A Life with Deep Roots
Hi friends! Have you started being more conscious of your Shepherd the last couple days? Are you leaning on him more than last week – looking to him for direction, provision, comfort, healing, and protection? Have you set down the bag of marshmallows, and started listening for what God is leading you toward? Psalm 23 A psalm of David. 1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. 2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 3 he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. 4 Even though I walk...
Read MoreThe Good Life
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!” So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went...
Read MoreSlow down, Easter Will Get Here In It’s Time
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” Luke 13:34–35 It’s Holy Week. In our rear view mirror is the triumphal entry of Palm Sunday. Before us lies Jesus time with the disciples in the upper room, his torment in the garden, his arrest and abandonment, rigged trials, torture, and...
Read MoreIntegration and Alignment
The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me. John 12:23–26 It is a mistake to segment the Bible and the seasons of the Church calendar as if they were stand alone times or messages. The gospel of...
Read MoreSaved for What? Saved to What?
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life . . . . Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16-17; 17:3 John 3:16 is one of the most familiar verses in the Bible. Familiarity, the saying goes, often breeds contempt. In this case, maybe not contempt, but simple assumption. We assume what the verse means, we assume the narrative that has...
Read MorePassionate About His Presence With You
So he [Jesus] made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” John 2:15–17 Your identity is birthed out of the reality that you are perfectly loved and perfectly accepted by Christ — the author and sustainer of life and the one appointed to judge the world – which includes you. You were...
Read MoreMardi Gras Makes Me Sad
Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him. After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Mark 1:9–15 Mardi Gras...
Read MoreUp Close and Personal
A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. Mark 1:40–42 Jesus did not have to touch the man to heal him of his leprosy. He could have said, “hey, stay right there, I don’t want to risk my becoming ceremonially unclean by you coming to close . . . you are healed,” and the guy would have been just as healed. Why did Jesus touch him if he did not have to, especially and if all of...
Read MoreIncarnating God’s Greatness
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:28–31 Jesus came as God in the flesh, the incarnation. When he ascended to the father he handed off that...
Read MoreThe Authority of God – A Gift to the World
They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. The people were amazed at his teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. Mark 1:21–22 Authority is influence. What does it mean to speak with authority, to be influential? Where does that authority or influence come from? Likely it is tied to one of four things:: position or title, technical expertise, relationship, or spiritual depth. Positional Authority is seen in roles like parents, teacher, and bosses. They have the ability to tell someone...
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