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Kingdom Come
Psalm 102, Matthew 6:9–13, Matthew 13:24–33, John 13:1–17 “Kingdom work” and “Work of the Kingdom” Often these two phrases are used when people are (rightly) trying to teach people that they can bring people to God and can be people of God at work. This is a good thing. However, there is usually a problem
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Power to Divide or Unite
Matthew 5:3–12, Romans 13:1–10 Authority is an issue. Authority is not the same as power. Plenty of people have power. In fact, most of us have power. We may not be aware of it, but we have it. One of the greatest powers we have on earth is our vote. It often doesn’t seem like
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Failing In Grace and Faith
2 August 2019 Genesis 6:5–8, Romans 7:15–20, Galatians 5:16-26 Human depravity is nothing new. The cleansing of the Earth by the flood made that abundantly clear. Yet, to this day, one of the common questions of humanity is why is there so much bad? We’re not talking about evil. We’re just talking about the basic
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Seeking Reliably
Psalm 24, Isaiah 55:1–13, Romans 11:33–36 Many folks are obsessed with picking apart the Scriptures to find any issues or incongruities. Some do this out honest inquiry, some do it in an attempt to discredit the Scriptures. The reality is that we have to look at the Scriptures as the writers intended (which can be
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Blindly Seeing
Luke 24:13–35, John 20:1–18, John 21:2–14 Poor Cleopas. Literally walking with Jesus and he didn’t have a clue. Luke’s choice of words makes it pretty clear. Cleopas couldn’t have been that oblivious. He had to have been prevented from recognizing Jesus. That makes perfect sense from Luke’s perspective. What is it about this resurrected Jesus
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Spirit Movement
Psalm 51, Isaiah 66:1–16, Acts 16:6–15 How the Holy Spirit moves in our lives is both a mystery and very important. The psalmist requests to be restored. Attributed to King David after being confronted in his sin regarding Bathsheba and Uriah, there is definitely some restoration that needs to happen. While David as an individual
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God’s Work Working
Exodus 20:1–21, Exodus 32:1–19, Exodus 34:1–9 The first “printing” of the 10 Commandments was wholly a God printing. God made the tablets. God wrote on the tablets. Imagine holding something like that in your hands. You witnessed yet another miraculous happening. Out of a mountain God created tablets, then God wrote on them. In a
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Faithful Asking
Genesis 18:17–33, Colossians 2:6–19 There are two different amazing streams of thought in this vignette of Abraham and God. The first is Abraham’s audaciousness. That a faithful person is free to ask God for clarification is beautiful. This shows us that when we are faithful toward and trustful of God, it’s okay to not understand,
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Beyond A Name
Isaiah 43:1–4, 1 Peter 1:13–23 Do you know somebody’s name? Of course, you do. You know yours. You know the names of loved ones. You know the names of friends. You probably know the names of people that are not that close. We sometimes dismiss the importance of names. If we thought about it, though,
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Godly Peopling
1 Corinthians 7:32–38 When we read this passage, we have to understand that Paul really was expecting the world to end. The Messiah had come, why wait? Over the years, there has been an interesting development. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches have elevated male singleness for their priests. On the other hand, Protestant churches