For several months now, we have been talking about how Jesus gets us. This past Sunday, Pastor Harry asked us if we get HIM. He is relevant, but in what ways? Aside from the fact that we are finite in understanding, there are certain things that God has chosen to...

Perhaps we are familiar with the definition of repentance as being a “turning away” from one thing (sin) towards another (Christ), or as Pastor Mark put it Sunday, an about-face. However, let’s reconsider the participation of the mind in the phenomenon of turning away. For many of us who already...

Reviewing Peter’s growth through Christ is an interesting study, perhaps one that somewhat matches your own.  Spiritual growth usually takes a circuitous path and while my experience with it is perhaps not as dramatic as Peter’s, it has been rocky at times nonetheless.  Let’s take a very macro review. In...

“Holy” is a word similar to “glory” in that we say it often in worship, perhaps with the idea of it having some exalted meaning, but in reality, are unsure exactly what that exalted meaning is. It doesn’t help that, from Batman to the President, we use “holy” to qualify...

Recently, we have talked much about the humanity of Jesus. He was misunderstood, rejected, and accused falsely…in other words, “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces He was despised, and we held Him in...

John 3:16 (NKJV) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. This scripture, which we all know by heart, says “whosoever”, which is an all-encompassing term, without exclusion/all inclusive.  God doesn’t reject people...

Sometimes when reading the Old Testament, I feel sorry for the Israelites. Imagine being the guinea pigs, in a manner of speaking, with all of your obvious failures laid bare for everyone to read and disparage afterward for thousands of years. It is so tempting to read their story of...

Community is about inclusion. Think about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s  speech in 1963 in front of the Lincoln Memorial.  It was about inclusion of people of color along with elimination of the manacles of segregation and chains of discrimination. Lack of inclusion creates loneliness. With our schedules the way they...