Life ultimately depends upon trusting God. Not that everyone agrees or lives that way, as we know. God gave life; all life is subject to God’s purposes. God is able…
We’re hearing hard things. Paul is explaining the meaning of what we can see everyday but perhaps not quite understand. It ought to be comprehensible. Some find it very difficult…
Gratitude—it does us all so much good. All sorts of studies confirm it, but we probably already know or believe. Sharing gratitude—this does so much to build friendship, fellowship. It…
There are things Jesus says, and not just once, that don’t exactly comfort or inspire us, because we don’t know how to take what he says. For example, “I have…
One of the big Jewish holy days is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement: the day above all others for seeking God’s forgiveness for the failure to live as God…
“[F]ull of joy through the Holy Spirit”: let’s start there. The Holy Spirit brings the gift of joy, beloved. We want to be happy. Sometimes, we are. What we really…
Which of them would be the greatest. I don’t even know where to begin. Maybe at your high school graduation, there wasn’t any category, Most Likely to Succeed, but everybody…
Most of the time, if you invite someone over, it’s because you want to cultivate the relationship. The Pharisees were clearly a mixed group and not all of the same…
Here it is, two weeks later, and we’re still talking about Easter, bright with joy. Christ is alive! The tomb stands empty to the sky. It’s good to talk about…
Up to this point, Luke has measured his account by weeks, even months. Now, it’s by hours: time is short. The vast majority of people in those times didn’t eat…