This is the season that has great expectations. Just watch the children as they impatiently wait for Christmas day. It is not just children. It is you and I who have expectations and plans who have promised things that do not come to fruition. For that, God has a plan.
Read MoreLiving with Jesus does not magically remove your troubles – he gives you the strength and ability to continue in the midst of them.
Read MoreOur lives are not like Christmas presents wrapped in fancy paper with a ribbon around it and a bow attached. Our lives are messy and confusing. We hope that this Christmas will bring us the joy and happiness we had long ago at some Christmas when we were younger. And so, we allow others to dictate to us what this time is all about.
Read MoreWe, like everybody else, just don’t want to wait. Especially for the good things like God’s kingdom – the best there is. But maybe the wait is one of the gifts given to us.
Read More…sharing our gifts with others should be so natural that we don’t even think about what we’re doing. That is in contrast to those who are selfish, who are so focused upon their own desires. They won’t even recognize an opportunity to share their gifts when it comes along.
Read MoreIt is through Jesus’ work upon the cross that we are able to go into the world and invest our talents by doing God’s work of bringing peace, truth, and justice to the world. And our weapon of choice is love.
Read MoreWe are called to share the gifts God has given us with others.
Read MoreThere Jesus is telling us how to prepare for the time when he comes to take us by the hand and lead us to heaven. A close look at those qualifications and you will note that this entrance exam is not the same as the one you have been taught by the world.
Read MoreGod is constantly reforming the church in every age and place.
Read MoreYou have been given the ability to take your concerns, struggles, sadness, and joys to the Lord in prayer not for great reward. You already have that in Christ Jesus. You pray to experience God’s love and learn God’s plan for you.
Read MoreWe all have worries. In our busy and sometimes confusing world we struggle to meet the needs of our families and selves and often forget Jesus. That is why Paul, in the same paragraph, talks about taking your worries to God in prayer and with thanksgiving.
Read MoreNow [Jonah] sat out in the desert complaining to God that God did not do as he wanted. Jonah was not content with his life and wanted others to pay. He thought that retribution would be the ticket to his contentment. As many throughout history have found, it does not.
Read MoreBut oftentimes we forget that God has called us into community through Jesus Christ and desires that we show mutual love and affection.
Read MoreOur translation tells us we are to love our neighbors. But who are our neighbors? Is it the people who live on the same block that we do? Is it the people who live in our community? We need to look to the original Greek to get a better meaning of our text. There, the word that is translated “neighbor” means “the other.”
Read MoreThe internet has not, as some predicted, made life better. It just made life more complicated by encouraging the “same old same old” peer pressure machine counting friends and clicks as your worthiness.
Paul was not thinking about all this when he called the Romans to lives of genuine love and mutual support but those words speak deeply to our time and lives.
Read MoreOur society emphasizes the individual. You do not need others around you – in fact you are called to, “Pull yourself up by your boot-straps.” But that only leads to loneliness, resentment, and anger. Feelings that can explode with devastating consequences as we see almost on a daily basis. Paul calls us to live a life in community. That community is the body of Christ with Jesus at the head.
Read MoreYour salvation does not rely upon following some set of rules about everyday life such as what you eat. Your salvation depends upon the work of Jesus – his life, death, and resurrection. And in thanks for this gift you choose to live your life as God asks. If you are lost in how to do that, all you need to do is look to Jesus. He is your model, leader, and shepherd.
Read MoreIn this, his attempt at a solution for his dilemma, he quotes Deuteronomy, claiming they are looking for God in all the wrong places. You do not need to go up into heaven or down into sheol – to scour the world – to find God, Jesus is present now in their lives wherever they may be.
Read MoreYou know that feeling. When our lives are disrupted by change, life can become a struggle. We experienced that in the pandemic and the years following it. We see it in our lives when loved ones die. Those things that made our lives - the joys and rewards - seem to disappear and all that is left is trouble and sadness. To you Isaiah is calling. The call is to remember that you have been washed in the waters of Baptism and fed at this table.
Read MoreThese verses, then, are about living life in the present age. It is about the assurance that in the struggles within and without the church God works with God’s people to bring about those things that God has planned (predestined) for the world. The hard part is for each of us to decide what work God is calling us to do. There are plenty of positions open in God’s plan. Which one (or ones) are you being called to?
Read More