Grace saves us—we don’t deserve it, can’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 he’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? That’s much easier to tell others to do than for us to do ourselves.
We know what often happens when people gain power: sooner or later, they start asking how it can benefit them. Ephesians 1:22–23 says everything is under Jesus’ feet and presents Him as head of the church, but he’s not seeking to use power the same way as those others. Just what kind of King is He? What does His reign mean for those who belong to Him?
Do we only come to God when everything’s falling apart—when we’re without a prayer and just need a favor? In Psalm 10, it’s clear God is our Father, not just our favor giver, but too often we approach him only as the latter.
When evil still creeps in unchecked and we wonder why God doesn’t swoop down to stop it, it can feel as if He isn’t even paying attention. Psalm 11 speaks to us when we feel that nagging doubt.
When we’re desperate for direction, we tend to reach for whatever voice sounds most confident, be it horoscopes, politicians or just about anyone who seems to know something we don’t. Deuteronomy 18 speaks to our searching, reminding us God has never left His people without a trustworthy voice to follow, and what He promised there points somewhere specific.
We tend to skip the genealogy at the start of Matthew—all those names, so many of them people we know nothing about. In doing so we miss something that matters deeply to ordinary people like us who wonder whether God actually works through lives like theirs.
We all know what we think we need—food, security, respect, a life that finally comes together—but Jesus in John 6 cuts straight to the question underneath: what do we *really* need, and why do we keep mistaking the temporary for the eternal?
When carefully made plans fall apart, we can start to wonder whether anyone has both the power and the care to make things right. John 1 takes us back before creation, declaring that the Word was God and then became flesh to dwell among us. What does that mean for the “ifs” we bring to God when life feels beyond repair?
