What Does Creation Say About Our Bodies?
Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash When we think about the body, we—especially women—may be keenly aware of our body in some ways and completely neglect it in others. We may obsess over how our body looks, how we feel in it, how others feel about it, or what it can or can’t do. Tish Harrison Warren says it well in her book Liturgy of the Ordinary: Christians are often accused of two wrong-headed views of the body. One is that we ignore the body in favor of a disembodied, spirits-floating-on-clouds spirituality. The other is that we are obsessed
Images of God: Likeness Toward Creation
Read Genesis 1:26 - 2:3 (ESV) Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and
Creation Ex Nihilo
Read: Genesis 1:1-25 No sentence is more pregnant with meaning than the opening one of the Bible: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1). It tells us several things all at once, four of which are worth reflecting upon: ... Continue reading HERE. Photo by Calwaen Liew on Unsplash
Need A 2023 Goal?
Read: Ephesians 3:14-21 Here we are at the end of another trip around the sun. The sands of the hourglass continue to slip through the fingers of time and many people take the turn of the calendar year as an opportunity to examine whether their own goals and hopes are also advancing. As I was scrolling through everyone's holiday posts this past week, I saw a particularly encouraging one from a North Waker who was letting all of her friends know of an app she had used this past year to help her read through the Bible. Interestingly, the main point of her post was not highlighting the app; instead, it
Christmas is Not What We Have Made It
Photo by Walter Chávez on Unsplash Christmas in NC is often all about lights and decorations and gifts and family and amazing food and such. But the NT story of the first Christmas is actually much grittier. Especially what follows the birth! (See Matthew 2) Here are two things to ponder this Christmas to help you get a dose of the width and length and height and depth of the love of God for you this Christmas! The first is a blog post by Rachel Conley, a NWer sent to serve immigrants in Philly with her family. She looks at the incarnation through
Ironies of Jesus’ Birth
Photo by Rick Shaw on Unsplash He laid in a trough of wood, so that terrifying angels with flaming swords would worship a newborn in straw. (Genesis 3:24; Hebrews 1:6) He who joyfully delights over His creation cried as a baby so that He could know suffering. (Hebrews 2:9) The one who leads us from temptation took on a weak body and felt those temptations. (Matthew 6:13; Hebrews 4:15) He who created the marvelous self-healing human body took one, so it could be mortally wounded. (2 Peter 2:24) He, with eyes too pure to look on evil, traveled land
And They Believed
Photo by Chris Benson on Unsplash Read Luke 2 This Sunday, we get the joy of seeing a gaggle of silly geese (our children) climb up on stage in costumes to sing songs about the Savior who came. In Matthew 18, Jesus teaches us that we are to become like children or we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. How easily children see the truth of Christ; how humble they are and how innocent! Sara Groves’ children very sweetly read from this section of The Jesus Storybook Bible as the intro to one of her songs, It’s True.
A Call to Battle
Photo by Niklas Ohlrogge on Unsplash It has occurred to me that the season of Advent/Christmas is a season when our enemy Satan is hard at work on our hearts. For many, many years I have struggled with feeling cranky at Christmas. The pressure to bake the best treats, build the biggest gingerbread house, give the cheeriest greetings, send 100 Christmas cards (with a beautiful family photo!), make it to every party, make my house super pretty, buy presents for everyone I know—to make this Christmas the VERY BEST ONE—it exhausted and depressed me. Christmas carols became old-hat
Traditions
Photo by Diliara Garifullina on Unsplash This time of year seems to revolve around traditions. We work to recreate old traditions each year and often look at how to add new ones. Traditions give us a sense of place and belonging and bind us closer to those we love. During this time of year, we can see traditions everywhere we look, from Christmas pajamas to Christmas popcorn to the town Christmas tree. A few weeks ago I started listening to the podcast “Luther in Real Time” (which I highly recommend), and then, completely by accident, I came across an
The Promise
Photo by Davide Cantelli on Unsplash When we come to Ahaz, king of two tribes of Israel, and God's prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 7, the king is under great strain. As other nations are devising ways to invade and take all of Israel's territory, Ahaz must choose to either trust God's guidance or rely only on himself, rejecting God's help. And in the middle of that immediate political and military strain, God makes an unexpected statement. Ahaz is worried about the army over the geographic horizon, but God is giving him a view of His plan over the horizon of time. Then the LORD spoke again to Ahaz: “Ask for a sign from
