Epiphany 3, January 25, 2015

Are you impressed with the disciples in today’s Gospel?  What they did is pretty amazing if you think about it.

Jesus said, Follow me . . . and immediately they left their nets and followed him.

Wow!  Immediately?  No questions asked?  No time to think about it?  Simon and Andrew just left their nets right there –  fish flopping around.  Actually, come to think of it, without a miracle their nets were usually empty.  But still . . . . James and John left their father right there in the boat with the hired men.

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Epiphany 2, January 18, 2015

Pastor and theologian J.D. Greear wrote a book entitled, “Stop Inviting Jesus into your Heart.” He estimates that he asked Jesus into his heart about 5000 times as a young person each time doubting the legitimacy of his previous invitation. . . until he finally understood the good news of Jesus.  He reminds readers that the Bible never uses this kind of language (“invite Jesus into your heart”) to describe how we come to faith in Jesus.  Not only that, but to place the assurance of our salvation on our own invitation to Jesus is pretty shaky ground. 

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Epiphany 1, January 11, 2015

Where did you begin?  When did your story — the story of you — begin?

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Christmas 2, January 2, 2015

I’m not the kind of person who remembers what happened on a specific date in some previous year.  You know how some people reminisce:  “On this date last year I was. . . “  I’m not like that.  And so I surprised myself a little by remembering that last Tuesday was the day someone very close to me died.

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