So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith,
Summary: Learning to trust Jesus is a big step for people who are used to trusting themselves.
Continue reading “Galatians 3:26 – Good and Right”Galatians 3:22b – Letting Go, Grabbing On
… so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
Summary: Paul is very close to his topic. So close that he makes assumptions about his audience and what they know. Deconstructing what Paul says requires us to look into the Old Testament for clues.
Continue reading “Galatians 3:22b – Letting Go, Grabbing On”Ephesians 2:10c – Gardeners
… which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Summary: What kind of “good works” does God have for us to do? Looking through the Scriptures it seems clear that one way of looking at our work for God is to be caretakers for his Garden.
Continue reading “Ephesians 2:10c – Gardeners”2 Peter 1:3b — A Godly Life
… has given us everything we need for a godly life …
Summary: What is a godly life? It is a question we should spend some time thinking about. Jesus is God, so we know that we should be like him, but are we to be like him in every way?
Continue reading “2 Peter 1:3b — A Godly Life”1 Peter 1: 11 (b) — The Value of Hindsight
…when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah …
The suffering of the Messiah is the pivotal event in all human history. Without a willing Messiah, humanity would have eventually burned itself up. In the final analysis, after all the souls were counted, God would not have had much to show for his trouble. The rest of us would have ended up in the eternal garbage bin, languishing forever in the vacuum of rejection we had crafted for ourselves.
But that is not how it played out. Instead, the God who created us became our savior. More than that, our salvation was not an impulsive gambit. It was not a last-minute effort to save the day. Instead, our God knew from the very beginning that a savior would be needed. (See Genesis 3: 14-15) He also knew who that savior would be, and the point in history when salvation needed to occur.
Continue reading “1 Peter 1: 11 (b) — The Value of Hindsight”Remembering
Imagine two old shepherds sitting around the fire reminiscing about the “good ol’ days” when they were younger and would spend all of their time with the sheep. The fire crackles gently as the cool of evening settles in around them like a dark blue shawl on their shoulders. The stars begin to come out and one shepherd says to the other, “Remember that night when the stars came alive and we heard angels speak and saw the baby Messiah?”
Continue reading “Remembering”The Sign
The power and majesty of God’s angels must be something to see because they always begin their message with, “Do not be afraid…” In this encounter the message is:
Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.
Luke 2: 11-12
The fact that Jesus has been born in a stable and is lying in a manger becomes a “sign” to the shepherds. In effect, the angel’s message is that the verification of what we have told you about the Messiah will be the unusual sight of a baby in among the sheep in the barn.
Continue reading “The Sign”Peace
Zechariah’s prophecy about Jesus and his son, John, comes to a close with this amazing stanza:
…By which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.
Luke 1: 78b-79
The imagery here is powerful. The “rising sun” coming to us from heaven is visual imagery for the coming of Jesus Christ, the Messiah.
The light from this sun shines on those here on earth living in darkness. The darkness is caused by the shadow of death. Anyone who has lost a loved one to death knows what that feels like.
Continue reading “Peace”