Unless I Wash Your Feet – Holy Thursday

Rushing head long into a significant moment without proper preparation usually means you are going to miss the point! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked back on a significant moment in my own life and said “Boy if I knew then what I know now!” Yep, hindsight’s 20/20. On this Holy Thursday we will hear the Twelve Gospels. We will light candles and we will hear the whole story…

Costly Perfume! – Holy Wednesday

Kindness is contagious, but so is indifference and judgementalism! In fact, most indifference and judgmentalism is rooted in fear, the fear that “I may not be right” or the fear that “I might be wrong” or even the fear that if I don’t “defend this or that “truth” my whole world will come apart. But actions motivated by fear are so rarely helpful. Perhaps if a bus is coming toward you, then…

You Know Neither the Scriptures Nor the Power of God – Holy Tuesday

“What you don’t know won’t hurt you!” Really? I’ve found that, sometimes, what I don’t know hurts me pretty bad.  But what’s worse is misunderstanding what I actually do know. In fact, I have misunderstood some things I thought I knew so bad that I might as well not known it at all! And that, dear ones, is a deadly combination: to think you know something but get it so completely wrong…

Taken Away! – Holy Monday

I love the old horror movies in black and white. The building of suspense where you’re screaming at the screen “Run” or “Don’t go in there!” Vincent Price was my favorite, and my most favorite horror movie of his is “The Oblong Box” by Edgar Allen Poe. What was brilliant about those old movies was their ability to build tension and excitement before the big scare! Kinda like riding a roller coaster…

God Will Visit You!

I never will forget the first time I was in an airplane. I was barely a teenager when I took my first flight from Central Florida to Atlanta. What struck me most was the perspective of being so far above my home town. I could see all kinds of places that I had seen from ground level and the change in perspective changed how I thought of those places. That’s the advantage…

Why Do You HATE Me?

“Why do you hate me?” I can’t ever seem to get over the shock of someone assuming that, because I disagree with him, I must then, therefore, hate him. This is an amazing and modern phenomenon that to disagree with someone is to hate them. To point out the flaw in someone’s argument is to hate them. To suggest that someone’s choices or lifestyle is actually damaging is to hate them. Amazing.…

Why Have We Fasted?

“He was doing all the right things for all the wrong reasons.” Frankly, when I heard that, I didn’t even realize that was even possible. But it is. You really can do all the right things for all the wrong reasons, and then you’re amazed when the “right doing” doesn’t produce the “happiness” you were aiming for. In fact, I’ve seen something even more amazing to me. I’ve watched as some have…

The God of Bethel

You remember the trick, don’t you? “This is the house and this is the steeple, open the door and there’s the people.” It was shown to me first by a Sunday School teacher wanting to illustrate just how important it was to go to church. What I loved is the sheer inventiveness of this simple gesture with the hands! But, you know, there really is something about being together in the Church,…

Jacob LIED!

“He’s a liar!” Yep, he sure is, and his actions send ripples throughout his life and the lives of so many others. We were discussing a politician we both knew. But, here’s the rub; this politician held many of the same values and positions we both felt strongly about. However, this politician had been caught in a public and inescapable lie, and not just any lie, like “I really did finish my…

God Will Provide a Lamb!

“But I don’t understand!” How many times have I said these very words concerning something I was going through in my life? If I had a nickel for every time I said this or heard this, especially from my children, I’d be very wealthy. The truth Is I really don’t understand many things. As I look around my society, the people and the place I love so very much, I don’t understand…