November 23 | Psalm 100 | As for Me and My House . . . We’ll Choose Gratitude On this Thanksgiving Week, it is important to see that our faith must abound with gratitude. Our faith, our church, our ways of operating as a religious institution is present because of God’s steadfastness and love. When we gather, we can’t help but be grateful. Gratitude can be chosen even when emotions are steeped in hurt or resentment. The effort to choose gratitude, especially in difficult times, strengthens our spiritual resolve.

November 16 | Psalm 1 | As for Me and My House . . . We’ll Have a Rule of Life Psalm 1 serves as an introduction to the entire book of Psalms, presenting a fundamental choice between two paths: Path of the “wicked” and the path of “delighting in God’s law.” It is a blueprint for living a blessed, disciplined, and fruitful life. This blueprint in Christianity is a called a Rule of Life. It is the blueprint of what our spiritual lives must include.

November 9 | Psalm 65 | As for Me and My House . . . We’ll Show Hospitality Psalm 65 speaks powerfully of God's hospitality toward people and the earth. The psalm is a song of praise and thanksgiving for God's provision and grace, which can inspire and inform our own practice of hospitality towards one another. As God treated us and the world, so we should treat one another.

November 2 | All Saints Day | As for Me and My House . . . We’ll Remember | Psalm 42 On this All Saints Day, we are challenged to remember. Memory is a spiritual discipline. Memory is not a neutral act. For Christians, the interpretive principle for memory should be Christ. Remembering can involve reflecting on challenging experiences and processing them with God. This practice admits our inability to handle the past on our own and strengthens our dependence on Christ.

October 26 | As for Me and My House . . . We’ll Keep the Sabbath | Psalm 127 This short psalm reminds us that all the nonstop effort in the world is in vain if we do not learn to rest. Verse 2 says, “In vain. You rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for he grants sleep to those he loves.” In other words, we must be people who build in rest to our work. The psalmist sings it. It’s one of the ten commandments. It’s baked into the rhythm of life from Genesis 1. It is the most repeated commandment in the Old Testament. We should take it more seriously.

As for Me and My House . . . We’ll Read Scripture Spiritually | Psalm 23 Christians need to learn to read scripture spiritually. There are many practices that can do this but the most well-known is Lectio Divina. It is a way to pray the scriptures slowly reflecting on their meaning in a way that is less mechanical, mental, but, rather, spiritual. Psalm 23 is a great text to demonstrate this, for it is the most comforting chapter in all the Old Testament. It begins with the image of God as the Great Shepherd coming to us and guides us home into the afterlife. It has so much imagery, this chapter will give ample opportunity for people to develop a skill to read scripture spiritually.

October 12 | Psalm 37:1-9 | As for Me and My House . . . We’ll Practice Stillness | Christians have inner lives. They have access to God which comes to us as a still, small voice. It comes thanks to the gift of the Holy Spirit, and it needs to be cultivated. Our inner, spiritual lives are open canvases that need to be explored through study, stillness, solitude, and silence.

Psalm 146 | As for Me and My House . . . We’ll Sing | Tracie is preaching To build up a Christian life, you need to worship. You need to come to the “water” and experience the overflowing grace of God so you can be “filled up” to go back out into the world and share it. A life of worship is essential for a life of faith.

September 28 | James 5:13-20 | A Woven Mercy “If anyone among you wanders from the truth and is bought back by another,” . . . they will be saved together. In other words, . . . our lives are intricately connected and woven together, so much that when we are suffering, we can call on our neighbor for help, and when we are thriving, we can worship together. These shared moments are God’s woven mercies for us.

September 21 | James 3:13-4:3 | A Gentle Mercy The true sages of our day live out of a wisdom that is from “above." Wisdom from “below” is bitter, envious, boastful, and full of false truths. Wisdom from above is gentle, peaceable, and bears no trace of partiality. To live with wisdom, we must learn of mercy that is gentle.

September 14 | James 3:1-12 | A Merciless Tongue Our words are used to cut people down and drown people out. Our tongues are like tameless beasts used to both praise the Lord and curse our neighbor. This ought not to be so. For us to live with mercy, we must learn to control the parts of us that seek mercilessness.

September 7 | James 2:1-17 | A Working Mercy A faith without works is dead. Lifeless. Pointless. The faith we have in God and in one another must birth in us action and care and a willingness to give of what we must serve one another.

August 31 | James 1:17-27 | An Undefiled Mercy Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, according to James, is this: “to care for the orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” It is time we take these words to heart. Our religion is only as pure as our ability to care for those who are need of care.

The final lesson for Timothy from a dying Paul is to endure. Paul believes the Lord will come to rescue the faithful, and we must not give up or walk away. Christian work is hard, but God will strengthen us with the resolve and endurance we need if we remain faithful.

August 17 | 2 Timothy 3:14-3:17 | Equipped for Every Good Work Paul warns Timothy that culture will have ‘itching ears.’ What he means is that people will find teachers that speak to their own desires even if it’s a false witness or doctrine. To push against this cultural trend, Christians need to feel comfortable convincing, rebuking, and encouraging others who have fallen prey to false myths.

August 10 | 2 Timothy 2:8-15 | Speak Well Perhaps the most profound advice from Paul to Timothy is found here: ‘Remind them of this and warn them before God that they are to avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening.’ What we say (and how we say it) matters to our faith and witness. This applies to us in all aspects of our lives (both digital and real life).

August 3 | 2 Timothy 1:3-14 | Do Not Be Ashamed We have a testimony. God has suffered unto us in the world, and it is our calling to share this with everyone. We do this best if we learn to not be ashamed of our faith but claim it. Live out of it.

Why would a competent sower sow seeds on ground he knows won’t take root? It seems bizarre, but that’s how the Kingdom of Heaven works. Despite some things taking root, the Kingdom spreads everywhere and to everything. The farmer, like God, is giving everyone a chance to find their place in Kingdom work. 

The Kingdom of Heaven is growing and producing good wheat. Unfortunately, weeds sprout up in the middle of the good growth. Should you cut it out? According to Jesus, “No. You should not.” Let the weeds and wheat grow together. They will be separated in the harvest. Similarly, people in the Kingdom of God will also do so.

Could you sell everything you own? I could only if what I was buying in return was worth it. Jesus offers us an image of the Kingdom that he believes is worth it. He says the Kingdom of Heaven is like a pearl that is so mesmerizing it enraptures us to sell everything we have to buy it.