Peace In Aiken

"We love God." Anyone who goes to church would have no problem confessing that. "I love God more than anything else." Now that's a different conversation. We have been blessed with so many things to love and care about that we can get distracted and find ourselves replacing God with other gods. How do we combat this? We stare deeply into the work of God, who showed the importance that he placed on...

Sometimes our God has to say hard things to us. He doesn't do it to hurt us or to make us sad. He does so to remind us of our spiritual need for him. He says the hard thing so that he might say the beautiful thing: the good news of the gospel.

Our God leads us. He leads us through the Spirit. He leads us by his Word. But he doesn't stop there. God leads us through people he has established to do the difficult work of leading. By doing that work, leaders serve those they lead while they serve their Savior.

Paul doesn't call himself the worst to speak hyperbolically. Instead, he teaches us to know our sin better than we know anyone else's. The more I understand my sin, the more I understand my Savior's love.

It's fun to learn how things work. Sometimes it feels extremely important to know how certain things function. However, when we start contemplating the Trinity, we have to pump the brakes. I don't want a God who is supposedly beyond me to be able to be perfectly understood and explained by me.

There is one way to heaven. To some, that sounds terrifying. It sounds elitist. It sounds exclusive. And while it might not be either of the first two, it certainly is the third. Salvation is exclusive to those who trust in Jesus as Savior. In this exclusivity, we find beauty. As Jesus makes the gospel the exclusive way to heaven, he makes salvation endlessly inclusive!

Sheep are good at one thing. You're a sheep. Let's find out what God wants you to be "good at" as we follow the Good Shepherd.

On the Road to Emmaus, the two disciples were steeped in confusion and disappointment. When Jesus reveals himself and shows himself to be the center of all Scripture, hope comes rushing back!

Is there enough evidence for the resurrection to persuade you? If I want to rest my faith on evidence, I might wind up grasping at straws. But our faith isn't manmade. It is created by the Spirit and nourished through the Word and Sacraments.

On Easter Sunday, we're reminded of the heart of our faith: Jesus died to take away the sins of the whole world, and he rose again to promise us that we too would live in the face of death.

What must it be like to dine with God? We won't fully understand just how breathtaking that experience is until we find ourselves in heaven. But here on earth, we get a foretaste of what that will be like every time we come to the Lord's Supper!

Jesus wouldn't let one prophecy go unfulfilled. Palm Sunday reminds us that as Jesus completes the work laid forth for him by the Father, he leaves no stone unturned. On his way to the cross, he solidifies this truth in our hearts: this week, he is not merely an undeserving victim. He is OUR king who lives to secure OUR victory.

Your life is in the palm of your Savior's hand... is there any place better?

He couldn't see. But that wasn't the biggest drag on his life. The biggest drag was his spiritual blindness. When you don't know Jesus, you don't know yourself, your world, or your God. When you know Jesus... you see things as they are.

When the Samaritan woman went to the well, she was expecting one thing: water. Little did she realize, Jesus was going to use the most important conversation of her life to give her living water!

Why is faith so important? As we examine the conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus, we see what faith means to us.

We needed more than a teacher. We needed more than a model. We needed a champion who would live, obey, and die in our place so that his resurrection could be ours.

Transfiguration Day is the day in the church year when we celebrate glory. But there is a blunt reality to this day: we focus on a delayed glory. We don't expect God's glory to be on full display in our lives in the here and now. Instead, while we suffer under our crosses this side of heaven, we look forward to the day when we get to meet the glory of Jesus face to face.

God calls you salt and light. When he does that, he's doing 2 things. 1st, he is reminding who he has made you to be. You are already these things by the grace of Jesus. 2nd, he is reminding you of your calling. God has made YOU salt and light!

How does the way God speaks about us impact our self-talk? There might be times when God calls us to speak more kindly about ourselves. There might be other times in which we need to be reminded to speak more realistically about ourselves. Rule of thumb: Let's speak about ourselves the way God does!

God makes promises to his church. God does not lie. These are the two beautiful comforts we have going into Matthew 16:13-19. Why? Because Jesus makes 3 intensely important promises to his church as he speaks to his disciples.

Jesus' baptism is more than just a historical fact. It's more than a cool connection that you share with him. Jesus' baptism grants your baptism validity. It shows how our Savior placed himself under the expectations of God that he might meet all of them on your behalf. Now, when the Father looks at you, he calls you exactly what he called Jesus on the day he was baptized: "my beloved."

When the wise men visited Jesus, something unbelievable happened. God showed all of mankind that he didn't send his Son for a select few. He sent him for everyone. That means, through Jesus, God grants access to his limitless grace to everyone through his Word.

God sends his son so that he might expand his family. The work of Jesus makes you a child of God. Then, God sends his Holy Spirit to teach you, encourage you, equip you, and empower you to live as part of his family.

Why did God need to get so close to the human race? Why would he not have stayed in heaven on his throne where he belongs and hold to his perfect expectations? Why did God become flesh? To take away the sin of the world, God entered it and when he did so, he revealed his true glory.