Tag: Jesus

Digging in Deeper: Isaiah 9:6

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“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.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

There has been a bit of a rash of babies being born where I live lately. Babies are born all the time, but I can quickly think of four that have arrived in the last couple of weeks in our little community. (In case you’re curious, girls are winning three-to-one.) The birth of a child is always a moment primed with hope and expectation. The possibilities before that little one are literally endless. At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of a child whose expectations were even higher than usual.

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A Good Story

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The season of Advent is finally here! For the next month followers of Jesus around the world will be setting aside some time to give special attention to preparing for the arrival of Jesus. Our celebration is not simply for His birth, though, but for His return when He will make all things new. With that in mind, I want to help you get ready for the arrival of Jesus into your lives. Each Monday will bring a new sermon exploring the story of His arrival through a different lens. Each other week day will bring a new reflection on the Advent season that I hope will set your season in the right terms. Blessings to you as you preparing for the coming King!

A Good Story

That was a moment right there, wasn’t it?  I don’t know about you, but that song is one of my favorites.  There is power in this proclamation, “it is well!”  There is strength in being able to declare that though sin or storm or suffering may loom dauntingly large in front of us, nonetheless, “it is well with my soul.”  Maybe you are in a season when that declaration is little more than a faint whisper, but nonetheless, to stand…perhaps to sit…maybe even to simply fall to your knees and with even a mustard seed-sized faith in the God who alone has the power to push back the darkness and, with defiance in your spirit, breath out, “it is well with my soul,” can have the effect of throwing on a floodlight in a dark room. 

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Morning Musing: Obadiah 15

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“For the day of the Lord is near, against all the nations. As you have done, it will be done to you; what you deserve will return on your own head.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

Because it occupies such a big place in the halls of pop culture, I’m going to assume you’ve heard of the principle of karma. The basic idea of this Buddhist teaching is that whatever we do in this life will eventually be visited back upon us. If we do good things, then good things will happen to us. If we do bad things, then bad things will happen to us. Somehow, the universe will balance the scales of justice. Now, as theological concept, karma is a mess that Christians cannot endorse in any way. The basic intuition behind it that has been common across all human cultures and religions that justice will eventually be done, however, is not only one we can encourage, we see it right here in the Scriptures. Let’s talk about this for just a minute.

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Love’s Transformation

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Knowing we’re supposed to love the hard to love people in our lives, even knowing the theological reasons for that, is one thing. Actually seeing it in practice is something entirely different. This past Sunday as we continued in our series, Hard to Love, we took a look at a remarkable story of the kind of transformation that can take place when we let love loose into our hard to love situations. You don’t want to miss this.

Love’s Transformation

Let me start this morning with a tough question.  In fact, I want you to close your eyes in order to answer this one.  How would you respond if your child was murdered?  That’s an emotional question, I know, so go ahead and feel that emotion for a minute.  Let me show you a picture.  This is a picture of Mary Johnson and her son.  In 1993 Mary’s son, Laramiun Byrd, was 20 years old.  One night he went to a party with some friends.  As perhaps many young men are wont to do he did a little bit of fronting at the party to the benefit of his ego and his image in front of his friends.  Now, this might not be such a big deal on a normal night, but this particular party was also attended by a 16-year-old young man named O’Shea Israel.  O’Shea took up Laramium’s challenge and did a bit of fronting of his own.  After all, he couldn’t be made to look bad in front of his own friends.  Things digressed from there and the next morning Mary got a call asking if Laramiun had come home the night before.  He hadn’t.  Not long after some officers arrived to let her know that he had been murdered at the party.  In an instant—perhaps just as you imagined—her world completely fell apart. 

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Hard to Love

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This week we kicked off a brand-new teaching series called, Hard to Love. Do you have anyone in your life who is hard for you to love? If you do, this is a series you will not want to miss a single part of. Together we’ll talk about why and how we can better approximate God’s own love for everyone in our lives, not just the people we like. We’ll see why doing this is so powerful. And, we’ll be reminded that in doing it we’re only ever giving what we have ourselves received. Keep checking back here each of the next few Mondays to catch the next part of this critical conversation.

Hard to Love

Do you remember some of the phrases your dad said a lot when you were growing up?  Every dad has these.  It’s part of the secret dad creed (but if you tell anyone I’m afraid the consequences will be quite grave so just keep this between us).  One of the things I remember my dad saying a lot to me was, “If you mess with the bull, you’ll get the horns.”  The point, of course, is that if you pick a fight with something or someone bigger and stronger than you there’s a good chance you’ll lose.  I learned this the hard way on a few occasions.  We had a friend of the family named Jerry who we saw every now and then who was always fun to mess with, but he wasn’t much one to go easy on you just because you were a kid.  One Christmas the family was all gathered at his house and I was being a bit bolder than wisdom would have suggested was prudent and quickly found myself locked in a closet, beating on the door, and screaming to be let out.  In messing with the bull that night I definitely got the horns. 

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