Jim Wolfe traces God’s redemptive plan through four Old Testament R20;roadside attractions” that foreshadow Christ — skins, boxes, baskets, and snakes. Along that scenic route, we arrive at the true meaning of Christmas, an attraction we actually need.
We live in an information age, bombarded with worldly wisdom, theological wisdom, biblical wisdom, and endless R20;pratical” wisdom for Christian living—and much of it may actually be wise. Yet Paul’s words encourage us to ask: R20;Does all this knowledge lead us to know God, or have we mistaken knowing things about Him for knowing Him?”
It’s easy to look across the room and thank God we’re not like that person—the failure, the compromiser, the obvious sinner. In Luke 18, Jesus tells a parable to confront such self-righteousness in us.
Most of us are quicker to panic over a dying phone battery than over a dying spiritual one—we coast along, confident we’re fine, while the indicator drops lower than we’d ever admit. As Jesus calls a written-off man in Jericho, He challenges all of us on this: R20;Do we know how much we need Him?”
We live in a world of constant flux, where nothing is truly stable and even the things that feel permanent haven’t been around that long. Yet Ephesians 1 takes us further back than any of it: God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.
God works through ordinary people facing extraordinary pain. Hannah, a barren woman in a hostile household, pours out her anguish before the Lord rather than seeking revenge or retreating and He answers. He still does.
Comfort, institutional preservation, and tribal identity can crowd out obedience to God’s call in our lives. Do we hear His call to reach those in need of His Grace and to live in the R20;risky repentance” that involves?
We all arrive at Advent carrying something broken—a diagnosis, a fraying relationship, a season that feels anything but joyful—and our instinct is right: we want God to fix it. In John 6, the crowd feels exactly that after watching Jesus feed five thousand people, so they move to do something about it. The question the passage presses on us is whether we actually understand what problem he came to fix.
A family road trip starts with dreams of Disneyland but quickly devolves into complaints, blame, and chaos. Moses faced something far harder: leading a people from slavery to freedom, only to watch them reject the promised land itself and wander forty years in the desert. The heart, Deuteronomy 30 suggests, is the real problem—and no change of scenery will fix it.
Few prayers are more dangerous than R20;God, give me what I want”—especially when what you want looks strong, secure, and respectable. In 1 Samuel 8, Israel asks for a crown R20;like all the nations,” rejecting the King already among them, and God grants the request—setting in motion a search that turns from outward stature to the hidden allegiance of the heart.