matters – this one – and only one sermon to be preached – this one. So fall in love with this sermon.”
Where haute couture fashion houses dominate and the Mona Lisa smiles, where the Notre Dame cathedral towers with long-held cultural memories of a famed hunchback and the Eiffel Tower beckons to retainer-wearing junior high tourists, where Rick and Ilsa looked out as the Nazis rolled in. What is the true narrative of Paris, a very old city with a colorful
But when we share faith with others, we don’t tell them what they should believe. We tell them what we believe – and more importantly, who we trust, which brings us once again to relationship.
I have found that this is a good way to keep before the family and the child the meaning of baptism and to remind the parents of the promise they made to God during the baptism to do all they can to raise their child in the faith.
I like my smartphone. I like Facebook (sometimes), Twitter, and email. I like accessing directions while I’m driving somewhere. You may be different, preferring a flip phone, cork bulletin boards and stopping at a gas station for directions. I understand that. Most of us live with one foot in both worlds, enjoying crisp Christmas cards in the mailbox and photos of loved
Jesus reminds us that if we keep a seed in our hands and clutch it with a closed fist, it will never grow. We must open our hands and let go of the seed. The problem is that many of us are living with closed hands. When we live like that, nothing can grow either within us or within others.
I think the deepest appeal of Wesleyan theology is that is heartily affirms a God who is truly good and sincerely loves all persons. God does not determine, God empowers, enables, encourages. And the message that God loves us and wants to empower us to love him back, as well as each other is a message of great hope.
For example, we often describe a “sacrament” as an outward sign of an inward and spiritual grace, but then we limit ourselves by thinking of sacraments only in terms of the two which Christ established: baptism and the Eucharist. Wesley, on the other hand, prodded us to think more deeply and expansively about all the means of grace which, for
You may never know the great power that a simple word of love can have on a person, but I encourage you to share love with others. It will never leave my memory. Though a lot of time has passed through the years, the memory of a mentor’s words at a critical time in my life will never fade.
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