Archive for November 2018
Friendship
At some of the bigger teachable moments in his disciple’s lives, Jesus would often eat with them. He would break bread with them. Whether it was in the Passover at the Last Supper, eating fish at the Sea of Tiberius or inviting himself to dinner at a tax collectors house, eating with someone symbolic of…
Read MoreMaking Each Other Better
One of the most gracious things God has done in the world is inventing marriage. I say “invent” because it goes all the way back to the beginning. God placed Adam in a perfect environment called the Garden of Eden. Everything was placed at his fingertips. He had a place to live, a purpose to…
Read MoreHappy Thanksgiving
Jesus was intentional about caring for people, especially excluded and forgotten people. Do you find that often your method of loving on people or helping them or serving them is accidental? It’s not necessarily planned. It just “sort of” happens…by accident. Now, that’s not always a bad thing. It’s refreshingly surprising when an opportunity raises…
Read MoreThe Truth
One of my mentors through the years used to say, “Don’t check your brain at the door.” That was his way of saying, “Use your head. Don’t do things arbitrarily.” “Have a reason for everything you do.” I’ve tried to take it to heart, some days are better than others. But, living life on purpose…
Read MoreGood Fear
There are erroneous ideas about the phrase “the fear of the Lord.” It’s a recurring theme throughout the book of Proverbs. Solomon writes that true wisdom is not a result of the collection of knowledge. Rather, it is gained through “the fear of the Lord.” The fear of the Lord does not mean to be…
Read MoreHow do we Know Love?
How do we know love? If that is a question you’re dealing with, you’ll be happy to know that John gives an answer. He says you can know and identify Jesus’ love by his sacrificial actions. That’s a pretty amazing statement in itself, but he continues and says, because Jesus did it, we should lay…
Read MoreGod’s Got You
Pessimists think the worst and hope for the best. I have no data for this, but it seems the world is disproportionately filled with more pessimists than optimists. They live out Murphy’s Law in real life every day: “If anything can go wrong, it will.” Did you know that “Murphy” was a real person? Capt.…
Read MoreChip off the Old Block
“Like Father, like son.” We understand that to mean a son will have traits similar to his father when he reaches adulthood. There are other idioms that convey the same thing. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” “He’s a chip off the old block.” Now, this can be taken both positively or negatively.…
Read MoreThe Choice of Love
It’s easy to love our friends. Just about everybody does that. It gets a little harder to love some distant family members. You know what I mean I’m sure. The old adage, “you choose your friends, you inherit your family” often applies. The real challenge, however, is loving your enemies. How in the world can…
Read MoreReal Love
An interesting thing to consider about the Apostle John’s statement “God is love”. Some have turned the phrase around saying, “Love is God” or just reducing it “God is loving”. That is not what the statement means at all. This is not indicating that one of God’s attributes is love. It is really much bigger…
Read More