60 Seconds of Hope with Horace McMillon

Send us Fan Mail It’s Not About Our Religion  (Advent 11) “…Do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor.” - from Matthew 3:9 One of the great mistakes or fallacies we can fall into is to presume that our religions make us superior to others and/or pleasing to God.  The quality of the tree is not determined by the name of the orchard it’s planted in. The quality of th...

Send us Fan Mail Remember Who You Are (Advent 10) “Therefore, bear fruit worthy of repentance.” - Matthew 3:8 Some of us grew up with the exhortation to “remember who you are” or “remember where you came from”.  Some of our families demanded that we bring honor to the family by being of high character and walking in the world with dignity and respect.  As I read this verse, I hear the gospel write...

Send us Fan Mail Acknowledge, Learn, And Grow (Advent 9) “And they were baptized by him in the River Jordan, confessing their sins.” - Matthew 3:6 Confessing one’s faults, mistakes, and shortcomings isn’t about blame and shame. It’s not about making oneself feel guilty. It’s certainly not about pointing out flaws in anyone other than ourselves.  Baptism represents a person’s desire, commitment, an...

Send us Fan Mail How Do We Prepare The Way? (Advent 8) “This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.'" - Matthew 3:3 quoting Isaiah  After we repent, after we change or focus and direction, we have a role to play. We have been called to prepare the way of The...

Send us Fan Mail Turn Around And Look For It (Advent 7) “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." - Matthew 3:2 The word repent means to turn around and change direction. As we change our direction, we change our focus.  Instead of being focused on our frustrations and failures, instead of being focused the pitfalls and problems, we become focused on the possibilities and opportuniti...

Send us Fan Mail Hope Is Not A Passive Activity  “O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!” - Isaiah 2:5 The hope that we have been called to live in is not a passive one. We are called to carry God’s love into the world. We are called to be ambassadors of hope and ministers of reconciliation.  We are called to bring good news to the poor, to set free the oppressed, to bind up...

Send us Fan Mail Based on Isaiah 2:1-5 1. Trust in the power of the vision of God’s shalom (of God’s love and care) to draw humanity to it. No need to coerce through violence, economic coercion or social coercion. Lifting the vision will draw humanity to it. 2. Trust in the vision enough to put in the work to live in it. We have to learn a new way to live in the world, to think and speak, to act a...

Send us Fan Mail Look For Holy Moments “Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” - Matthew 24:42 Since the world, the entire cosmos lives and moves and has its being in God, everyone and everything is imbibed with the sacred. This means that even our most ordinary tasks and mundane activities, even our casual conversations and passing interactions can be opportu...

Send us Fan Mail What Would Someone Notice In Us? (Advent 4) “As for the things that you have learned and received and heard and noticed in me, do them, and the God of peace will be with you.” -Philippians 4:9 If someone were to observe us for an extended period of time, what would they notice about us? Would they see gentle people, people whose gentleness comes from their confidence in God’s care...

Send us Fan Mail Give Thanks For Three Spiritual Truths  “Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth. Serve the LORD with gladness; come into his presence with singing. Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him; bless his name. For the LORD is...

Send us Fan Mail Practicing Humility And Curiosity  (Advent 3) “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths."- from Isaiah 2:3 All of us have a sense of right and wrong, good and bad. These moral sensibilities are a good starting point when discerning our pathways. However, they should be sta...

Send us Fan Mail We Don’t Need To Push Our Religion On Anyone. (Advent 2) “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”-John 12:32   A lot of us have been going about this the wrong way. We don’t need to push our religion on anyone. We don’t need to force anyone to kneel at the alters we’ve built.  We instead use all our efforts on lifting up the example of God’s lov...

Send us Fan Mail Let Our Faith Be As Big As God’s Vision For Us  “He shall judge between the nations and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.” - Isaiah 2:4 The second chapter of Isaiah describes one of, if not the most beautiful divine...

Send us Fan Mail How We Show Up Is How God Shows Up “It is you who have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the LORD.” - from Jeremiah 23:2 The Hebrew word translated “attend” in this verse has both positive and negative connotations as it has been used in scripture.  Here in this Jeremiah passage bad s...

Send us Fan Mail God Don’t Like Ugly  “Come, behold the works of the LORD; see what desolations he has brought on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.” - Psalm 46:8-9 Some read that God is bringing desolation and destruction on the earth and stop reading. But exactly what is it that God intends to destroy?...

Send us Fan Mail Peace Is An Active Lifestyle  “to shine upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." - Luke 1:79 The 79th verse of Luke 1 is a continuation of the 78th verse which declares that God’s love will cause dawn to break upon us. This verse emphasizes that although we may be overwhelmed by the darkness around us, overwhelmed by...

Send us Fan Mail If We Believe In God’s Love… “Because of the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us.” - Luke 1:78 If we believe in God’s love, we will find our peace in the midst of our storms, because we know that God is our comforter and protector.  If we believe in God’s love, we will let go of all of our jealousy and envy, our greed and lusts, because we know that G...

Send us Fan Mail Joyful Endurance  “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, so that you may have all endurance and patience, joyfully” - Colossians 1:11 All of us are going through something, have been through something, or are about to go through something. No one is exempt from life’s challenges and problems, of this we can be certain.  What we can also b...

Send us Fan Mail We Are The Shepherds God Is Raising  “I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall no longer fear or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the LORD.” -Jeremiah 23:4 One of the most poignant moments in all the gospels is when the risen Jesus appears to Peter and asks him three times if he loves him. At first Peter is disturbed that Jesus question...

Send us Fan Mail Serve With Hope And Without Fear “that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear,” - Luke 1: 74 Elie Wiesel said that the opposite of love is indifference. Paul Tillich, Anne Lamott and Brené Brown.said that opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty" And I’ve become convinced that the opposite of hope is fear. It turns out that Jon Meac...

Send us Fan Mail The Joy Of God’s Immanence  Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel."- Isaiah 12:6 Immanence is the state of dwelling within something or being inherent to it. In religious or theological terms it is the idea that God is immediately and intimately present within and among us.  Immanence is often contrasted with the concept...

Send us Fan Mail Justice, Wellbeing And Healing Flow From Reverence  “But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.” -Malachi 4:2  Reverence at its core is a deep respect for something or someone greater than oneself, To live with reverence is to live with a sense of awe, wonder, and appreciation.  Everyone and everything, the whole cosmos, lives a...

Send us Fan Mail Never Get Too Tired To Do The Right Thing “Brothers and sisters, do not be weary in doing what is right.” - 2 Thessalonians 3:13 It’s easy for us to do the right things when it feels like we are winning, when we are making progress, when things are going right. But it’s much harder for us to keep going when we get bogged down, when we have been denied, delayed, or defeated.  We st...

Send us Fan Mail Let Our Tests Become Our Testimonies  “This (hardship) will give you an opportunity to testify.” - Luke 21:13 I dislike calling hardships and adversities blessings in disguise. Such a framing tends to minimize the very real agony, and pain that we are experiencing. To be transformed and overcome,  these pains must be acknowledged not denied.  I do believe that every struggle conta...

Send us Fan Mail We Don’t Need To Be Defensive  “So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance;” - Luke 21:14 Many of us spend a lot of time and energy worrying about what’s going to happen. We worry about defending our name, our honor, our reputation, our pride.  We worry about being disappointed by the people around us. We worry about being betrayed by the people we most care abou...