We easily draw safe boundaries around God’s grace, welcoming those who seem familiar while overlooking those who feel foreign or difficult. Yet the distant wise men of Matthew 2 and the rejoicing Gentiles of Acts 13 confront those boundaries: Jesus came to reach the world. Who might God be placing beyond our comfort, yet within the reach of his good news?
Life and Love on the Vine is not painless. The world hated Jesus and we are told that persecution will come to us as well. But we have a greater promise: a helper.
A folding map only works if you already know where you are. Enough wrong turns, and you're stuck staring at it with no idea how to find yourself—let alone get back on course. Psalm 89 asks what God's promises do for those of us who aren't the Hannahs and Davids, who look at the map and go the wrong way.
Most of us have something we'd rather not put on the table before God—something we're holding just tightly enough that we hope He won't notice. In Luke 18, a ruler who has kept the commandments since his youth comes to Jesus asking what he still must do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus names exactly the one thing he isn't ready to hear.
We can say all the right things about Jesus and still expect the wrong things from him. In Luke 19, the crowd welcomes its King with praise, peace, and glory—but what happens when the Savior we celebrate does not pursue the earthly victory, security, or power we wanted?
Most of us haven't murdered anyone this week, so we figure we'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.
Little sins that seem almost harmless still multiply until they leave us too blind even for grace. In Genesis 4 the Lord asks Cain why his face has fallen and warns that if he does not do well, sin is crouching at the door—its desire contrary to him, but he must rule over it.
We've all felt the crash that follows a sugar high—the emotional win, the reassuring word, the earthly success that lifts us for a moment before the bottom drops out again. Paul knew that feeling too, which is why he doesn't merely greet the Ephesians with good wishes but with something that doesn't fade: “grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”
How does a people God has blessed so richly turn their backs on him? Isaiah 1 opens with God’s lament over Jerusalem—once full of justice, now a harlot filled with murderers—and brings the question home for Lent: when he looks at you, does he lament?
Even after turning our lives over to Christ, we can still pray as though God were there to serve our wants and protect our plans. In Matthew 7, Jesus says, “Ask, seek, and knock,” raising a searching question for daily prayer: When we belong to Him, what should we be asking our Father to give?
