Mess, Message, Messiah

May 19, 2024
We want—and, indeed, need—time for ourselves.  Self-care is important!  And Christ shows us a model of sacrificial living that may well feel exhausting: when do I get time for me,…
If Jesus is always teaching, he is also preparing his followers.  He has something he’s asking them to do, wants them to be doing.  In much of the first part…

So Inconvenient

April 21, 2024
Now, everyone was always eager for Jesus to do some miraculous sign, some awesome work.  They weren’t looking for parlor tricks.  People around them were sick, crippled, blind, deaf, hard-hearted…
When I began attending church twenty-two years ago, I’m not sure I knew what I was expecting.  I just had this inner sense—whispering, nudging—that God wanted me to go to…

A Love Worth Sharing

June 4, 2023
It’s not hard to think of biblical lands as wilderness and wasteland: Big Bend as far as the eye can see, but remember that the land God promised His people…

Decisive Devotion

April 23, 2023
I suppose we each have a picture of how the church ought to be, including this little congregation of it.  No one’s picture looks just like the church as it…

The Gift of the Way

January 8, 2023
In Matthew’s account, Jesus tells John the Baptist that it’s good for John to baptize Jesus, in order to “fulfill all righteousness.”  Jesus, who had no sin and did no…

Christ For You

December 4, 2022
There was a man who never knew his grandfather.  Many years before, this grandfather, knowing his grandson would barely remember him, wrote a letter.  He tried to tell his newborn…

In God’s Abundance

September 4, 2022
Jesus sent the apostles out with authority to cast out demons and to heal.  Oh, how we’d love some healing, just now.  Can you feel the need for it, out…

Godliness with Contentment

August 21, 2022
We’ve been reading our way through 1 Timothy.  Timothy was in Ephesus, trying to get some things straightened out in the church there.  If we think of Ephesus at all,…