The Christmas Journey The Christmas season is all about journeys. People are traveling in order to be home with family. Kids are heading to the Grandparent’s house. College campuses are abandoned ghost towns. The Christmas story itself is full of journeys. Joseph and Mary travelled to Bethlehem because of the census. The Angels traveled from […]
Do You Know Too Much About Jesus?
That Didn’t Turn Out So Well! A while back I was working through the Gospel of Matthew in my personal worship time. I came across a sad couple of verses at the very end of chapter 13. They challenged me and I thought they were worth passing on to you. The story is in Matthew 13:54-58. […]
God’s only motivation? God’s love.
If you grew up in the church, or have hung around it for any length of time, or even attended a football game for that matter, you’re familiar with John 3:16. This is the most famous verse in the Bible. “For God so loved…” It’s #1 on Bible Gateway’s most read verses. It’s been memorized […]
Born Again & Letting Go.
Holding Tight Didn’t Bring Peace. My story led me to a place where control and peace were linked together. I wanted peace. I imagined that meant less stress and emotional strain. The path there was through more control. By controlling my emotions, containing and suppressing them, I’d feel less pain. By controlling the world around […]
Jesus’ Cure for Anxiety
Too many things all at once. That’s the problem I’ve had this past month. Unexpected stressors have been pushing from too many directions. Complicated relationship and work issues. Financial struggles. Complicated parenting issues. None of these have a good clear solution. Maybe you’ve felt the same kind of stress and anxiety. I’ve been flooded with […]
Myth #3: Emotions Aren’t Spiritual
Now, onto Myth #3: Emotions Aren’t Spiritual. There is one particular story in the life of Jesus that was really uncomfortable for the little church I grew up in. It’s found in every one of the Gospels, so it wasn’t possible to ignore. Something about the story was powerful and important, but something else was a […]
Myth #1: God’s Not Emotional.
I remember seeing a Jesus movie as a kid, sometime in the middle seventies. The Jesus in that film was haunting. His long, blond hair hung limp down the sides of his gaunt face, framing piercing blue eyes that could see, I imagined, right into your heart. He spoke quietly. His words were delivered in […]
A Worship Short-Circuit.
I was preaching from the book of Jonah once and came across an interesting thought about worship. Most people know the set-up to the story, of course. Jonah gets tapped by God to go “cry out” against the wickedness of the city of Nineveh. But Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian empire, and […]
Worshipping as a Child.
I was reading in Matthew this morning and came across a little scene that sparked my thoughts. It’s the well-known passage where the disciples keep some children from coming to Jesus, and Jesus corrects them. Here’s the passage, Luke 19:13-14. “Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray […]
The Connection Between Gratitude and Worship
There are some things my parents used to say to me that I never thought I’d ever say. But things have changed. Now that I have a 4 1/2 year old and 3 year old running around the house, I’m starting to sound a bit like a broken record (or perhaps a sampled drum loop, […]
Declare Your Creed-In-Process.
I was reflecting on Matthew 16:15 as a part of my personal worship a few days ago. This is the moment where Jesus asks his disciples who they really think he is. They tossed around the latest news – some people thought Jesus was John the Baptist back from the dead. Others thought that perhaps he was […]