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The holidays can bring back the empty chair, the family hurt, the memories of when everything felt joyful—and before long, sorrow and anxiety begin to take over. The words of Romans 8 help us in times when grief feels stronger than truth.
We’ve all sensed it—a choice that seemed perfect in the moment, but leaves us listing further down the road. Matthew 7:24–27 presents two builders, two houses, nearly identical except for what lies beneath, and asks which foundation will hold when the rains come.
You can confess Jesus as Lord, cast out demons, do mighty works—and still hear him say, “I never knew you.” Matthew 7:21–23 cuts past everything we think proves we’re his followers, asking instead the question that actually matters: Does he know you?
Sometimes we become so fixed on where we want to go that we cannot see how we are defeating ourselves. Jonah runs in the opposite direction when God sends him to Nineveh, raising questions we often avoid: Do we understand who God is, who we are, and how He sees the people we would rather leave behind?
We like life easy, so when following Jesus brings bumps instead of the smoother path we expected, we wonder what went wrong. Luke 9 reminds us that Jesus never promised following him would meet that expectation.
We’ve always been better at hailing the leader who delivers what we want than trusting the one God has actually sent. Way back in Numbers 12 and 16, even Moses’ own family turns on him for not being the kind of leader they expected. Can we see God’s working any more clearly than they did?
God had been leading Israel every step of the way—parting the Red Sea, dropping food from the sky, guiding them with a pillar of fire at night—and still, when twelve spies came back from the promised land, ten of them said it couldn’t be done, and the crowd went with them. Numbers 13 and 14 ask a question we face too: when the majority says no, does that settle it?
Melanie takes us through Psalms 82-84 to think about how we relate God’s law to earthly rulers, how we make sense of our “enemies” and expressing joy in God’s presence.
Join Pastor Tim as we turn to our next three Psalms (40-42) and reflect on how they turn us towards our true hope as we look forward to Easter.
Are we shining lights into our world or are we spreading darkness? As we continue in Philippians 2, we’re challenged to think about our role in showing God’s light in this world.
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