We have no idea what the future will be, not even what the next minute after this one will bring. We are constantly surprised or appalled or frightened or delighted by what is in the next moment. Just this morning as I was preparing to drive my grandchildren to and from school—four trips today, a […]

Jesus spoke so often of those who could hear and see and those who couldn’t. I count 24 verses in the four Gospels echoing this theme. I am not so sure that we take to heart what He said. We think that we know what He means; we’ve heard the truth preached from the pulpit; […]

  God is the gardener, the pruner of the vine which is His son, Jesus Christ. Where we fit into this metaphor is as the branches off the one true vine. As the Gardener prunes our branch, He heals our sufferings and discards the unnecessary or the aberrant. He will bring us to our true […]

  “We can only be saved if we confess our sins” read the sign on the Trinity Baptist Church in Nebo NC. And I would add, to confess our sins is the first step towards a redemptive relationship with Jesus Christ. It is a very healing first step, but nonetheless not the end of the […]

Have you been tracking the pictures of magnolias in my neighborhood that I’ve been posting the last eight weeks alongside the blog posts on the Beatitudes?  The flowers have gone from a tight bud through various stages of opening to a full flower, suggesting that the Beatitudes are a flowering of human potential in God. […]

“So God created mankind in his own image…male and female he created them.“ [Genesis 1:27] And by extension so are each of us created in His image. But what does that mean? I believe that it means that there is something in us that reflects God, but that it remains a potential quality within us, […]

Don’t wait until you die to live in the kingdom of God! Jesus spoke of the kingdom in the present tense: it “is at hand,” [Matthew 3:2 KJV] or “has come near you,” [Matthew 3:2 NIV] “is within you,” [Luke 17:21 KJV] or “is in your midst,” [Luke 17:21 NIV] or “is already among you.”[Luke […]

  To me the church as a whole is losing membership in the United States because it is divided; it is apt to argue over different beliefs; it does not practice what it preaches. We Christians live a watered-down version of the Gospel of Jesus. We would rather fight with the different interpretations than live […]

Following all the heroes of the Old and New Testaments we aspire to be servants of God. From Abraham to Moses, from David to Isaiah, from Mary to John the Baptist, from Peter to Paul, we have prime examples of those men and women who heard the voice of God and followed it as best […]

  “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.” Psalm 100 is short and to the point: be joyful; know the Lord; we are his people; thank and praise him; bless his name. Celebrate our God and be grateful. We are his people; […]