You cannot abide in a Vine you cannot see — unless Someone makes Him present to you. That Someone is the Holy Spirit.

The first three fruit are not achievements. They are what it feels like to be attached.

We treat love, joy, and peace as moods to be manufactured on demand — and then feel like frauds when we cannot produce them.

We keep trying to generate spiritual life out of our own effort — more discipline, more resolve, a better version of ourselves by January — and we cannot understand why nothing grows.

Jesus doesn't calm our fear by removing the trouble. He calms it by giving us himself — the place secured, the way opened, the door held open to the Father.

Secure in the Father's love, Jesus used His power to serve those who would betray and abandon Him — and that's exactly what we come to this Table to remember and receive.

His death was for our sin.  Not just dying as a symbol but as a substitute, as in taking our place for what we deserved.  There is a theological term for this.  Substitutionary Atonement.  In the purest since it means that we deserved death because of our sin. Sin separates us from God.  But Jesus took on our sin on the cross.  His death was much more than physical torture, although it was brutal, Jesus took on the weight of all humanity's sins on the cross.

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are

walking in the truth. 3 John 1:4

Jesus rode into Jerusalem, and the whole crowd had no idea what kind of Messiah he was going to be. You may have built your own Jesus out of expectations he never made — political, social justice, prosperity, healing — and missed the real Son of God standing right in front of you.

Fathers day

 I AM the Resurrection and the Life.  And we understand in hindsight that his road to glory included pain, grief, heartbreak, betrayal, abandonment and ultimately, a brutal death on the cross.

Jesus is worth everything, because he gave everything. When we understand what Jesus gave for us, no act of devotion feels too costly.