Citizens Weekly

Eating God’s word is different than reading God’s word. Eating is not less than reading, but it is much more than that. At a time when the voices of many compete for our attention and claim to give life, Jesus invites us to feast on him, the bread of life. And he says that this kind of eating will bring life to us and the world around us. 

As we close our shared season of Advent, we look at Hope through both a social and theological lens. Biblical Hope, we learn, focuses far more on waiting well than on the potential satisfaction of desire. As people of the Word, we need a personal Liturgy that helps us “eat the scroll” of God’s scripture, which uniquely refreshes us in seasons of Hopeful waiting.

This week in our advent series we talk about peace and discuss reasons for why so many of us are struggling with anxiety and not walking in biblical peace. 

Joy is of such high value in heaven that the writer of Hebrews said in chapter 12 that it was the JOY set before Jesus that helped Him endure the Cross. As we, as Jesus followers, fix our eyes on God and truly behold Him, we will continue to be filled with joy no matter our circumstances. The joy of the presence of God in our lives is worth everything we have! The Holy Spirit loves to stir up joy in each of us to enable us to live abundantly free and full of joy and the world needs to see sons and daughters of God that love like our King.

Advent invites the church to honor our spiritual ancestors’ waiting for the Messiah’s arrival. In our Advent waiting, it is good to remember the darkness that the light of Jesus invaded with His Father’s love. Remembering His love for us - the ways He invaded the darkness of our own lives and those near us - builds our faith to confidently speak His light into a dark world still waiting for a Messiah.

From the Series, “The Sermon on the Mount”. Jesus did an untold number of miracles. From raising the dead to feeding five thousand people, people were amazed by Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ teaching amazed people. He was compelling. But that was 2,000 years ago. According to recent Barna surveys, it’s projected that over 1 million people will leave the church in 2023. 67% of college students will lose their faith by the end of this school year. How can we reclaim a posture of amazement with the person and work of Jesus? When was the last time you were amazed by Jesus? 

In a postmodern world, truth and love are open for interpretation and demands are often made to accept or affirm personal definitions of truth and love. For this reason, the words and actions of Jesus can seem offensive (as they often did in His day) because Jesus will not change His definitions of Truth and Love to affirm who we are. Rather, Jesus’ Truth and Jesus’ Love affirms who His Father is. Period. Full stop. No apologies.

The purpose of the Sabbath is Worship. Everyone worships something. The question is not - are you worshipping, but who or what are you worshipping? Once we enter into the practice of Sabbath; once we stop, then rest, then delight, the resulting response is worship. 

Through the Sabbath, God invites us to experience true delight. Sabbath is delighting in God’s world, his word; to delight in God, and to experience his delight in us. But our culture promotes the opposite of what God is offering us in the Sabbath. The fruit of this world is burnout and cynicism, but there’s another way – and in the Sabbath, God’s promise of rest still stands.