Pastor Prince

Can we ever change?  Are we fated to always be as we are, with no chance of development in faith and character? We can. But it isn't easy.  The scriptures have great examples, and in our "Comeback" worship unit, we're going to see what we can learn from them. Jacob is our first example.  He was always trying to gain an advantage over someone.  Even before birth.  He struggled in his mother's womb with his brother Esau to see who would be born first, gaining their father's birthright and blessing!  (Genesis 25:24-28).   Esau emerged first, but right behind him was Jacob, holding on to his heel.  That's where he got his name.  Jacob means "he grabs your heel."  It had a double meaning because in those days, a person who grabbed your heel was someone who tried to take advantage of you, to trip you up!  Jacob lived up to his name. First, he took advantage of his brother and got his birthright (Gen. 25:29-34).  Then, he and his moth

What are you afraid of?  Each of us has our own set of fears!  The scriptures talk about fear often.  One of those times involved a prophecy about the Messiah. In Isaiah 7, King Ahaz and all his officials are terrified!  Two nations were marching against them, and they were more than capable of destroying them. In that time, a message for Ahaz came to the prophet Isaiah.  The message was that he wasn't to be afraid.  God was going to deal with the nations marching against him. Isaiah said God wanted Ahaz to name a sign that his words were true.  When Ahaz refused, the prophet said the Lord would choose a sign himself.  A young woman would become pregnant and bear a son.  She would name the son Immanuel, which means "God with us."  Before that son grew to know right from wrong, the kings and nations Ahaz feared would be only a memory! Centuries later, Matthew 1 records that a young man was upset and fearful.  His name was Joseph.  He was betrothed to a

Christmas is supposed to be a happy time!  At least that what our cultural Christmas says!  It's supposed to be all about silver bells, shopping, and stuffing our bellies with goodies! But for many people, it isn't! For them, it's a time of sorrow.  They're grieving.  Some grieve the loss of loved ones.  Others grieve the loss of work, or the loss of community, or the breakup of a marriage, or alienation from friends or family.  Still others grieve the violence and injustice in our world. We seem to be light years away from peace on earth! But one of the great themes of the scriptural presentation of Jesus' birth is joy in sorrow. Isaiah 35 records a message God sent his sorrowful people.  They were in exile in Babylonia.  They were sorrowful because they were away from their homeland in a strange place with no hope of returning home. But in Isaiah 35, the prophet says God is going to bring them home in a joyful procession through the wilderness.  Joy a

Is there anything worse than feeling hopeless?  That things are bad and are going to be worse? That was the way many Israelites felt in Isaiah's time.  The army of the fierce Assyrian Empire was on their doorstep, ready to conquer them at any time.  Their leaders were weak and inept. Isaiah 11:1ff records that in that hopeless time, the Lord gave a message to the prophet.  The message was that a new branch would grow out of trunk of King David's tree.  God would endow that king with his Spirit, giving him the power to rule wisely and justly.  In this king's time, God would transform humanity, changing people from the inside out.  They would change because they would experience God in their hearts! Luke 1:26ff records that in an equally hopeless time, the angel Gabriel went to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin named Mary.  He told her that she would bear a son through God's Spirit. This son would sit on David's throne and rule over a kingdom t

Have you ever considered the fact that everything changed in world history when Jesus was born?  Many events changed the world.  But I can't think of an event that changed everything the way Jesus' birth did! One of the changes it brought was to bring light in darkness.  Isaiah 2:1-5 describes a vision of the prophet in which he sees this world changed.  Mt. Zion, the site of the temple of the Lord, will be raised above all the other mountains.  People all over the world will come to faith in the one true God.  They will travel to the temple to commune with God and learn his law.  They will take the law with them when they go home and transform the world. One of the great transformations is described in v. 4, in which war will become a thing of the past. God fulfilled this prophecy when he sent Christ into this world.  As written in John 1:1ff, Jesus was God's eternal Word in human flesh.  In him was life and that life was the light of humanity.   Jes

From its beginnings, the church has been subject to false prophets.  These are preachers who don't preach the truth.   But false prophets can be difficult to spot.  They can have all the outward appearances of authenticity.  They can preach from beautiful stages, have thousands of followers, and have big media ministries.  They can sound sincere and dedicated to God. Thankfully, Jesus gave us some help in Matthew 7:15-23.  He said we could tell them by their fruit, by what their preaching produces. That's great.  But it leads to another question:  What is that fruit? Jesus gave a clue to that in John 15.  He said that a person who's connected to him will bear good fruit.  And that good fruit is love! The apostle Paul also helped us by writing in Galatians 5:22-23 about the fruit of the Holy Spirit.  Leading that list is love.  All the other fruit flow from it! So if a preacher preaches something that leads us to hate, that preacher is a false pr

