Claimed, gathered and sent

It was a marvelous Easter celebration this past Sunday. It was one of the wonderful times where everything comes together just right: the music, the word, the worship and fellowship. Throughout the day Ray and I kept marveling at what a special day it had been. But when all is said and done, borrowing a phrase from Pastor Paul's sermon, I must ask, "So what!" It's not just about the warm fuzzies of family, music and worship. What we celebrated Sunday is the linchpin of our Christian faith. " And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins" (I Cor 15:17). The same power that raised Christ from the dead is available to us in our daily lives. It's no myth. It's reality. As Peter wrote, "We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty" (2 Pet 1:16). Christ is risen! He is risen i...

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This says it all... God in Our Midst Now in Jesus Christ this is just what has happened. The image of God has entered our midst, in the form of our fallen life, in the likeness of sinful flesh. In the teaching and acts of Christ, in his life and death, the image of God is revealed. In him the divine image has been re-created on earth. The Incarnation, the words and acts of Jesus, his death on the cross, are all indispensable parts of that image. But it is not the same image as Adam bore in the primal glory of paradise. Rather, it is the image of one who enters a world of sin and death, who takes upon himself all the sorrows of humanity, who meekly bears God's wrath and judgment against sinners, and obeys God's will with unswerving devotion in suffering and death, the man born to poverty, the friend of publicans and sinners, the man of sorrows, rejected by people and forsaken of God. Here is God made human, here is the human in the new image of God. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer - from ...

Many of us remember the Beatles' song "All You Need is Love." The Bonhoeffer devotional today offers a slightly different view: all you need is God in Christ. Enjoy. BONHOEFFER for TUESDAY April 3, 2007 God in Christ All that we may rightly expect from God, and ask God for, is to be found in Jesus Christ. The God of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with what God, as we imagine God, could do and ought to do. If we are to learn what God promises, and what God fulfills, we must persevere in quiet meditation on the life, sayings, deeds, sufferings, and death of Jesus. It is certain that we may always live close to God and in the light of God's presence, and that such living is an entirely new life for us; that nothing is then impossible for us, because all things are possible with God; that no earthly power can touch us without God's will, and that danger and distress can only drive us closer to God. It is certain that we can claim nothing for ourselves, and may y...

I just finished reading "Recalibrate Your Life." As we continue our Lenten journey into Holy Week, this post really hits home. You will find this on the right hand side of the blog under "Gifted for Leadership." I trust you're as challenged as I was.

As we near the end of Lent moving toward the cross and resurrection, the need of forgiveness commands our attention. This post from Scot McKnight says it well. March 30, 2007 Friday is for Friends Filed under: Books: Remarks and Reviews — Scot McKnight @ 2:30 am Any study of the disciplines that shape Christian community eventually comes face to face with forgiveness, and Darryl Tippens, Pilgrim Heart , turns to this theme in chp. 9. I remind readers that we touched on forgiveness and memory when we looked for weeks at Miroslav Volf’s The End of Memory ; Tippens gets us there once again. The theme must remain central to any understanding of the The chp is called “Forgiving: The Love that Travels Farther.” We are back to the same question: How might we learn to forgive more? Are we ready to be the genesis of forgiveness in our world? Tippens opens up with stories of those who were about to die, at the hands treachery, but who publicly declared their forgiveness of perpe...

In the blog JesusCreed, Scot McKnight posted this about women in ministry: March 29, 2007 Women in Ministry: First Mary Filed under: Women and Ministry , Mary — Scot McKnight @ 2:30 am The most neglected texts about women in ministry in the entire Bible are texts about Mary, and because our class has been looking at Mary of late, I thought I’d make a few suggestions about Mary and Ministry for women. It won’t do to dismiss these points as nothing more than what only the mother of Jesus could do. (read more…) I’ll suggest that Mary was first in many ways. 1. Mary was the first to know about arrival of the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of the Most High God (Luke 1:26-38). 2. Mary was the first to surrender to God’s new redemptive plan in Jesus (Luke 1:38). One could say she was the “first disciple” from this. 3. Mary became — however you care to say it — the first witness to Jesus Christ. Only she was there at the very beginning, so only she was able to te...