Getting to Work

There were a couple of times this past week our Lenten devotional These Forty Days referred to a work that Christians need to do in order to please our Lord. I found these words convicting and pray I will live up to them. Matthew 7:24-27 talks about The Wise and...

What Are We Concerned With?

I am writing this on Saturday, after I read the Lenten devotional for today in These Forty Days. It is based on Matthew 6:19-34. Dr. Rowell talked quite a bit about what our choices look like and how we exercise discipline in how we choose to spend our time, or when...

Loving Your Enemies

We have heard it said that we are to love our enemy, yet that is something that we as people can find to be really hard. No one wants to love, or even help the ones that have caused them harm, yet that is the very thing that God is calling us to do. To love those that...

Forgiveness, Rights, and Pride

Today’s Lenten reading is from Matthew 5:23-26 and deals with the idea of forgiveness. Jeren Rowell writes, “forgiveness can seem a scandalous response to the abuses we sometimes suffer. Yet there it is at the heart of the gospel, calling us to lay down...

Communion is Betrothal

Most Christians have long recognized that marriage is a metaphor throughout Scripture to describe the relationship between God and humanity. We see it in both the Old (Genesis, Hosea, Song of Solomon) and the New Testament where Jesus himself often refers to the...

Thoughts to Begin Lent

The first day in our Lenten devotional These Forty Days, the following prayer was shared: Father, as we begin this Lenten journey, we pray your watchful care over us as we seek to overcome evil by the power of and grace of the Spirit. Through our sacrifices of self,...