We make lots of choices in our lives.  Some small.  Like whether to have chocolate or vanilla.  Some big.  Like whom we will marry! In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus spoke about our biggest choice of all.  He told his hearers that they were at a fork in the road.  On one side was a wide gate and a broad road.  It was the one most people took.  On the other was a small gate and a narrow road.  It was the way few people chose. Jesus said that though the gate was wide and road was broad, they led to destruction.  The small gate and narrow road led to life! The wide gate and broad road represented the natural road of the world and its values.  It was the easiest and most obvious way.  That's why most people took it. The small gate and narrow road represented the way of following Christ.  The smallness of the gate and narrowness of the road represent the challenge and difficulty of following Christ.  Jesus said we have to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow him.

The Lord's Prayer is a fantastic prayer to pray.  When you pray it as an individual, it helps you focus on God's presence with you and his provision for you.  When you pray it in a group, you join with others in focusing on God and praying for the same things.   At graveside services, I often lead those gathered to pray the Lord's Prayer together.  There's an intangible wonder and comfort in joining with others to approach God this way. But the Lord's Prayer is also a great guide for prayer.  Praying according to the outline of the prayer can refresh your individual prayer times.   The prayer begins with worship.  Worship God in his holiness, sovereignty, and power. It continues to a request for God's kingdom to come on earth.  Pray that God's kingdom will grow in your heart and life, and that you'll live by the values of his kingdom every day. Pray that God will provide for your material needs.  Not your wants , but your needs

What is a hypocrite and how do you avoid being one? In Matthew 6:5ff, Jesus called his followers to not be like the hypocrites who put their piety on public display.   The word "hypocrite" comes from the theater.  In Jesus' time, when actors performed in plays, they wore masks.  "Hypocrite" means "to speak behind a mask."   What a great image for putting on show of being something you're not! Some say Christ followers are especially prone to hypocrisy because their standard is so high: Jesus Christ! There's some truth to that.  But a hypocrite isn't a person who aims high and falls short.  A hypocrite is one who aims high, falls short, but says he hit the target! How do we avoid hypocrisy?  First, by refusing to put on an outward show of our spirituality.  Second, by being honest about our failings with our fellow Christ followers and others. Throw away your mask and be real!   The Lord and others will b

I heard a teacher say once that we should only ask God for something once.  We should ask him once and trust him for the result.   But Jesus said something different.  It's something you can see in Greek, but not in English.  Greek has a verbal tense that implies continual action.  Matthew 7:7 is in that tense.  Jesus said, " Keep on asking and you shall receive, keep on seeking and you will find, keep on knocking and the door will be opened." So Jesus encouraged persistent prayer.   But about what?  We don't have to go to the Greek to find that.  In Matthew 7:12, he said, "So in everything, do to others what you want for them to do for you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."   Our asking, seeking, and knocking isn't about material goodies for ourselves.  It's about the power of the Holy Spirit to do others what we would want them to do for us.   Our persistent prayer should be that God will give us the power to

Years ago, a friend told me about an interaction he had with someone who didn't go to church.  The non-churchgoer said, "I'm looking for something that will be the stack pole of my life!" We non-farmers may not understand what he meant.  A stack pole is the center of a haystack.  It's what you stack all the hay on!   So this non-churchgoer was looking for something to build his life on.  Something that would hold up over time. In Matthew 7:24-29, Jesus used different images to talk about the same idea.  Instead of talking about a stack pole, he talked about wise and foolish builders.   The wise builder built his house on rock.  A terrible storm came.   The rain came down, the waters rose, and the wind blew.  But the house stood because it was built on rock. The foolish builder built his house on sand.  When the storm came, it came crashing down! Many teachers say the rock is Jesus.  That's partially true.  But it's more than th

We all worry.  Though it's a pointless expenditure of emotional energy!   In the 2015 movie "Bridge of Spies," James B. Donovan (played by Tom Hanks) takes on the legal defense of the Soviet Spy Rudolf Abel (played by Mark Rylance).  In the following scene, Donovan is in court talking about Abel's bleak prospects.   "Would it help?" is the laconic question that expresses the pointlessness of worry.  That's because the obvious answer is, "No!" In Matthew 6:25-34, Jesus make the same point.  "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?"  No one can!  But Jesus goes farther.  He says that when we worry, we act like pagans.  We act like people who worship gods who are uninterested in them.  Our God loves us, knows our needs before we ask him, and is willing to help. So next time you're tying yourself in knots about worry, remember Jesus, and ask yourself, "Is this helping?"  

