As part of our Lenten self-denial, in the spirit of Lent, today’s message will be a little longer than usual, and I do know that I can already run, um,…
When Jesus sets out on his earthly ministry, his first recorded words are not “God loves you” or “Love one another,” supremely lovely as those teachings are. About the first…
We’re told Jesus goes up the mountain to pray (9:28). How often we read that Jesus prayed. Do we? Why did Jesus, the well-beloved Son of God, God incarnate, need…
So here is the sum of it. Jesus has been describing a way to live governed by God’s principles, life God’s way, a heart being filled with God. This happens…
I’ve got some work to do on myself, still have work to do. Life has worked me over, and still does. God is reworking me, praise be to His name!…
Around seventy years ago, a psychiatrist named Murray Bowen began to articulate a theory of how emotions operate in family systems. Bowen noted, as our own experience shows, that when…
The sermon on the mount—Matthew tells us that Jesus spoke to the people on a mount, a big, high hill. Maybe that would remind Jewish listeners of Moses on the…
Jesus is back from the wilderness, tested, steeled with the Spirit, with purpose, devotion, zeal, focus. People notice. People gather. So many bump through life wishy-washy, pale, bruised. Oh, why…
It’s no accident, no coincidence, that temptation follows baptism. John offered a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Jews were familiar with the forgiveness of sins: they gloried…
So Jesus was baptized. He wasn’t in need of it: John the Baptist was quite plain about that, confessing that, truly, John was the one in need of baptism at…