The season of Lent, the Church’s observance of the 40-day Lenten season leading up to Easter is just around the corner! This year Lent begins on Wednesday, February 14. So for the next 40 days (starting February 14th) I will ...
“If the Lord had not been for us”…Psalm 124 Yesterday, as I pondered by these words, my mind retraced the many times God has literally saved my life. A home break-in. A mountain climbing slip. Running blind in the dark. ...
Yesterday I chatted with a lady new to our church. She commented that when she was on the leadership team at her previous church, it was difficult to continually “stay strong,” to always “have it all together,” and to always ...
Let me say right up front….I am not a theologian. I don’t have the smarts to even enter the ring with those who are. But…It seems to me that a lot of people hold to a theology of God that ...
When my husband and I were in Bible school one of the required classes the first semester of our freshman year was an evangelism called Evangelism Explosion. The class was based on a book by the same title that was considered the text on evangelism at that time. The book popularized witnessing as a systematic ...
Easter Sunday 2018 “Let him easter in us, be a dayspring to the dimness in us.” Gerard Manley Hopkins Sometime between midnight and the morning of December 4 1875, the German steamship “Deutschland” ran aground on a shoal 25 miles off the English coast. Tragically, 78 lives were lost, among them 5 Franciscan nuns who ...
“The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” Mark 15:38 Two great columns flanked the doors leading into the Temple. But only the priests were permitted through these doors and only at the appropriate times. There was a thick veil that separated this place from all the rest. As we ...
“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” This saying of Jesus was so basic to his kingdom that it shows up in each of the four Gospels, and twice in Luke (Matthew 10:39, Mark ...
“Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows. Isa. 1:17 (NLT) In Lent, with its emphasis on prayer, self-examination and repentance, people have, historically, chosen to fast during the season of Lent. Fasting is a spiritual discipline designed to help us better focus ...
“Following Jesus closely messes up our tidy little kingdoms, and that does not always attract the masses. But at the same time, in following Jesus we receive a life far more abundant than anything in this world can offer. It is this abundant life that we are to demonstrate to others that it is worth ...
“Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don’t be impressed with yourself. Don’t compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.” Gal. 6:4-5 ™ Self-examination is one of ...
“At that time they had a well-known prisoner whose name was Jesus Barabbas. So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Matt. 27:16, 17 (NIV)[i] Barabbas’ first name was also Jesus, which means “savior.” So Pilate ...
“O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1 I didn’t recognize my own symptoms. After three weeks of summer travel and a jam-packed schedule I finally had a morning home ...
Today, known as Ash Wednesday is the beginning of the Church’s observance of the 40-day Lenten season leading up to Easter. I was raised in a home that had no religious underpinnings and in our own church tradition we have not routinely embraced observance of the Church calendar. For some of us, this may be ...
