Wanna do something about it? (Matthew 7:12)

All the rules. All the warnings. All the cautionary tales. All the words. Everything that his audience had been learning since birth, Jesus said, could be summed up in one phrase. We call it the golden rule. We make it a wall plaque. We teach it to little children to train them to share. “So […]

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A prayer for the second Sunday in Lent

God. Abram was called by you and loved by you and blessed by you. But you say that it wasn’t his amazing personality or his wonderful business skills or his faithful worship that were behind the call and love and blessing. It was you all along. We forget that, God. We work hard sometimes, but […]

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Waiting is hard, part two (Matthew 7:7-12)

“But I’m not a two-year-old,” we say. “And besides, comparing people to God isn’t appropriate anyway.” Really? Are you sure? Because that’s exactly what Jesus does to help us understand how God listens to us. He’s talking to the crowd on the hillside. He’s been talking to everyone, but now he speaks directly to the […]

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Waiting is hard, part one (Matthew 7:7-12)

We all have stories about God not answering our prayer. We asked for help on the test. We failed. We asked for healing for the child. She died. We asked “Why?” We didn’t hear anything. Given our experience, many of us read these words that Jesus said and we cringe: “Ask and it will be […]

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Broken

Rich Dixon is helping us see that words matter. +++ Have you ever felt guilty? I know, it’s a silly question. At some point, we’ve all felt guilty about something. Different question – have you ever felt shame? Have you ever thought about the difference? A couple of weeks ago our pastor, Aaron Hanson, explained […]

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