We're material beings by nature.  That's a constant of human history.  Seems we can never get enough stuff.  No matter how much we make, we think if we made just a little bit more, we would be happy! But in Matthew 6:19-24, Jesus comes along and tells us not to accumulate wealth on earth, where we can lose it.  Instead, we should bank wealth in heaven, where we can't lose it. Makes sense, given that eternity is so long and life here on earth is so short.  But life here on earth is now and visible, and life in eternity is in the future and invisible! When we follow Christ, we enter God's eternal kingdom, and start living by its values.  The values of the kingdom are the opposite of those of the here and now.  The here and now evaluates people by how many material things they accumulate.  The kingdom evaluates them by how much they give away!  The list goes on! How do we accumulate heavenly treasure?  Jesus doesn't say here, but elsewhere he says

I hope you've been watching Ken Burns' documentary on country music.  Especially compelling to me was a segment on how difficult life was, even in the early decades of the 20th century.  One of the tributary streams of country music was church and gospel music.  For many people, their only hope the life to come.  Plus, contact with death was much more intimate.   One of the early country hits was "Can the Circle Be Unbroken" by the Carter Family.  (Yes, I know we know it as "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," but "Can" was the original!)  The song is a lament about the passing of a person's mother, the dearest person in her life.  The grief of the song is deep, but the hope is high.  The chorus says: Can the circle be unbroken, By and by, Lord, by and by. There's a better home a-waitin' In the sky, Lord, in the sky! The people in Bible times had even tougher challenges.  In addition to the harshness of life, they also

If you've ever been to court, you know that it can be an awesome experience.  The judge wears a black robe and sits above everyone else.  You feel the weight of his or her authority and the law.  Even if you're just an observer, you're impressed! The scriptures speak of a court experience we have ahead of us: the last judgment.  That's when we stand before God and give account for how we've lived! The last judgment is so awesome and personal that the scriptures use various pictures to describe it.  In Matthew 25, Jesus said it's like virgins keeping their oil ready for the bridegroom's return, like a master who settled accounts with his servants, and like a shepherd who separates his sheep from his goats at night. The apostle Paul said it was like an appearance before a high government official (2 Corinthians 5).  He also says it will be like fire applied to a house (1 Corinthians 3). The last picture in the scriptures is the great white throne

Anticipation of Christ's return was a fever pitch when I was in high school!  The book The Late Great Planet Earth was published, and became an immediate bestseller.  Every evangelist who preached a revival at our church did at least one sermon on it.  One evangelist looked at me and the rest of my youth group sitting at the front and said, "I believe not one of these teenagers will have a gray hair on their head before Christ returns!" Today, my hair is pretty much all gray, so that didn't quite work out! I inhaled all the anticipation and helped spread it!  But I didn't know that every generation of Christ followers expected Christ to return in their generation, and that the view of the end times I held was only one of several possible approaches. This led me to study the scriptures to find what the Bible actually says about Christ's return and to separate it from all the well-intentioned, but fanciful and false interpretations. Passag

  Zombies are everywhere!  In movies, video games, TV shows, and more!  Why is this? Zombies used to be live humans who were "under a spell."  But now, they're the living dead, products and residents of a post apocalyptic world.  They're usually created by some sort of global catastrophe, like a nuclear war, a deadly disease outbreak, or a scientific experiment gone wrong! Before World War I, people were basically optimistic about the future.  They thought humanity was on a steady upward climb, and life was going to get better and better.  But after two world wars, our outlook changed.  Add to those wars the nuclear bomb, and things look bleak.  For the first time in our history, it was possible for us to destroy ourselves. Zombies represent our attempt to deal with global destruction and death. The Bible has nothing good to say about death.  Even Jesus anguished over it in the Garden of Gethsemane.  In 1 Cor. 15, the apostle Paul calls it Chris

"Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44) may be the most difficult of all Jesus' commands!  It calls us to do something unnatural, something that in some ways seems unjust.   Its radical nature is one reason why some teachers have said that Jesus' Sermon on the Mount was intended for the time in the future when Jesus reigns on earth!  Who can follow such difficult commands? But Jesus showed us it could be done by his own life, as he loved everyone.  He spoke harsh words about the leaders of his people, but he asked God to forgive them while he hung on the cross. Jesus said we're to practice this kind of radical forgiveness so we can be sons of our Father in heaven.  In Jesus' time, people used the words "sons of" in an adjectival sense.  Instead of saying "evil men," they said "sons of evil." So to be a son of the Father is to behave like the Father.  The Father practices radical

We're in a peculiar place in our culture in relation to marriage.  On one hand, marriages are breaking up at a high rate.  On the other, gay people are wanted to get married.   This suggests to me that God has put in us a deep desire for the sustaining good marriage brings.  At the same time, our sinful brokenness makes it difficult to sustain our marriages.   In Matthew 5:27-32, Jesus addresses the topics of adultery and divorce. He says adultery is born in our inner lusts for each other.  Adultery begins in our hearts, so it's best to "nip it in the bud" while it's there.  Entertaining lustful thoughts is a sin in itself, which can lead to the sin of acting on them. Jesus says divorce is also a sin.  God's intention was for marriage to be one man and one woman in a one flesh relationship for life (see Genesis 2:23-24).  He said that if a man divorces his wife, he causes her to commit adultery.  That's because in those days, her only path

No human emotion is more powerful and dangerous than anger.  When I think of anger, I think of the Incredible Hulk! In the Marvel comic, Bruce Banner was a great scientist who was accidentally exposed to a massive dose of gamma rays.  The result was that whenever he gets angry, he transforms to a huge green beast in human form who proceeds to tear up everything around him. Like many comic book heroes, we can see the Hulk as a metaphor.  He's a metaphor for the potential beast in each of us. When our anger rises, we can become beasts who commit destructive acts in our rage. We find anger often in the scriptures.  In Genesis 4, Cain becomes angry at God because he didn't accept his offering.  God asks him why he's angry and warns him that sin is crouching at his door, ready to consume him.  Cain doesn't listen, and his anger leads him to commit the first murder. The Lord Jesus talked about anger in Matthew 5:21ff.  He quoted Exodus 20:13, which prohib

What role did Jesus want his followers to play in the world?  Matthew 5:13-16 says he wanted them to be penetrating and transforming agents for God's kingdom. In this passage, he said they were the "salt of the earth" and the "light of the world."  In Jesus' time, salt was a penetrating and purifying agent.  It penetrated food and killed the corruption in it.  That's why in the days before refrigerators people salted meats and other foods.  Light was a penetrating and revealing agent.  It penetrated the darkness and revealed what was in it.  It showed what was true. This passage appears in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7).  In this section, Jesus described the ideal attitudes and behaviors of kingdom citizens.  When you read through it, you'll find that kingdom citizens were to have unique lifestyles that went against the grain of our broken world.  As they went into the world and lived by the distinct values of the kingdom,

After an arduous 15-month-long journey, Meriwether Lewis arrived at the headwaters of the Missouri River.  As he took a drink from the cool spring there, he thought he would climb to the top of a nearby hill and see a slope that gently descended to the Columbia River.  He thought he and his men would carry their canoes on their backs down the slope for less than a day and reach the river.  Then they would ride that river downstream to the Pacific. But when Lewis climbed that hill, he couldn't believe his eyes.  Instead of seeing the gentle slope descending to the Columbia, he saw. . .the Rocky Mountains!   In this book Canoeing the Mountains , Tod Bolsinger compares the challenge of Lewis and Clark at the Lemhi Pass to that the of church in America today.  We've gone off our map.  The landscape we're in is totally different from what we've known.  Our "canoes," our past paradigms and programs, worked great in the past.  But they don't work in

In early 20th century America, modern science brought great advances to farming.  State universities developed agricultural schools, which trained farmers-to-be in their craft and developed new farming methods.   These schools had test facilities for farming that experimented with seeds, soil, and much more.  They often developed demonstration plots.  These demonstration plots showed what was possible, what could be.  They showed farmers new possibilities for improving their farms and income. Jesus' teachings suggest that he intended his church to be a demonstration plot for his kingdom.  In his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, we see the kinds of attitudes and actions kingdom citizens were to have.  His followers were to live in this world according to the values of the kingdom to come.  They were to be distinctive, showing what could be and would be when his kingdom came fully.   The most distinctive value of this demonstration plot was love.  John 13:34-35 re

