Pastor Tim lights the second candle (the Peace Candle) as we continue through a special #52Verses52Books52Weeks journey through Advent. This week, we turn to the Gospel of Matthew.
O Christmas (Faith)Tree is something very special: a celebratory service at 8:00 p.m. on December 9 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.
We need to know what things are for and use them in the right way in life. That’s true of God’s law just like anything else.
Two half-brothers leave for the same war; only one comes home. When rescue divides one person from another, “Why me?” can feel unanswerable—and salvation can raise the same uneasy question. In 1 Timothy 1:15–16, Paul refuses to ground his rescue in merit, calling himself the worst of sinners and pointing instead to Christ’s purpose and patience.
When it feels dark, we need the well trod paths of God’s Word to strengthen us so we don’t lose hope.
We have a lot of things we think are signs of the “blessed life”? Proverbs has a clear answer that challenges our assumptions.
Most people instinctively know the difference between ordering at a restaurant and eating at a friend’s table—yet that same distinction somehow disappears in how they approach God. Proverbs 3:9 calls believers to honor the Lord with their wealth and the first fruits of all their produce, not as a business transaction or a path to guaranteed earthly blessing, but as an act of worship that reshapes what winning actually means.
God is with us — that’s what we celebrate at Christmastime! As we enter into this season, we are going to take time to look at how His Spirit led men and women that first Christmas, and leads us now, that we can rejoice in His love.
We’re drawn to people who seem useful, impressive, ready to contribute—and in Luke 18, the disciples felt the same way when they turned away parents bringing infants to Jesus. But Jesus stopped them: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
There’s always one thing we’d rather not put on the table when God asks us to give something up—and we usually know exactly what it is. In Luke 18, a rich man walks away from Jesus grieving because that one thing is precisely what Jesus names, and the disciples’ stunned question in response—”then who can be saved?”—turns out to be our question too.