In our last series, “My Next Steps”, did you notice that all those steps brought you more and more into community and fellowship with others? That isn’t a coincidence. That’s how God designed it. As we grow stronger in our conviction, as we build our own family churches, as we express our commitment to Christ, all of those things bind us closer and closer to other Christians. Those steps bind us into gatherings, a congregation—our church! When we live according to God’s plan, what we do as indiv...
May 04, 2023•2 min
The martyrdom of Stephen was a display of commitment that God used to change the Christian church and the world. It was the watershed moment between a local religious group and a worldwide church. But that commitment didn’t just happen in a moment. And it didn’t come from just one man. Look at all the displays of commitment in this reading. The church was committed to serving the members of its family. The Apostles were committed to the ministry of the word. The deacons stood up and made a commi...
May 01, 2023•34 min
Doesn’t the description of the Jerusalem church sound wonderful? People eating together, sharing with each other, hanging out together, showing love and respect to each other—people outside the church love it too and want to be part of the group. Where does that kind of community come from? It comes from repentance—the whole process of repentance. The Jerusalem church had a vivid awareness of their sinfulness, and a joyful appreciation of the forgiveness they had because of the sacrifice of Jesu...
Apr 24, 2023•33 min
Doesn’t the description of the Jerusalem church sound wonderful? People eating together, sharing with each other, hanging out together, showing love and respect to each other—people outside the church love it too and want to be part of the group. Where does that kind of community come from? It comes from repentance—the whole process of repentance. The Jerusalem church had a vivid awareness of their sinfulness, and a joyful appreciation of the forgiveness they had because of the sacrifice of Jesu...
Apr 24, 2023•21 min
Peter was not content to merely know what he had seen. He repeatedly refers to other witnesses. He reviewed the testimony of the Old Testament. He was determined to not only know that Jesus rose, but to strengthen his conviction with proof after proof. Let us not be content with knowing that Jesus rose, or hearing about it once or twice. Instead let’s intentionally strengthen our conviction. How? By examining all the witnesses in scripture we can find. By talking about Jesus’ resurrection with f...
Apr 17, 2023•31 min
Jesus walked his earthly life with direction and purpose. Every step led to his final steps, carrying his cross, and our sins to Calvary. And then, on Easter morning, he breathed again, he stood up from the cold stone and took his first steps out of the tomb. We watched him take his final steps to the cross for us. We celebrated his resurrection, his life, his first steps out of the grave! So now what? What’s next? What are my next steps? If you have ever heard about the amazing things Jesus has...
Apr 13, 2023•2 min
Together the witnesses shout to us, “Easter is real! The Lord’s gracious forgiveness of sins is real!” Jesus made that crystal clear when he sent Mary with a message for his “brothers.” Even the greeting was pure grace for those who had scattered like scared rabbits into the night outside Gethsemane only days before. There is the same pure grace for us too who sometimes get stuck in our Good Friday nightmares. Because, you see, the writer to the Hebrews assures us that the risen Lord is not asha...
Apr 10, 2023•29 min
Together the witnesses shout to us, “Easter is real! The Lord’s gracious forgiveness of sins is real!” Jesus made that crystal clear when he sent Mary with a message for his “brothers.” Even the greeting was pure grace for those who had scattered like scared rabbits into the night outside Gethsemane only days before. There is the same pure grace for us too who sometimes get stuck in our Good Friday nightmares. Because, you see, the writer to the Hebrews assures us that the risen Lord is not asha...
Apr 10, 2023•28 min
Tenebrae, which is a Latin word meaning "shadows," has been observed in the church of Jesus Christ since the fourth century. On this Good Friday we remember the death of Jesus and recall his seven last words on the cross. As we remember the last words, we extinguish the candles on the communion table, one by one. The gradual extinguishing of the candles is accompanied by prayers, hymns, choral anthems, and readings from Scripture. Following the final hymn, the Christ candle is removed briefly fr...
Apr 08, 2023•18 min
Listen closely: “My time is near. I will observe the Passover with my disciples at your house” (Matthew 26:18). “My time is near.” The chosen time! The appointed time! The time our Lord had set from eternity itself was now at hand. The set time for all of our Savior’s final steps! To the upper room. To the garden. To Judas who betrayed him with a kiss. To the trials. To the scourgings. To the spitting. To the stone pavement and the trial before Pontius Pilate. To the Via Dolorosa—the road of sor...
Apr 07, 2023•24 min
Jesus' grand entrance into Jerusalem paved the way for our Savior’s final steps to his cross. And that was always the goal, because saving us was his mission. Saving us was his purpose. Saving us is what he did when he bowed his head and died, when he dragged down into his grave the most-deadly infection to ever plague our world! A cross-generational pandemic with a 100 percent fatality rate: sin (yours, mine, and everyone else’s too). Our fears and our worries right now: “What if there’s anothe...
Apr 03, 2023•28 min
Jesus' grand entrance into Jerusalem paved the way for our Savior’s final steps to his cross. And that was always the goal, because saving us was his mission. Saving us was his purpose. Saving us is what he did when he bowed his head and died, when he dragged down into his grave the most-deadly infection to ever plague our world! A cross-generational pandemic with a 100 percent fatality rate: sin (yours, mine, and everyone else’s too). Our fears and our worries right now: “What if there’s anothe...
