Learning to love others the way Jesus loves us
Confrontations and conversations during Jesus' last days Mark 11-12 And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows' houses and for a… Continue reading Not just another Tuesday
God uses our brokenness for His glory Kintsugi, literally "joining with gold," is a centuries-old Japanese technique of fixing broken ceramics. When a piece of pottery breaks, the pieces are put together, not with invisible glue so no one sees the flaws, but rather with gold lacquer so that the fracture is obvious. These repaired… Continue reading Broken and Beloved
Political affiliation must be secondary to our affiliation with the people of God. "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" (1 Peter 2:9-10). "For our boast… Continue reading Everything is Secondary, part 3
A five-part series about priorities This is a five-session devotion considering the pre-eminence of Jesus over everything else in this mortal life. Ideology has taken over faith in many churches and among many people who call themselves Christian. I don't think anyone will argue that the world is bitterly divided in 2024. Wars, both heavily… Continue reading Everything is Secondary
God has prepared us for this very thing-Let the redeemed of the Lord say so! It's cold here in the South today. Nothing like what my friends in the North and Midwest experience, but when the temperature is below freezing for most of a week, these California-born fingers struggle to move. I can't sit close… Continue reading Fear is not all-powerful
Third Sunday of Advent The King of Glory will return to reign over His garden Kingdom. In the beginning, God made a garden. Yahweh Elohim (יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהִים) caused every tree that is pleasant to look at and filled with healthy food to spring up out of the newly created earth. In the middle of the… Continue reading O ye Heights of Heav’n
An Advent devotion: Peace O that birth forever blessed, when a virgin, full of grace, by the Holy Ghost conceiving, bore the Savior of our race; and the Babe, the world’s Redeemer, first revealed His sacred face, evermore and evermore! This is He whom heav'n-taught singers sang of old with one accord, whom the Scriptures… Continue reading O That birth Forever Blessed
An Advent devotion in four parts Of the Father’s love begotten,ere the worlds began to be,He is Alpha and Omega,He the Source, the Ending He,of the things that are, that have been,and that future years shall seeevermore and evermore! Aurelius Clemens Prudentius Part of my mission with Defaulting to Grace is to bind together followers… Continue reading Of the Father’s love begotten
9-25-23 Yom Kippur (G'mar chatimah tovah) "This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: Atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of the Israelites” Leviticus 16:34 Today is Yom Kippur, the most holy day of the Jewish calendar. It is the day named Atonement by the Lord Himself, set… Continue reading גְּמַר חֲתִימָה טוֹבָה
It's fire. https://www.youtube.com/live/_8VjAwfZeNg?feature=shared
Defaulting to Grace 