Learning to love others the way Jesus loves us
Week of December 4 The Preparation for the Kingdom Prayer from Anglican Book of Common Prayer Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, learn, mark, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your Holy Word we may embrace… Continue reading Advent 2022-week two
Week of November 27 The Promise of Hope Isaiah 55 Prayer from Anglican Book of Common Prayer Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son, Jesus Christ, came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day,… Continue reading Advent 2022-week one
Gratitude requires all three. Thanksgiving and Advent are upon us. Thanksgiving offers an opportunity to look at the past and the present with gratitude for the good in our lives. Advent points us forward to the new year living under the new covenant with God and to the coming of the Lord in glory. We… Continue reading Justice, Mercy, and Humility
Sometimes the most direct path is not a straight line #inspiredbyasermon Mark 7:31-37 Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him… Continue reading Of circuitous routes and cleansing sighs
Is God, by His silence, creating space for us to wrestle as Jacob did? Caught in-between. For some of us, it's a space between jobs or transitions between life stages, especially the years between active parenting and the empty nest. For others it may be changing locations or churches. There are times in everyone's life… Continue reading When God seems silent: Part two
The God who worked wonders in the past is faithful to keep His promises still (Psalm 77:14; Psalm 86:15). To say we live in troubling times is an understatement. Every day some new catastrophe floods the news cycles: natural disasters, crime, social issues, education, politics, and uncertainty about the economy threaten our personal well-being and… Continue reading Faithful through the Ages
How Noah responded to the grace of the Lord and what that means for us GRACE: charitos (χάριτος) Charis (Χάρις) appears more than 150 times in the Bible, mostly in the letters written by Paul. The first usage of the concept, however, is not for first-century Christians, but for pre-Abrahamic Noah (Genesis 6:8) when the… Continue reading Grace and Gopher wood
I can do all things through him who strengthens me. "I can do hard things" is the current cultural parallel to this verse and is the meaning many cultural Christians intend when they call on it as inspiration to achieve something. But Paul was not advocating that believers be like the "Little Train that Could," approaching… Continue reading Philippians 4:13
There is a legend about the dogwood tree. It’s a lovely little story with absolutely no basis in fact about the role of the dogwood tree in the crucifixion of Jesus. The flowers form a cross, the central portions represent a crown, and each petal is pierced and stained red. The spring blooms come near… Continue reading The Dogwood
THE POWER OF A WORD “I have seen the Lord!” Can you imagine? Mary from Magdala watched him die a violent and tortuous death. He was dead. She saw his last breath. She witnessed his battered, broken, bloody body removed from the hateful cross. She followed the men who buried him so she would know… Continue reading I have seen the Lord
Defaulting to Grace 