This study is disheartening. I have been wanting to teach an entire series on the Pharisees for some time. Perhaps the time is now. Better yet, let me first rid myself of all Pharisaical tendencies .... https://www.barna.org/barna-update/faith-spirituality/611-christians-more-like-jesus-or-pharisees#.VKr7ZT_na00
I taught yesterday at one of our satellite venues. I stated that the way the incarnation happened demonstrates (as does almost all of Jesus’ life) that God's heart, as Philip Yancey writes, tilts toward the underdog. I shared the Scripture from Isaiah that Jesus read in Luke chapter 4 as he inaugurated his earthly ministry […]
My husband and I have been having conversation lately about the power of distraction and getting bogged down in the details and minutiae of life. I think it was Thoreau who said that life often is frittered away by details. For instance, we have been frittering our lives away with the details of getting a […]
After a two full weeks of not feeling well, and a full weekend of serving, I am so happy to be taking off for a 5-day trip to see my kids. That makes my soul happy. I won’t be posting to my blog while I am gone. I am just going to focus on the […]
“If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain, but what He pours through us that counts. It is not that God makes us beautifully rounded grapes, but that He squeezes the sweetness out of us. Spiritually, we cannot measure our life by success, but only by what God pours through us, and […]
I remember sitting in a class listening to people answer the question, “What is God’s mission in the world?” To be honest, I was really disappointed by the answers. They were almost all kind of individualistic in nature. Many of them were violent and kind of “end-times” oriented … the idea that all God cared […]
