living for eternity today
Why do we celebrate Christmas? Why do we gather around a tree with our family and give each other gifts? Why is it ok for a large man in a red suit to invite children to sit on his lap and no one finds that wrong? Why is it that we tend to fill our churches on Christmas more than on the Sunday after Christmas? This week in our Adventually series we address the idea of love by asking the question why.
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As children we focused on getting presents! And it really was all about the presents and the bows and the stockings and the fun new toys. But as I got older, I started to act like Christmas was still about the presents. Just in a little different way. I started to treat Christmas like it was all about how much I could give to my family and friends at Christmas time. But that’s not the point either.
Continue readingThis year as we journey toward Christmas we are looking at Christmas from different angles. Our theme is It’s all about the presence. Yes I know. It’s a fun play on words. But it should get us thinking a bit. We live in a world that thinks Christmas is all about the presents when in actuality they’re just a few letters off! So if Christmas is all about the presence, can we have Christmas without all of the normal stuff?
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It’s pretty easy to give words to Jesus. It’s way to simple to twist the words of the Bible to make them say just about anything we want. Over the past few weeks we’ve touched on just a couple of these statements that Jesus never said but we kind of think he said. The goal of the series was to show that we should be glad Jesus never actually said them! This week we wrapped up the series with the realization that life isn’t fair and that’s probably a good thing!
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Growing up I went to church just about every Sunday. I didn’t have an option. My parents even made me acolyte (fun church word for light the candles). The pastor asked me to read the readings when no one else was around to do them. And over and over the message that was taught, often unknowingly, was that the more time we spent with Jesus the better our lives would become. This message has gotten so prevelant that pastors are preaching it and writing books about how to have our best life now with little mention of Jesus anywhere at all!
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I still remember the day. I was driving from Cincinnati back to Marysville and I was going down State Route 38 almost to London. When around the curve he came. It was a State Highway Patrol doing his job but man I really didn’t want to see him that day. I was traveling at a slightly elevated rate of speed (very politically correct way of saying I was speeding). And as soon as I saw him I knew it. I felt that feeling we get when we’ve been caught. It’s when the heart jumps into our throat and we just want to vomit. Then it happened, his lights turned on and he did a u-turn right there in the middle of that two lane road. Ugh! I was caught. Remorse set in.
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This week is a pretty special week for those of us who are in the Lutheran Church world. This week, if you’re following a church calendar of any kind, you’ll notice was the week of the reformation. Now this isn’t something we go around talking about everyday so perhaps a quick history lesson is in order.
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We’re five weeks into his series now and things are really getting exciting with the Red Letter Challenge! Just a few short days left and a Sunday of celebration and the challenge is done. But I’d be remiss if we didn’t address what this whole thing has been about to begin with. I mean if I’m being honest it all comes down to this week in my mind. This is kind of the pinnacle of the entire series.
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There’s no such thing as a greedy Christian. If you know someone, or are yourself, who calls themselves a Christian and yet lives a pretty stingy and greedy life then perhaps we need to revisit what a Christian is! In my point of view you can’t be a Christian, or what I consider a Jesus follower, and be greedy. It just can’t happen!
Continue readingFor some people serving is something they do. But for the Jesus follower it should just be part of who we are. That was this week’s focus in our Red Letter Challenge. Throughout the week we’ve been challenged to find creative ways to serve one another. Maybe it’s someone in your house or maybe it’s someone at work or even someone in your neighborhood – whoever it is find a way to touch their lives with an act of service.
Jesus was known for serving people. As a matter of fact, Jesus made it a practice to touch someone’s life before he taught someone a life principle. This week in our message we spent time seeing how Jesus has already touched our lives. Then we dug into the life lessons we’ve gleaned from this touch and the teaching that undoubtedly followed. If you have about 25 minutes, you should check out this week’s Red Letter Serving message.
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