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In our divided country, on the Sunday after a major election season, we are reminded that our hope is not in elections but in Christ. The good news we celebrate today is that Jesus who came is coming again. What should we do between here and there.
History does not belong to who we think it belongs to. It does Not belong to the humanly powerful or the wealthy or the rulers or the armies or the corporations or the global media empires. History belongs to those who intercede before God. History belongs to the prayer warriors.
Persecution is suffering, injury, or other mistreatment which is caused by one’s relationship to Jesus and commitment to His word and service in His work. It comes from living up to and living out your faith. Would you be found faithful to Christ if it really cost you something?
In an angry, argumentative world, and divided on seemingly every issue, we need peacemakers. Jesus calls His followers to be agents of peace in a world of conflicts. It is a high calling and comes with a blessed promise.
Seeing God has nothing to do with our vision and everything to do with our heart. The condition of our heart will determine where we focus, what we see, and what we pursue. The Bible says to guard our heart…so how is your heart?
Our world seems full of those who live life self-centered, self-serving, and self-satisfying. Most are inclined to believe happiness comes from fulfilling their own plans, following their own agendas, and meeting their own needs. Jesus teaches us that a blessed life follows a different path.
This weekend we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper as we look at Jesus’ teaching, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6, CSB). What would it look like to have a desperation, a hunger and thirst, for righteousness? What might it take to create that passion in us?
Humility, gentleness, meekness…not popular words in a world where everyone has an opinion and thinks that opinion should be heard by everyone. But what does it mean to be humble, gentle, meek? Why would we want to even try to be those things when being those very things could get you “run over” in today’s world? Jesus says that one of the keys to true happiness, to be more than just #BLESSED, is to embrace humility.
This week we continue our series Beyond#Blessed. In an unhappy world, how can we find blessing and happiness beyond those brief moments of #Blessed? The second of Jesus’ Beatitudes may be the hardest to understand, “Blessed are they who mourn.” Many of us have a long list of things we are mourning for this year - Weddings, funerals, graduations, vacations, school life, work life and normal life have all been disrupted. How can we find blessing in our hurts and sufferings?
As Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount, describing what it looks like to follow Him and live for Him, He began with the secret of happiness...of living a blessed life. It wasn’t at all what people then or now would expect. Happiness is not a by-product of external circumstances. It comes instead from a right relationship to God.