Jesus' dream for his church was that it would penetrate and transform the world like salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16), assaulting the very gates of death (Matthew 16:18).   After his death, resurrection, and ascension, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, it did all these things!  It did it through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Church members received spiritual gifts, by which they equipped each other to be the body of Christ, continuing his work in the world (1 Corinthians 12:1-11; Rom. 12:3-8; Eph. 4:11-13).   Sadly, the church got off track.  In a way, it was a victim of its own success.  It became settled and institutional.  The practices of the baptism and the Lord's Supper became sacraments that required special handling.  Those special handlers became the clergy.  They became the ministers of the church.  Most people became the laity.  They became the supporters and consumers of the work of the clergy.   That arrangement worked well as along as Christiani

  In early 1963, America was quiet.  We were watching "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Petticoat Junction" on TV.  We had a young, charismatic president.  Nobody heard of Vietnam, LSD, or the Rolling Stones! But a 21-year-old singer songwriter named Bob Dylan wrote a song with the lyrics:             Come gather 'round people             Wherever you roam             And admit that the waters             Around you have grown             And accept it that soon             You'll be drenched to the bone.             If your time to you             Is worth savin'             Then you better start swimmin'             Or you'll sink like a stone             For the times they are a-changin'. Dylan probably wrote more than he knew!  We didn't know it, but a flood was coming.  This flood became a perfect storm for the church! Leonard Sweet wrote that beginning in the early 1960s, the church in the West sailed int

 These are tough days for most churches.  Most are stable to declining.  Not long ago, more were stable than declining.  But now, it may be more like 50/50! As churches face decline, they search for answers.  Their older members remember the good times of the 1950s and 1960s, when churches were growing, and most people went to church.  In addition to that, American culture supported church values. But beginning in the 1960s, things began to change.  First, mainline denominations like Methodists, Presbyterians, and Lutherans began steep declines.  In the 1970s, the popular wisdom among conservatives was that this decline came because of their liberal theology. But now in the early part of the 21st century, conservative denominations have started to decline as well.  The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has posted declines in membership for almost a decade.  Last year, it lost 200,000 members and 850 churches closed. What happened?  We don't have time to explore all that h

When you live somewhere according to the values of another place, conflict is inevitable.  When you live by the values of God's kingdom in this world, you swim against cultural, social, political, and maybe even religious currents.  Most people are floating downstream on inner tubes.  You're paddling upstream, getting in their way.  Collisions are bound to happen! That may be why Jesus' final beatitude says, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Jesus knew about persecution first hand!  According to Luke (4:28-30), his public ministry got off to a rocky start when people from his own  home town wanted to kill him!  He had ongoing verbal battles with Jewish religious leadership.  Finally, Jewish religious leaders teamed up with the Romans to crucify him. Soon, his followers were martyred for their commitment to him.  The first was Stephen.  Later, James.  Church tradition says nearly all his

It was the time of the Pax Romana (Roman Peace) .  The Roman Empire stretched across nearly the whole world people knew about in ancient times.  As it conquered new territories, it established peace between warring factions.  The powerful, disciplined Roman army kept the peace, leading to a time of great commerce and economic growth. In those days, Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." (Matthew 5:9). The Pax Romana was a peace kept .  Jesus spoke of peace made .  Peace keeping occurs when an army suppresses warring factions from killing each other.  Peace making occurs when walls are torn down, bridges are built, and people move from hate to love.  A kept peace remains only as long as the restraining force remains in place.  If peace isn't made, warring factions go back to their killing!  What do peacemakers look like?  Like Jesus!  Jesus spent his life building bridges between  God and people, a

  Medical science has developed amazing tests to look at our physical hearts.  They include catheterizations, CAT scans, MRIs and more.  They can even open our chests and examine our hearts with their own eyes.   But science will never develop a test that can look at our spiritual hearts.  That's our inner world of being, where we are who we are.   Ancient people believed their hearts were not only the center of their emotions, but also of their thoughts and will.  We say, "I thought."  They said, "I said in my heart."   In this context, Jesus spoke his sixth beatitude, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." The word "pure" means to be "thoroughly clean," even "scoured."  To be pure in heart is to be pure in your inner world, in the place where only you and God can see. Many religious leaders in Jesus' day weren't pure in heart.  They felt as long as they were clean in the

