This is how God operates, breaking rules, flouting conventions, defying good sense and conventional wisdom in order to bring about something wonderful…
Read MoreWhen we were lost in the wilderness and could find no trace of God, God found us and cleared a path through the desert to get to us.
Read MoreSo by all means be alert, keep awake, but not out of fear but rather anticipation, for the one who knocks is none other than Jesus Christ….
Read MoreBut that’s just it: Jesus isn’t keeping score. Jesus doesn’t need our good works. Jesus wants us to trust him.
Read MoreLet me reassure you right now that God is not keeping score. God is not awarding points for good behavior or deducting points for being less than perfect.
Read MoreBut God’s grace is the great leveler. If sin makes hypocrites of us all, God’s grace covers us all equally.
Read MoreA crucified Messiah. The very concept would have been any oxymoron. It still is. We like our Messiahs victorious and glorious.
Read MoreCaesar can stamp his likeness on all the coins he wants, Jesus suggests, but the true image of God is not stamped on a coin but hung from a cross.
Read MoreBut God’s power is not all right. In contrast with the direct forcefulness of right-handed power, left-handed power is paradoxical power
Read MoreThe righteousness of Jesus is his willingness to empty himself of all authority and take up the cross.
Read MoreThe currency of the kingdom of heaven is not fairness but grace. And when it comes to grace, God is a big spender, perhaps even generous to a fault…
Read MoreBut if the message we hear is “forgive or else,” then what we’ve done is turned the whole concept of forgiveness into just another law.
Read MoreAnd so what makes us Christian is not whether or not we wound one another—we do—but rather how we go about mending those wounds.
Read MoreTaking up your cross means dying to any attempt to save yourself through righteous deeds.
Read MorePeter’s testimony that Jesus is the Messiah…speaks the eternal truth on which the church stands and against which all the powers of hell cower and tremble.
Read MoreThrough this woman’s dogged faith we learn that faith is not about the righteous and their rituals; faith is about sinners who cry to Jesus, “Lord, help me!”
Read MoreYes, it’s true that Jesus says to Peter, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” But rather than hearing that as criticism, I invite us to hear it as praise. Yes, praise!
Read MoreThe church at its best represents an alternative to the hyper-individualistic, achievement-driven, status-obsessed nature of so much of our society.
Read MoreThe kingdom of heaven isn’t about what waits for us in the sweet hereafter; it’s about what God is doing here and now.
Read MoreThe preamble begins, “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union….” Please note that it’s not “Weed the people in order to form a more perfect union.”
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