What Kind of Love Do You Have For God?
In Sunday’s message about Job, I talked about how important relationship is when it comes to getting answers to our questions about God. The question that Job is really being tested on is this: can he love God for who God is—or does he only love God for what God can do for him?
The Importance of A Noise Cancelling Lifestyle
While hiding in a cave on the mountain the word of God asks Elijah, ‘What are you doing here?’ Elijah proceeds to launch into a rather whiney rant along the lines of “No one likes me, Everybody hates me, and all my hard work and sacrifice on your behalf, Lord, has fallen on deaf ears.”
And here’s what most people miss about this story:
So Is People Pleasing Such a Bad Thing?
This is a fair question, based on Sunday’s sermon. Wanting to make others happy isn’t a bad thing in itself. It’s what it does to the one who is compelled to please—someone with a compulsion to win the approval of others.
Being Lucky, Being Touched by Grace
On Sunday we talked about luck and how in some instances God’s grace can feel a lot like very good luck. We are beyond fortunate in being loved for who we are and not what we have done or not done to meet the standards a good and loving God lays out for us.
Archived Posts
One More Piece of Unsolicited Advice
I had one too many examples yesterday. Here’s the "Ask Pastor Tim" scenario that didn’t make the cut for Sunday’s sermon: (read more)
Not If, But When, the Crisis Comes
One of the best Bible commentators alive today is N.T. Wright or Tom Wright. When reflecting on the parable of the wise and foolish maidens, he wrote this:...
What I wanted to say
but ran out of time this Sunday
Here is the benediction I was going to use before discovering the excellent MLK Jr. video.
The Storm that Comes To Us as Helplessness
I want to share with you a small portion of my conversation with Artificial Intelligence online. Some of you know, I use Chat-GPT as a thoughtful sounding board for the questions and insights I’m working with on whatever scriptures I’m studying each week. What follows is an example of those discussions...
One Final Scene About Scrooge
There was one more scene in Dickens’s novel that reveals something of what has happened to Scrooge over the years. I did not have time to share it on Sunday, but I believe it reveals a great deal about the regrets in Scrooge’s life....