pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

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Each Day

Reading: Revelation 1: 4-8

Part of our experience of Holy Week was the grief of knowing that Jesus had to die for our sins.  There is a personal connection for each of us to Jesus’ act on the cross.  He not only died for the people’s sins who were living in His time, but for all sin of all people in all time.  We are included, we have a share in the cross.  Through the cross, we also have hope.

In the book of Revelation, John again reminds us that Jesus will come again.  He writes, “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him”.  There is not a doubt that one day Jesus will return.  The day is known only to God.  So in the interim God brings us peace.  He removes the guilt of our sin so that we may ever be kneeling at the foot of the cross with our eyes turned to Jesus, the light and love of the world.

John also reminds us that Jesus too offers us grace and peace each day.  Because if His love for us, He frees us from our captivity to sin.  Jesus calls us out of this life to a life lived in His grace and peace.  He calls us into living an abundant life now, serving as priests working to build His kingdom here on earth.

To do so we must cast aside the disobedience that is within and strive to live the true life of faith that brings purpose to our days.  Jesus said, ” I am the alpha and the omega, who was, and is, and is to come “.  He is the beginning and the end and He is everlasting.  For each of us to find God’s renewing grace each day and for us to have true life now, we must live with Jesus as Lord and Savior at the beginning of each day, at the end of each day, and at all times in between.  May it be so.


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Love: Sacrificial and All-In

Throughout our lifetimes many relationships will end.  Some childhood and high school and even college friends drift apart and life takes each a different way.  Sometimes people have to move to a new state or city.  Sometimes life comes to an end for one of the people in the relationship.  Sometimes our approach to marriage is similar.  They drift apart, one moves in a new direction, or one passes.  For some couples, divorce is the solution.  It is just a little easier to part ways than it is to keep it together.  For some people their marriage with the church comes to an end.  Both of these endings may be because of drift or because one changed or because of  hurt that occurred.

Both of these marriage relationships should reflect the love of Christ for us.  Recently scientists discovered that over time in a long-term, committed relationship something called ‘pair bonding’ occurs.  As it was once written: the two shall become one.  The love of Christ must be at the center of our human marriages as well as at the heart of our relationship with God and His church.

Every relationship has the potential to end.  In our human marriage the goal when it begins is ‘to death do us part’.  We pledge love and loyalty through thick and thin.  And couples really do mean it on day one.  When one chooses to join and be attached to a church, the words are much the same as is the intent.

The reality is both marriages take work.  A lot of work – both personal and as a ‘couple’.  Although there are circumstances that cause a split, these should be far fewer than they are.  Our love in these marriages needs to reflect the pure love that Jesus Christ demonstrated.  Our effort in these relationships should reflect His effort and commitment at the cross.  May our love also be sacrificial and all-in.

Scripture reference: Mark 10: 2-12