The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
Thanksgiving, Part 1
I recently started collecting what I call “Ho-Hum News”. On a slow news day you sometimes find odd and seemingly unimportant news headlines, like this one: “Bear sneaks into California Vineyard for late-night snack of Pinot Noir grapes, surveillance footage shows”.
If the vintner who owns that vineyard is a follower of Christ, it is God’s will, according to Scripture, that he thank God for his loss of high-end grapes to that bear. Recently I forgot this…..
Praying For Those In Crisis
The past two years seem to have been medical crisis piled on top of medical crisis for us. I was reminded the other day about how people have been and are praying for us. Generic “God bless them” prayers are not the kind of prayer God is looking for from us, His children. Yet when it comes to praying for those who are experiencing hardship, we are sometimes at a loss to know how to…..
Perspective
Do you know anyone who has had the exact same experiences as yourself throughout your life? I don’t believe that is possible. Like fingerprints, each one’s set of life experiences is unique to each individual. Just as God created us unique human beings to begin with, our paths through life are also unique. The way we view life, God, even Jesus, is determined by a complex set of variants such as personality, physical characteristics, settings, and relationships. I’ll save…..
Colossians 1:12-29 gives an amazing description of our Lord Jesus Christ and of our relationship with Him. I find this a particularly encouraging section of Scripture in an era gone berserk over power and politics. First is a list of some of the attributes of Jesus Christ, then is a list of some of the benefits of our relationship with Jesus Christ, followed by a list of some of the results of those benefits in our lives, and all from this one passage of Scripture.
Forgiven
In last week’s devotional there is a list of characteristics of who I am in Christ. I did not include forgiven because it is the basis on which every other characteristic depends. There are a number of related terms that the Bible uses with this characteristic – like propitiation, justification, and sanctification – and they are all components of God’s forgiveness. Propitiation is the reason for, justification is the remedy from, and sanctification is the result of forgiveness.
Jesus…..
Who I Am In Christ
This weekend we will be singing the song “Who You Say That I Am” (Reuben Morgan and Ben Fielding, Arr. Jay Rouse, Word Music), in choir at church. God used the words to begin my thought process about my identity in Christ as a believer:
Trust and Obey
This week we found out that the two hotspots that showed up in Dan’s early September PET/CTscan were not cancerous. Between medical procedures and diagnostic tests related to events like this, there is always a lot of wait time. We’ve done this enough that we no longer engage in “what if” conversations and it seems these wait times have become just a normal part of our lives, as in “here we go again”. But through all of…..
Our Spiritual Heritage
When I was a senior in high school, I played the part of Captain Hook in the senior class skit for our Homecoming Pep Rally. Of course the audience booed when I entered, in the tradition of melodramas, because I was, after all, the bad guy. I had a mustache taped to my face and I made the red jacket with shiny gold buttons myself. My mother is the one who taught me to sew and, in…..
Battle-Ready Promises
In John 16:33 Jesus states, “These things I have spoken unto you that in me you might have peace. In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.” What a delight it is to know that God’s promises are not just hot air. God gave them to us and He will accomplish them in our lives through our faith.
There are many promises throughout Scripture, both in the Old and…..
When You Pray The Word
Do you remember this fabled prayer form? “Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray my soul to heaven He’ll take…God bless mommy and daddy, brother and sister, Uncle Henry and Aunt Matilda.” I don’t remember using the first part of this child’s prayer when I was a child, but I do remember praying the meaningless piffle of the…..