Love is Patient | Week 3

Matthew 27:57-61; John 20:10-18

If we love God, we obey God and when we think of obedience, we usually think of action. But what if the call to obey is a call to wait? Our productivity culture has a bias toward action: we plan, we prepare, and we execute. But obedience is often a call to patiently wait on God to work and we get witness and evangelize. Mary Magdalene helps us see what it means to actively wait for God because we love God.

I Need a Priest | Season of Easter Week 7

We often think of what Jesus has done (death and resurrection) or what Jesus will do (glorious return), but very little of what he is doing now (intercession). In Christ’s ascension we see how much we need and have a priest, and this gives us new boldness for things we are facing today.

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Life That Works | Season of Easter Week 6

What does God want from you (or for you)? Over time, it can be easy to reduce God’s claim on our life to the “spiritual” dimension… believing God expects us to live morally and do a couple spiritual disciplines. That’s not a bad vision; but it leaves a lot of our lives untouched. Paul presents something bigger: in Christ, we are invited into a grace-shaped life that recasts our relationships with ourselves, with others, and even with our time.

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An Inheritance: What Jesus Left Us | Season of Easter Week 5

We live in an era of rapidly eroding trust in the institutions of our society and the church is no exception. Attempts to recover what Jesus left us without the baggage of distrusted church institutions are difficult. There are many things Jesus could have left us that he chose not to; instead: Jesus left us the church. Why? And what does this inheritance mean for each of us with concerns about the church in the world today?

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