When you prepare a small dinner and twenty guests arrive unannounced, you wish you’d known what was coming—yet knowing what to prepare isn’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 he’d prayed decades to hear, he found himself unprepared to simply listen.
Deep down, even people who come to God carry a fear that He will eventually give up on them — that sooner or later they’ll be shown the door. That fear is exactly what Jesus meets head-on in John 6.
Jason looked to the Gospel of John to help us think about encountering Jesus as we begin Holy Week.
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?
Most of us would rather keep our doubts quiet than be caught not having it all figured out—especially around people who assume we do. Nicodemus, one of the most respected religious teachers of his day, came to Jesus under cover of night with exactly that tension, and in John 3 Jesus meets him there, in the dark, unfinished.
You open what looks like a personal Christmas card and it’s just a pitch for insurance. There’s always the something being snuck by us, isn’t there? Jesus faced that same suspicion R12; how can we know He is really who He says He is?
As we wrap up “Follow Me,” Pastor Tim takes into 1 John 4:9-12 to consider what it looks like to follow Jesus into brotherly affection and love.
Greg helps us to reflect on Good Friday by turning to the Book of Isaiah.
Christmas has a way of feeling like a destination—the carols, the decorations, the nativity—as though the manger is where everything finally arrives. John 1 won’t let it stay there: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and the question John presses is what exactly that birth was launching toward and what it means for us now.
Thanksgiving takes planning, or you’ll fill the plate and miss the pie you were waiting for. Advent works the same way. The Gospel of Mark skips the manger and the angels and jumps right to the one the Gospels proclaim: Jesus. Do we get caught up in the details or get to Him in our own preparations?