Send us a text Give Thanks For Three Spiritual Truths “Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth. Serve the LORD with gladness; come into his presence with singing. Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him; bless his name. For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever and his faithfulness to all generations” ...

Send us a text Practicing Humility And Curiosity (Advent 3) “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths."- from Isaiah 2:3 All of us have a sense of right and wrong, good and bad. These moral sensibilities are a good starting point when discerning our pathways. However, they should be starting points. We often we assume the things we think and believe are complete and corre...

Send us a text We Don’t Need To Push Our Religion On Anyone. (Advent 2) “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”-John 12:32 A lot of us have been going about this the wrong way. We don’t need to push our religion on anyone. We don’t need to force anyone to kneel at the alters we’ve built. We instead use all our efforts on lifting up the example of God’s love through the words we speak, and the actions we take. As disciples we are students w...

Send us a text Let Our Faith Be As Big As God’s Vision For Us “He shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.” - Isaiah 2:4 The second chapter of Isaiah describes one of, if not the most beautiful divinely inspired vision the world has ever been given. Envision a world where all disputes betw...

Send us a text How We Show Up Is How God Shows Up “It is you who have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the LORD.” - from Jeremiah 23:2 The Hebrew word translated “attend” in this verse has both positive and negative connotations as it has been used in scripture. Here in this Jeremiah passage bad shepherds will be held accountable when God “attends” to them. Similarly, when God visits...

Send us a text God Don’t Like Ugly “Come, behold the works of the LORD; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.” - Psalm 46:8-9 Some read that God is bringing desolation and destruction on the earth and stop reading. But exactly what is it that God intends to destroy? What is it that God wants to bring to an end on earth? God has had enough of our bloods...

Send us a text Peace Is An Active Lifestyle “to shine upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." - Luke 1:79 The 79th verse of Luke 1 is a continuation of the 78th verse which declares that God’s love will cause dawn to break upon us. This verse emphasizes that although we may be overwhelmed by the darkness around us, overwhelmed by the darkness within us, such darkness is not our permanent reality. We will see the li...

Send us a text If We Believe In God’s Love… “Because of the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us.” - Luke 1:78 If we believe in God’s love, we will find our peace in the midst of our storms, because we know that God is our comforter and protector. If we believe in God’s love, we will let go of all of our jealousy and envy, our greed and lusts, because we know that God supplies everything we need. If we believe in God’s love, we will no longer l...

Send us a text Joyful Endurance “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, so that you may have all endurance and patience, joyfully” - Colossians 1:11 All of us are going through something, have been through something, or are about to go through something. No one is exempt from life’s challenges and problems, of this we can be certain. What we can also be certain of is this: The power of God within us and among us gives us the strength...

Send us a text We Are The Shepherds God Is Raising “I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall no longer fear or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the LORD.” -Jeremiah 23:4 One of the most poignant moments in all the gospels is when the risen Jesus appears to Peter and asks him three times if he loves him. At first Peter is disturbed that Jesus questions his love and commitment so many times. But each time Jesus says since you love me, care ...

Send us a text Serve With Hope And Without Fear “that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear,” - Luke 1:74 Elie Wiesel said that the opposite of love is indifference. Paul Tillich, Anne Lamott and Brené Brown.said that opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty" And I’ve become convinced that the opposite of hope is fear. It turns out that Jon Meacham said it first: The opposite of fear is hope, defined as the expectation of good fortune not onl...

Send us a text The Joy Of God’s Immanence Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel."- Isaiah 12:6 Immanence is the state of dwelling within something or being inherent to it. In religious or theological terms it is the idea that God is immediately and intimately present within and among us. Immanence is often contrasted with the concept of transcendence. Transcendence means beyond the ordinary, beyond normal limitations. I...

Send us a text Justice, Wellbeing And Healing Flow From Reverence “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.” -Malachi 4:2 Reverence at its core is a deep respect for something or someone greater than oneself, To live with reverence is to live with a sense of awe, wonder, and appreciation. Everyone and everything, the whole cosmos, lives and moves and has its being God. (Acts 17:28) God is our source. God is our gro...

Send us a text Never Get Too Tired To Do The Right Thing “Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.” - 2 Thessalonians 3:13 It’s easy for us to do the right things when it feels like we are winning, when we are making progress, when things are going right. But it’s much harder for us to keep going when we get bogged down, when we have been denied, delayed, or defeated. We start to wonder‘what’s the point?’ As are efforts appear to yield less and less outcome, a...

Send us a text Let Our Tests Become Our Testimonies “This (hardship) will give you an opportunity to testify.” - Luke 21:13 I dislike calling hardships and adversities blessings in disguise. Such a framing tends to minimize the very real agony, and pain that we are experiencing. To be transformed and overcome, these pains must be acknowledged not denied. I do believe that every struggle contains within it powerful seeds. These seeds when planted, nurtured, and cultivat...

Send us a text We Don’t Need To Be Defensive “So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance;” - Luke 21:14 Many of us spend a lot of time and energy worrying about what’s going to happen. We worry about defending our name, our honor, our reputation, our pride. We worry about being disappointed by the people around us. We worry about being betrayed by the people we most care about. We spend so much effort and energy protecting and defending ourselves th...

Send us a text God Answers The Prayers We Don’t Know To Pray “Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear.” - Isaiah 65:24 Sometimes life has us all twisted. I could use another phrase, but I’m not going to drop any expletives today. Sometimes we know something is wrong but we have no idea how to make it right. If we have an idea of how to make it right, we don’t know where to begin. If we have an idea of how to begin, we don’t know how ...

Send us a text These Troubles Will Soon Be Forgotten “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” -Isaiah 65:17 Some of us are so tired, so discouraged, so overwhelmed that we feel like giving up. What’s going on within us, what’s going on in the world around us, it seems like too much sometimes. The prophetic words of Isaiah 65:17 are written for such times. They encourage us to take heart. The power of God is ...

Send us a text Do We Trust That Our Redeemer Lives? “For I know that my redeemer lives and that in the end he will stand upon the earth;” - Job 19:25 Job endured. He endured pain and suffering, loss and grief, ridicule and derision. He endured his own disorientation and internal dissonance. He had no answers for life’s questions. What made it possible for him to endure? I believe he was able to endure because of his decision to trust that his redeemer lives. Whether he trusted fro...

Send us a text Strength Comes From The Heart “Comfort your hearts and strengthen them in every good work and word.” -2 Thessalonians 2:17 Where do we find our strength? From where do we draw our power? These questions emerge from this week’s lectionary readings. Psalm 17 emphasizes how we don’t try to become stronger through violence, manipulation, or exploitation in declaring, “As for what others do, by the word of your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent.” Our po...