1 Thing Matters

SERIES: Open Door Policies We assume people get what they deserve. We assume that what goes around comes around. We assume God helps those who help themselves. Those assumptions are false. God does not operate on the pryinciple of merit but of grace. No one is beyond the reach of God’s grace. God never turns it off. At the entrance of God’s open door is not a Father looking to condemn us, but a Fa...

SERIES: Open Door Policies Trees don’t bear fruit overnight. They require patience and diligent care. Thankfully, our Heavenly Father provides this for us, too. Not only does he desire to see fruit in our lives, but he also patiently provides everything needed for us to bear that fruit.

SERIES: Open Door Policies The door to God and the glory he has prepared for us stands wide open. However, he has mapped out a very specific pathway to that door. It is not an easy one. As it did with Jesus, this route takes us through opposition, suffering, and even death. While our human nature may cause us to want to take a detour around these things, Jesus’ own life shows us that no detour is...

SERIES: Open Door Policies You don’t even have to be a churchgoer to know about David & Goliath - it’s a legendary account that has cemented itself in cultures throughout the ages. But what are we to make of a slingshotting shepherd boy who takes down a giant? With God fighting our battles, should we expect to slay our own giants as well? God doesn’t guarantee that. But he does foreshadow a greate...

SERIES: Epiphany Moments Where in the world does one find lasting glory? Conquering nations? Championships? Awards? Any glory one finds in these is fleeting and misleading. Such achievements fade and are forgotten, only to be replaced by the next conqueror, champion, or award winner. But there is a glory that endures. And, while it isn’t in you, you will find that it is for you, if you know where...

SERIES: Epiphany Moments Throughout this season of Epiphany, Jesus has described the governing principles of his kingdom being completely opposite to the governing principles of the world. This week Jesus asks us to befriend our enemies, to love those who hate us, and to repay evil with good. Worldly logic would say that is a recipe for being a doormat and getting walked all over. Yet… where have...

SERIES: Epiphany Moments Some dessert recipes are extremely complex, while others are very simple and easy to make. But no matter what the recipe looks like, no one will ever be able to taste the dessert if the recipe is never followed. Someone has to make it. The message of Christianity is not complex. We are sinners who need a Savior, and Jesus is the Savior we need. It’s simple. But no matter h...

SERIES: Epiphany Moments In 2009, Facebook added the “like” button. That same year, Twitter added the “retweet” feature. Interestingly, reported cases of depression began to rise sharply in 2010. It is easy to think that the more people like us, the more successful our lives must be. Likewise, it is easy to believe the more people like a church, the more successful that church is. So here is an im...

SERIES: Epiphany Moments When you are trying to share some important information with someone, but they refuse to listen or perhaps totally reject what you are saying, it feels like you have failed. This is especially true when someone rejects the gospel! We proclaim the good news because we want others to know the love of Christ. When people are disinterested in God’s Word, we feel like we’ve fai...

SERIES: Epiphany Moments It is easy for us to assume that if God says “no” to a request, we are getting less than we wanted. We need to have an epiphany moment, seeing the reality—that God always wants more for us than we want from him. Saying “yes” to all our requests would often result in us receiving less joy, less blessing, a lesser life. So, when God says “no” to our request, we can be assure...

SERIES: Epiphany Moments “Who is Jesus?” For the longest time, people thought the answer to that question was, “Mary and Joseph’s son” or “a carpenter from Nazareth.” While true enough, those answers do not adequately describe Jesus. But when Jesus was baptized, God the Father spoke, declaring Jesus’ true identity. Jesus was the dearly loved Son of God, chosen to be the Savior of the world. “Who a...

SERIES: The Gift of God On Christmas Eve the angel told the shepherds, “I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:10). One wonders if those words struck those Jewish shepherds as odd. For centuries, God had given special attention to one nation—Israel. There were Jewish religious leaders who taught that only members of that special people would be saved. Not accor...

SERIES: The Gift of God The Son of God took on flesh for two reasons: to be our substitute and our sacrifice. You see, when God created mankind in his image, his desire was that we would live holy lives, full of love for him and our fellow man. When mankind fell into sin, that became impossible. So, the heavenly Father sent Jesus. He is the only human being to keep all of God’s law perfectly. He d...

