Tag: Following Jesus

God Knows

2 Comments

Happy New Year! We’re finally back and will pick back up our Romans journey tomorrow morning, Lord willing. For today, here is the first part of a quick New Year’s series reflecting on the extent of God’s knowledge of us and how we should react to that knowledge. Today as we dive into Psalm 139, we will marvel with David at God’s intimate knowledge of us and talk about some tools for remaining in that knowledge. Enjoy!

God Knows

A paradox is when two ideas which seem contradictory of one another are nonetheless simultaneously true, and we live in a world that’s full of them. Consider one particularly glaring one. We live in a world full of people screaming to be known. Depression and anxiety are off the charts these days in part because so many people feel isolated and alone, like no one really knows who they are. In response to this, and with the help of social media, many will invite the world into their most intimate spaces and times just so they can feel like somebody, somewhere, knows them. Of course, just because you show someone something intimate or personal about yourself doesn’t mean they really know you at all. Really knowing another person and being known by them takes relational investment over time. Without that, the presumed knowledge is merely a mirage. It may be a mildly comforting one (which is why so many people clamber for it), but when we are forced to face the truth, the shock of the cold water of reality can be debilitatingly intense. 

Read the rest…

The Miracle of Mundane Moments

Leave a comment

We look to stories in the Bible as incredible tales of amazing people doing utterly remarkable things. The truth, though, is that most of them lived most of their lives in moments that were utterly mundane. That wasn’t just the case for characters in the Scriptures. It’s the case with our lives today too. And yet, as ordinary as most of our lives are, we long to experience the extraordinary. We want to be special, to know that we are more than we seem. This is where the wonder of the Christmas story comes racing to center stage. As extraordinary as we imagine that story to be, most of it was very, very ordinary. What made the difference in these ordinary moments was the movement of God in their midst. Today, as we wrap up our series, When Heaven Met Earth, we are talking about the ordinary moments in the lives of ordinary people, and how things can become entirely more extraordinary than that. Let’s get started.

The Miracle of Mundane Moments

Sometimes the most extraordinary things can happen out of the most ordinary circumstances. Consider something that every single person in the room has in their kitchen, and which most of us have used at least once in the last 24 hours. In 1945, Percy Spencer was working as a radar researcher at Raytheon Labs. Raised as an orphan who never finished elementary school, Spencer taught himself physics and advanced mathematics, joined the Navy, and through that discovered his penchant for science. One day, Spencer was working in the lab with a radar magnetron. That’s basically a tube that converts electrical signals into electromagnetic radiation. It had been invented a few years before and was essential to the invention of modern radar. As Spencer worked with this magnetron, he noticed that a bar of chocolate in his pocket had melted. 

Read the rest…

Advent Reflections: Matthew 2:4-6

Leave a comment

“So he assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Messiah would be born. ‘In Bethlehem of Judea,’ they told him, ‘because this is what was written by the prophet: “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah: Because out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.”’” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the most difficult groups of people to minister to as a pastor are cultural Christians. These are folks who, though, they don’t harbor any real animosity toward the church, nevertheless don’t meaningfully participate. But they were generally raised in the church in some capacity. And if this was a Baptist or at least a baptistic church, they probably walked an aisle and got baptized at one point in their life. Because of this, they call themselves Christians in spite of having almost no meaningful engagement with Christ in their lives. They have all the advantages of the faith at their fingertips, but are largely clueless as to what it means. Jesus was born into this kind of a situation too. Let’s talk about why claiming belief in God and actually embracing the Gospel are two different things.

Read the rest…

Advent Reflections: Isaiah 9:6-7

Leave a comment

“For a child will be born for us, a son will be given to us, and the government will be on his shoulders. He will be named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. The dominion will be vast, and its prosperity will never end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from now on and forever. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Grace is hard to find in our world. The world outside God’s kingdom doesn’t do grace. It’s all judgment and vengeance. The irony of this is that the world accuses God of this very thing. Yet while God surely does bring judgment when it is due, His first instinct is grace. We see this grace put most gloriously on display in the coming of Christ as a baby to live and die for our salvation. The arrival, or advent, of Jesus was something God started preparing us for long before the time finally came. The prophet Isaiah foretold His arrival more than once. Let’s take a look at one such prophecy.

Read the rest…

For Our Good

2 Comments

After a few days off, it’s good to be back. The Advent season is a time for preparing for the arrival of Jesus into our world and into our lives. For the next few weeks, as we take part in the preparation, we are going to spend some time looking at the stories of Jesus’ arrival. When Jesus arrived, heaven met earth in a way that left earth forever changed for the good. These classic stories give us some insight on how that happened. They may be familiar, but there is nonetheless great wisdom here if we will have it. Let’s get started with Matthew’s story of Jesus’ birth and see what the Spirit has to say through it.

For Our Good

Many of you know that I enjoy building metal models. They are all over my office. I think what I enjoy most is following instructions carefully and winding up with a neat-looking finished product in the end. There are enough things in this world that don’t have nice, neat endings where you can see and physically hold in your hand the results of your work. These metal models give you just that. And these days, the more complex they are, the more fun they are. I think my last model had somewhere near 200 pieces and 8 double-sided pages of instructions. That felt good to finish. 

Read the rest…