Daily Prayers of Confession – Day 1 (Lent)
“Lent is a season of preparation and repentance during which we anticipate the death (Good Friday) and resurrection (Easter Sunday) of Jesus. It is this very preparation and repentance – aimed at grasping the intense significance of the crucifixion – that gives us a deep and powerful longing for the resurrection, the joy of Easter.” - Will Walker As we walk through this season of Lent together as a church family, I will be posting a simple daily prayer of confession for you to use as a prompt for your own prayers of confession. The spiritual practice of daily confession
Luke Resources
As we study the gospel of Luke this year, here are some resources to help you as you study along! Background/Overview: Bible Project Video: another creative overview of the book of Luke (plus other helpful resources!) by the folks at the Bible Project! The Gospel of Luke in 7 Minutes: a high energy creative overview of Luke in - you guessed it - 7 minutes! The Gospel of Luke video by the Lumo Project: the Lumo Project has created a video reading of all 4 gospels. They use middle eastern actors in a middle eastern setting with the narrator only using the words
How Great is Our Savior
Photo by ün LIU on Unsplash Read: Luke 4:31-40 Do you ever wonder if we see Christ only as we want to see him? To go further, do we push onto Him who we want Him to be? Maybe what you are molding your personal Christ into isn’t inherently bad. Maybe you think Christ is mostly love so that is how you mold him. Maybe you desire a Jesus who is powerful so that is how you mold Him. Maybe you like the idea that He is eternal so you mold him into your assurance of a heavenly home. In and of themselves none of
Who’s My Outsider?
Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash The weekend scene was festive in Nazareth! The hometown hero was in town for a visit. His neighbors had heard of his famous exploits. They knew his Mom and Dad, and, old rumors aside, Joseph’s family was good enough folk. Normal people. Solid woodworking. So when the Sabbath came and he was still in town teaching, the worship center was packed! “This is going to put Nazareth on the map!” they thought. The community had always been pretty upstanding, even if it was poor. The accusations about Nazareth being a backwater town just
I Need Much More Than a Snickers
Photo by Mohamed Nohassi on Unsplash Read: Luke 4:1-13 Have you seen the commercials for Snickers bars? The ones with the slogan, “You’re not you when you’re hungry." There’s one in which a roommate turns into a gremlin because he hasn’t had lunch; he just needs a Snickers. In another, a lumberjack becomes whiny because he missed his breakfast; he just needs a Snickers. They’re hangry—so hungry that anger comes easily. I think many of us can relate, yes? I wish stopping my sin was as simple as eating a Snickers. You know what? Jesus never got hangry. Hungry,
The Root of Jesse
Photo by Eilis Garvey on Unsplash Read: Luke 3:21-38 In the passage that we are diving into this week, we are given a list of Jesus’ family lineage. Don’t you wonder why Luke did this? I know I do. Well, I am sure Carson will tell us (no pressure Carson), and maybe he can tell us why Luke dedicates space to this topic three chapters in when Matthew starts his book with a genealogy. Once again, no pressure. But I want to start here with this: We confess that Jesus is eternal. We confess that Jesus made everything, and through Him everything was made. We confess that Jesus is
Meditating On Our Passage (Luke 3:1-20)
Photo by Joshua Woroniecki on Unsplash Read Our Passage, Luke 3:1-22, for this Week... 3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4
Follow Jesus to Places of Learning
Read: Luke 2:41-52 We call ourselves "followers of Jesus" because we want to obey his teaching and live the way he lived. Paul, who taught in the markets while he made tents, told us we should be "imitators of me, as I imitate Christ." But should we imitate the child Jesus? In this week's account from the gospel writer Luke, we see the one story from Jesus's childhood that we should definitely imitate. Now [Jesus's] parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to
Good News for the World
Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash Waiting, waiting, waiting. Day after day Simeon waited. God the Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would see the Messiah, the Christ, before he died. So he waited. And waited. And waited. And then one day the Holy Spirit moved him to go into the temple courts. A poor, young couple came in to make the law's offering for their firstborn son. The courts were probably thronged with people, rather like Grand Central Station on a busy weekday. But somehow Simeon knew to go to this young couple, who presumably looked
On Our Familiarity With the Incomprehensible
Read: Luke 2:1-20 It’s arguably the most famous story in the world. A man and his young wife travel to a crowded city to register for a census. She is hugely pregnant and unfortunately, the city is so crowded, they can’t find a bed—a real problem since it seems that tonight, of all nights, she is in labor. They manage to find a stable just in time for a sweet baby boy to be born. Meanwhile, out in the fields, some shepherds are tending their flocks when a whole bunch of angels appear. The angels tell the shepherds to hurry into the city
