O Christmas (Faith)Tree is something very special: a celebratory service at 7:00 p.m. on December 6 that interweaves favorite Christmas carols and songs — both old and new and in a range of styles — with the story of Christmas that runs from Genesis through Revelation.
Most of us havenR17;t murdered anyone this week, so we figure weR17;re keeping the sixth commandment just fine—but Jesus suggests the problem runs deeper, into the anger we harbor and the contempt we broadcast, long before any blade is drawn.
WeR17;ve all known that strange, off feeling when something of ours is stolen. That instinctive certainty it is wrong is precisely where Exodus 20:15 begins—̶1;You shall not steal̶1;—yet the command reaches the many ways we take from God without ever feeling the sting ourselves.
Plans go awry all the time, and in the moment it feels terrible whether the fault is human weakness or God himself saying no to what we wanted. ThatR17;s exactly where Mary finds herself in Luke 1 when GabrielR17;s greeting turns her ordinary day—and her entire future—upside down.
When you prepare a small dinner and twenty guests arrive unannounced, you wish youR17;d known what was coming—yet knowing what to prepare isnR17;t the only kind of readiness that matters. Luke 1 tells of a righteous priest who knew exactly what God expected of him, yet when God himself appeared with news heR17;d prayed decades to hear, he found himself unprepared to simply listen.
The wicked bend their bows, the foundations feel destroyed, and everyone around David has a reasonable-sounding answer: flee. Psalm 11 plants its feet against that pressure, asking whether the upheaval surrounding the righteous actually means what it looks like it means.
An ox knows who feeds it; a donkey knows its masterR17;s crib. But what about GodR17;s people R12; including us? We forget.
ItR17;s easy to be busy with the Christian life—programs, good intentions, real effort—and still be missing the one thing that keeps it all from exploding. In Ephesians 1:15–16, Paul looks at believers whose faith in Jesus is visibly pouring out as love toward one another, and what he does in response is the piece we most often skip.
Grace saves us—we donR17;t deserve it, canR17;t earn it, and have no grounds to boast about it, as Paul makes plain in Ephesians 2:8–9—so what does it look like when a community of undeserving people actually lives that out together as the church God is building?
In the Book of Ruth, Boaz finds a vulnerable widow gleaning in his field and he has to decide if heR17;ll do more than what the law requires. We, like Boaz have to answer the question Will love dictate we give more than the bare minimum? ThatR17;s much easier to tell others to do than for us to do ourselves.