First Presbyterian Church of Baton Rouge

God will dwell with us. This is the news that the triune God created us to be in communion with himself. And though that communion got severed by human sin, God yet refuses to be alone without us. He declines to just let us go and leave us to our own devices. He has determined in his superabounding love to restore our fellowship, renew the world and dwell forever in relationship with us. We have,...

There’s deep mystery in the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Exactly how this works is beyond my ability to explain. Jesus makes an exchange with us. He takes our rage and returns his gentle love. He takes our crippling anxiety and gives us his peace. He takes our sin-stained, sticky guilt and washes us clean in his blood. He takes all our dying and begins eternal life in us by hi...

We the people formed anew in Christ are the new creation spreading throughout the old creation. We are citizens of heaven invading the earth with Christ’s love. He sends us now, as renewed people to be ambassadors with his message of reconciliation. So, the triune God continues to create new life as his church, his body, his people flow into the weary old world.

The old Scottish pastor Alexander Whyte gives the illustration that when the sun comes up every morning, it bakes clay but melts butter. The exact same event has radically different effects on different characters, different personalities. The Lord knows how he has made each and every one of us, and if we are open to his leading, he can take the events of our life, even the ones he brings that we...

Amidst all the other calendars of your life, keep time with Jesus. Coordinate your life to his life. Keep watch with Jesus this Lent as you take up the golden threads of the redeeming story that runs from beginning to end. Let your first thought every morning be “The night has passed. The day lies open before us. Let me put on the armor of life and go forth to make the most of the time.”

There is peril in unforgiveness. Refusing to forgive someone is equated with asking to have back the entire debt of all your own mistakes, neglects, transgressions and sins. The king in the parable tossed that unforgiving servant back into prison until the last penny would be paid. In conclusion, Jesus speaks devastatingly clear words as he drops the mike, “So also my heavenly Father will do to ev...

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The astounding love of the Father works. Because Jesus has fulfilled all mercy and all justice. He left heaven to go to the far country of the rebellious world and seek prodigals. While here, Jesus has lived perfectly the righteousness the elder brother could only pretend to have. In his Father’s name, Jesus paid for all the wasteful squandering of all the prodigals.

That’s the news today. This is our God. The Father of prodigals who yearns down the road for our return. The heart of the universe is not indifference. The path to life is not our little candle of self-light. The truth is not a God who is out to get us. No, it is here. In the father who gathered his son to himself with relief and joy.