Sometimes, to go forward, we have to go back. The first steps on the long journey to the cross, the tomb, and Easter take Jesus and us into the wilderness. …
Over the next few Sundays, I’d like to walk with you through the Beatitudes, this first part of the Sermon on the Mount. We’ve heard the Beatitudes often enough, perhaps,…
Jesus is the proof that God keeps His promises. He keeps His promises not because of us but despite us. That probably doesn’t do a lot for our egos. God’s…
What a glorious, happy day that will be, when people seek out the church, seeking God and knowledge of God. Some people do just show up; they find us. This…
Paul speaks of the people who belong to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ (1:1). Have you thought much about belonging to God? In Jesus Christ, we are people…
His spirit fills us. Beloved, how beautiful, those words! We feel so full of so many things. Sometimes, it’s fear. Sometimes, it’s anger, resentment. Sometimes it’s love, yes, that’s true,…
Jesus reminds us to be humble, to seek humility, to learn it and grow in it. We praise beauty; we praise excellence; we praise performance. Humility is more worthy of…
A number of people, including some who ought to know better, seem to behave as if this life was all that mattered. Jesus tells us of a world to come.…
Paul and Silas, still in Philippi, encounter a girl, a slave girl. That wasn’t unusual. This slave girl is possessed; a spirit is in her, that, as spirits do, reveals…
Saul didn’t know Jesus. Blind, thrown down in the dust there on the road, Saul calls the one speaking to him Lord (9:5): whoever is speaking to him has authority…