SERIES: A Real Christmas By this time of the holiday season, people are often weighted down… and may still feel like there remains so much left to do! But who are we really trying to please with everything that “needs” to get done? Is it all for everyone else, or is it possible that many of our to-do’s are really about us? Are we actually the ones who need everything to be a certain way for it to...

SERIES: A Real Christmas A real Christmas is one that results in great joy. But joy is not the same thing as happiness. It is infinitely better. Happiness is an emotion, while joyfulness is a condition. Happiness comes from your circumstances, while joyfulness comes from Christ. But how? What is it we find in Christ that results in such joy? What does Jesus have that we may otherwise spend our ent...

SERIES: A Real Christmas The closer we get to Christmas, the greater the pressure. There is so much work to be done! We want our houses to look good for out-of-town guests. We want to impress people with the thoughtfulness of our gifts. What a welcome relief, therefore, to hear what is required to really be ready for Christmas: only repentance. You see, repentance is the opposite of work. It is th...

SERIES: A Real Christmas It is easy to get so caught up in the imagery—a tiny newborn baby, lying in the straw filled manger under a star-filled sky—that we forget the why. Why did the Son of God come into our world and take on human flesh? So that he might die as the sacrifice for our sins. One Christmas carol puts it this way. “Neither crib nor cross refuses, all he suffers for your good to rede...

SERIES: Live Like You’ll Live Forever “Eyes on the prize.” That axiom stresses that when pursuing some good goal, focus is important. You don’t want distractions or a lack of self-discipline to keep you from obtaining whatever that prize might be. You summon the willpower to fixate on that good thing. You work hard to achieve it. You let nothing divert your attention from obtaining the prize. “Eye...

SERIES: Live Like You’ll Live Forever Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) affects many millions of adults. It is more than shyness. SAD includes an acute fear of being judged. An individual with SAD struggles with everyday tasks like talking to people at work or school because he is terrified that he is constantly being evaluated. Even if you don’t have that disorder, perhaps you have experienced that u...

SERIES: Live Like You’ll Live Forever Perhaps you have heard the axiom, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” In other words, while you still can, use what you have in order to enjoy life to the fullest. If this life is all there is, St. Paul agrees that would be a good philosophy. Paul wrote, “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’” (1 Corinthians 15:32...

SERIES: Live Like You’ll Live Forever “It will get better.” We say that to try to comfort someone who is having a bad day (or maybe a whole string of bad days). Perhaps tomorrow will be better. But perhaps it’s worse. In this life, there really are no guarantees that things will get better. That isn’t the case with the life that is to come. That life isn’t just going to be better. It will be perfe...

SERIES: Live Like You’ll Live Forever Jesus repeatedly told his followers that living as his disciples would bring hardship. Living life according to God’s Law is going to make one appear odd in the eyes of the world, perhaps even evil. Sharing a message of mankind’s sin and God’s gracious salvation can cause offense. So why not just stay silent if that makes life easier? Why not keep our faith pr...

SERIES: “The Need for Followership” Love can cause harm. Consider the wife whose husband wants little to do with church. She loves him and does not want to upset him. So, when her husband wants her and the children to stay home Sunday morning, she complies without protest. That wife’s love for her husband hurts him, her children, and herself. Or consider the father who loves his child so much that...

SERIES: “The Need for Followership” Certain things in life we do alone. Some out of necessity, others by choice. But when it comes to following Jesus, we are never alone. No matter how much our own fears or even the devil himself may try to convince us otherwise, we always follow Jesus with others. God has given us fellow followers to walk in his footsteps together as he leads us. May we never dou...

SERIES: “The Need for Followership” Humility and pride are polar opposites. Pride exalts self at the expense of God and others. Humility exalts God and others at the expense of self. Pride is the essential vice, for it increases one’s hunger for all other sins. Humility increases one’s hunger for the forgiveness and healing found in Christ. The one who is proud demands to be served. The one who is...