When you're hungry, all you can think about is food.  When you're thirsty, all you can think about is water.  That's because these are our most basic needs.  If we don't have them, we die. In his fourth beatitude, Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness."  Blessed are those who deeply long for righteousness. The Greek word Jesus used for "righteousness" comes from a root that refers to a standard, like a plumb line.  If a builder held a plumb line against a wall and the wall matched its straightness, it was righteous.   Biblical writers used "righteousness" in the context of relationships.  Relationships bring standards or expectations with them.  When we get married, we make vows to each other.  When we fulfill our vows, we're righteous.  If we don't, we're unrighteous. Our most important relationship is with God.  When we meet the demands of our relationship with him, we'

In his third beatitude, Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth."   "Meek" is one of the most misunderstood words in the Bible.  When I think of "meek," I think of Clark Kent.  Superman's secret identity.  Apparently Superman thought it would be good to choose an alter-ego who was the opposite of himself.  Clark Kent is a meek, mild-mannered reporter for "The Daily Planet" who speaks softly and runs from danger. But the Greek word for "meek" in this passage doesn't describe someone who's shy and cowardly.  Instead, to refers to people who have their power under control.   So when you think of "meek," think of Superman, not Clark Kent!  Superman is extremely power, but he's disciplined in the exercise of it.  He could tear people apart, but he chooses not to kill. Two people described by the Bible as meek fit this idea: Moses and Jesus.  Numbers 12:1ff describes Mo

Nobody likes to grieve.  That's because we grieve when we've lost something.  And losing something is rarely good! But Jesus said in his second beatitude (Matthew 5:4) that those who mourn are blessed , because they will be comforted.  God will come alongside and help them in their loss. To be sure, God comforts us when we lose our loved ones.  I can testify to God's help in my own losses.  But I think Jesus was reaching beyond mourning the loss of our loved ones.  He was talking about mourning over our sin. In 2 Corinthians 7:8-10, the apostle Paul spoke of sorrow that led to repentance.  Godly sorrow can lead to good change.   Our great grandparents mourned over their sins.  Many churches had "Mourners' Benches" in them, where Christ followers would fall on their knees and confess their sins to God.  But we don't do such things!  We don't reflect much on our sins.  "Sinners" are other people! The result is we never

In Matthew 5:3 Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  Who are the poor in spirit and why are they blessed?   The poor in spirit are the humble who know they need God and others.  Sometimes it helps to understand what something is by looking at its opposite.  The opposite of being poor in spirit is to be prideful.  Revelation 3:17-18 speaks of the church of Laodicea.  It was a church that thought it was rich and didn't need a thing from God or anyone else.  But Jesus tells it that it's really poor, miserable, blind and naked!  He calls on it to humble itself and turn to him for what it needs! The church in America today is a lot like that church.  It's wealthy and spoiled.  Oftentimes American churches are inward-focused and blind to the needs of the communities that surround them.  They have great buildings and programs.  But they're spiritually impoverished. The poor in spirit are blessed because t

Two constants of human life are birth and death.  Every human experiences them.  Birth is a time of joy.  We celebrate our birthdays each year to commemorate the years we've lived since then.  Death is a time of sorrow and loss.  It's the great consumer of human life. Isaiah 25:6-9 says one day God will change all that.  He will take away the shroud that covers all nation.  He'll swallow up death forever.   In John 12:20-25, Jesus said the time had come for him to be glorified.  He said that unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies, it produces many seeds.  Then he said those who try to save their lives will lose them, but those who hate their lives in this world will keep them for eternal life.   He was referring to his own death and resurrection, and to the life that would come to us through them.  The apostle Paul used a similar image in 1 Corinthians 15:35-36, 42-44.  He said that our bodi

We walk the earth thinking we own lots of stuff.  Our houses, cars, jewelry, cell phones, stocks, etc., etc.  But the truth is we're only stewards. We receive or earn things and use them for a while.  But at last we pass them on to others. If you're a Christ follower, you're also a steward of the good news of Christ and the gospel.  You received it from others and now God has entrusted it to you.  What will you do with it? Jesus spoke of this in his parable of the tenants in Matthew 21:33-46.  Originally, it was a parable directed at Jewish leaders.  It's really more of an allegory than a parable.  In it, Jesus shows how the priests and Pharisees had taken a living faith and turned it into something corrupt that took people away from God.  Ultimately, they rejected God's Son when he came to him. Those leaders blew it.  It seems some of us are doing the same thing.  Some of us have created a legalistic conservative evangelicalism that takes people aw