Church

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:6-8 What does it mean to be ungodly? It's really not all that complex. It simply means to be unlike God. But it does go deeper than that. Imagine a child wandering into The Louvre in Paris with a Sharpie and drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa. What would you call that? A mistake? A felony? One appropriate word would be desecration.  At its core, desecration is a failure to respect a masterpiece, to not respect or uphold what is sacred. From the earliest pages of Scripture we learn that we are…

Sometimes we refer to the writers of the New Testament as “saints” such as St. Paul or St. Peter. But God didn’t seek us out because we were saints. He loved us when we were far from him. Listen to these sentences from Paul - they reveal three truths about ourselves and one amazing truth about God. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:6-8 Truth number one: we were powerless to change our own condition. A few years ago, I hurt my lower back. For the first several years I would have "flare-ups" every few months and they…

I shouldn't let a song that was first published in 1779 bother me so much. You probably know the first verse. "Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind but now I see." Did it bother you, too? Many of us love to sing Amazing Grace. It's a catchy tune and is perhaps the most translated hymn of all time. But more than just catchy, it captures the heart of the gospel itself. God's grace is indeed amazing. But do we have to call ourselves names? A wretch? Me? None of us like to think about how wretched we are. Compared to others, I'm doing pretty good. I'll pay good money to look and feel good. That's why we exercise or put on makeup in the morning (OK, I may not do either one of those but you…

Did you know there are over 12,000 books on Amazon tagged “change your life"? Here are just a few I found on the first two or three search pages ... Change Your Life in 7 Days How to Change your Life in the Next 15 minutes Change Your Life Today With The Secret Power of Color How to Completely Change Your Life in 30 Seconds One Word That Will Change Your Life If you don't want to wait 7 days to change your life, you can buy a book that promises to "completely change your life in 30 seconds." If that's not fast enough, then someone knows the "one word" that will overhaul everything you've learned and become. Or, maybe your problem has been that you're unaware of the secret power of color. Fuscia? Turquoise? Plain old blue? It's not that I have developed bad habits; I've just been ignorant…

A character in one of T.S. Eliot’s novels described the mediocrity of modern life this way: “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” At the beginning of this year, I handed out plastic spoons. I would have given everyone a cup of coffee, but spoons were cheaper. There is certainly nothing wrong with either coffee or spoons, especially coffee. But there is something wrong about … Settling for the natural when God offers the supernatural. Settling for the mundane when all around us is wonder. Settling for average when God expects excellence. What else would you add to that list?