“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
This is one of the great promises of God in the Old Testament. Apart from Christ, people lack both the will and the ability to pursue a relationship with God. It’s not just that we want to, but can’t, or even that we are able, but don’t really want it. We couldn’t do it even if our heart desired it. Read the rest…
In part two of our Christmas series, God Moved into the Neighborhood, we begin looking at how the process of transformation unfolds. Initially, it’s not very comfortable. In order to fix the system, we first have to see where and how it’s broken. Keep reading to see how this works and how to overcome the biggest challenge to it happening.
Light to Live By
Have you ever gotten unwanted advice before? Now, probably there are some folks out there who are far more gracious than I am, but usually when I get unwanted advice my first thought is, “Buzz off, Mr. Busy-Body!” Who’s with me? There’s just something a little cynical in most of us that thinks, “You know, they probably mess up at this just as much as I do. They are in no position to be giving me advice.” But, there is an exception to this rule. We as a culture are slavishly reliant on the advice of experts. If we think someone is an expert, we will listen to just about anything they say. This phenomenon explains how we got shows like Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. They were both regular “experts” on Oprah who became popular enough to get their own shows. And perhaps you’re sitting there thinking, “Well I certainly don’t listen to those quacks! You can’t really trust anything you see on TV anyway.” Read the rest…
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…” (ESV – Read the chapter)
If Paul’s words to wives were tough here, his words to husbands are even more challenging. Wives are called to submit to their husbands as a function of their prior and larger submission to Christ. Husbands are called to love their wives after the pattern of Christ’s love for the church. That, of course, prompts a question: How did Christ loved the church? Answer: He died for her. He committed Himself to the last breath to seeing her become fully who God created her to be. Everything he did was for her benefit. Every single decision He made was filtered through the lens of whether or not it was going to be to her advantage. For husbands, this is our standard. Read the rest…
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
This is one of the most exalted pictures of Jesus in all of the Scriptures. It is a good reminder that the Jesus we serve and whose birth we will celebrate this next month is not just our friend, He is also our Lord. Today we often see such an emphasis on Jesus as our friend and our personal Savior who knows us intimately that we lose sight of His glory. Read the rest…
The great thing about God’s story, is that it doesn’t end after the second act. In this third part of our series, The Big Story, we finally get to relish the joy of the third act: Redemption. God’s efforts since the fall have been focused on this one goal. Read on to see how this played out…
The Good News
Let’s start this morning with some trivia. What do Return of the Jedi, Rocky Balboa, AntwoneFisher, Les Misérables, and Iron Man 3 all have in common? They are all stories of redemption. In Return of the Jedi the exciting climax of the movie comes when Anakin Skywalker—Darth Vader—returns from the “dark side,” saves the life of his son, Luke, and puts an end to the evil of The Emperor. In Rocky Balboa, the washed-up, old fighter proves to himself and the world that he still has what it takes when he comes out of retirement and goes toe-to-toe with the reigning heavyweight champ, Mason “the Line” Dixon. In Antwone Fisher a young, emotionally broken soldier finds healing and wholeness through the help of a committed counselor, his girlfriend, and the family he never knew he had. In Les Misérables, the thief, Jean Valjean, is given a second chance at life by a gracious Catholic priest and commits the rest of his life to serving and saving those who were in the same dire straits in which he once found himself. Finally, in Iron Man 3, Tony Stark at last discovers what’s most important in life and commits himself to using his genius and resources to make the world better. Read the rest…
The Nexus 