Apr 03, 2023•22 min
When Paul was known as Saul, he was a famous enemy of the church. His zeal for persecuting the church made his conversion all the more shocking, and his testimony even more powerful. And Paul could have used those facts to rationalize away his regrets. This is perhaps the most common response to regret that pop-psychology can give. “You learned from your mistakes. Your experiences made you who you are. You have grown, and you shouldn’t regret the process that got you here.” That kind of thinking...
Mar 27, 2023•28 min
Fiction only resonates with us when it reflects fact. Think of our fictional heroes. Do you know what so many of them have in common? Regrets. So many of them have something in their past, some failing, some loss, something that they wish they could change. But even with their superpowers, they can’t. Batman’s parents are dead. Spiderman, his uncle Ben. Ironman had a whole history of arms dealing. Black Widow is obsessed with clearing the red from her ledger. Even Superman, the last of his peopl...
Mar 20, 2023•30 min
As soon as we do something we regret, we want to hide it. Secret sins are a lie that began with the devil’s lie in the garden. As soon as Adam and Eve sinned they hid, they created a secret, something that “nobody knows.” What a silly lie! Nobody knows? No, everybody knows! Adam, Eve, God, the Devil—who else was there? And what good did hiding bring? Our hiding is no less silly but easier to rationalize. It’s not that everyone knows—there are plenty of people who don’t know. But it’s not really ...
Mar 13, 2023•41 min
In this second week, it is necessary to make a distinction between healthy and unhealthy regret. Healthy regret is essential to repentance—what we would call contrition. The proper response to contrition is to immediately take it to the cross and leave it there. As the theme song says: “You were never meant to carry this beyond the cross.” But that is not what we usually do. We stay there in the past ruminating and pounding on the brick wall of the past that we cannot change as if we will make a...
Mar 06, 2023•30 min
The best thing for us is to move forward, and the primary thing preventing that is our own arrogance. The belief: “If I could go back, I’d do it differently!” grossly overestimates our ability, power, wisdom and goodness. Is the problem really that you didn’t know it was a bad idea in the first place? Have you ever made the same mistake twice? Being convicted of our sinful arrogance allows us to live in the present, as David did, accept the reality that our sins have brought, hold on to the forg...
Feb 27, 2023•33 min
The best thing for us is to move forward, and the primary thing preventing that is our own arrogance. The belief: “If I could go back, I’d do it differently!” grossly overestimates our ability, power, wisdom and goodness. Is the problem really that you didn’t know it was a bad idea in the first place? Have you ever made the same mistake twice? Being convicted of our sinful arrogance allows us to live in the present, as David did, accept the reality that our sins have brought, hold on to the forg...
Feb 27, 2023•26 min
As we seek to bring everyone in our area of influence closer to Christ, it is good to evaluate our own situation. How close to Christ am I? What does being close to Christ really look like? To the outside world, the Pharisee looked close to God. He certainly thought he was, and you could see it in his posture. He stood tall with no regrets, but that was a sham. The reality was he was about as far from God as possible. The Tax Collector stood at a distance, bowed down with regret. This is the pro...
Feb 23, 2023•20 min
As we seek to bring everyone in our area of influence closer to Christ, it is good to evaluate our own situation. How close to Christ am I? What does being close to Christ really look like?
Feb 22, 2023•1 min
“Acting out of love, to show mercy, to correct injustices, to set things right...is beautiful. Love should be motivation enough to do the right thing. And not 'love' as a fuzzy abstraction, but love as a gutsy, willful decision to seek the best for others. What the world really needs, I think you’ll agree, is not a group of people patting themselves on the back for being angry. We need people who actually set things right.” —Brant Hansen
Jul 11, 2022•30 min
“This gavel, the one I awarded myself—who knows why?—is really, really heavy. I can keep pronouncing everyone else guilty for the rest of my life, but I’m not sure why. I don’t want this anymore. Maybe you know what I mean. So let me ask you… Ain’t you tired?” ~Brant Hansen, Unoffendable, p. 61 Anger and rest are always at odds. You can’t have one without the other.
Jul 04, 2022•24 min
“This gavel, the one I awarded myself—who knows why?—is really, really heavy. I can keep pronouncing everyone else guilty for the rest of my life, but I’m not sure why. I don’t want this anymore. Maybe you know what I mean. So let me ask you… Ain’t you tired?” ~Brant Hansen, Unoffendable, p. 61 Anger and rest are always at odds. You can’t have one without the other.
Jul 04, 2022•34 min
“When I was learning to drive, my grandparents' neighbor gave me some advice: "Always assume every other driver is an idiot." What he meant was that you can't assume other drivers are going to do the right thing, but could there be a problem with launching out into the world assuming everyone's an idiot but me? Can we even do Jesus work at all in the world with that outlook? Is there a better way, a more humble way?” Brant Hansen.
Jun 27, 2022•22 min
“When I was learning to drive, my grandparents' neighbor gave me some advice: "Always assume every other driver is an idiot." What he meant was that you can't assume other drivers are going to do the right thing, but could there be a problem with launching out into the world assuming everyone's an idiot but me? Can we even do Jesus work at all in the world with that outlook? Is there a better way, a more humble way?” Brant Hansen.
Jun 27, 2022•33 min
This week we kick off a new series: "UNOFFENDABLE". It's inspired by Brant Hansen's excellent book by the same title, that challenges us to question the myth of "righteous anger" and learn to react to offenses with love, patience, and humility.
Jun 20, 2022•32 min
