God is more beautiful, loving, and trustworthy than we can imagine, and God longs to be known as He truly is. As God's people, we are being freed from false images of God and transformed into living reflections of divine love. Beloved, let us welcome God's work in us by praying that God's name may be honored in and through our lives on display to all people.

The Lord’s prayer is NOT just a prayer script we repeat at church or in our own prayers. It CAN be those things, but it’s so much more as well. 

This prayer Jesus gives his disciples is a way of learning to become the people of God who are becoming more and more open to the presence of God. 

The God who created all things is not distant or difficult to reach. In Jesus, we have become God's beloved family, joined to his people across time and space, and our Father is as near as our next breath. So friends, let us open ourselves to the One who is already with us, trusting that we are loved, heard, and never alone. 

Pentecost is the revelation of a slave-freeing, fear-healing, deliverance-dealing, all-embracing movement of God. Church, behold God's presence and power in your body, among our body, reaching forth in the world to call every-body home. 

The work of God moves forward by the spirit of Jesus outside the gates, among the excluded and the marginalized, making peace until all fear is vanquished and all people find a home in god's community. To whom is the spirit of Christ moving you and moving us to today?

Jesus—the risen and glorious One—is Lord over all chaos. He calls us into a love that reaches beyond space and time. As we love one another, God’s glory breaks through, pushing back the forces of sin and death,  drawing all things toward new creation. Beloved, let’s press deeply into love today, giving praise to the One who is making everything new.

And what kind of shepherd is Jesus to us? He is the One who lays down his life for the sheep… the One who knows us and calls us by name… the One who shares our suffering and cares for us in our sorrows… the One who holds us securely in his loving hands, protecting us from all the powers that seek to harm us, taking full responsibility for everyone and everything, even to the point of death… The one who shares with us the very life of God.  

Beloved, this is our reality right here, right now, in the light of the dawn of Easter… whether we're aware of it or not. Will you open yourself to it today? Will you open yourself to Jesus being your good shepherd today? 

You’re not crazy if you feel like we’re living in a world on the brink of disaster, not in a world where Jesus is raised in victory.

Can you relate? If so friends, we declare our need and we proclaim good news into this. 

Beloved, take heart. The kingdom of God will not be jailed up, damned up, or cut down by human hands or by any principalities and powers. Wherever you find yourself this morning, expect to find Jesus, bringing life out of death. Take courage in in his presence and in whatever work he's given you to do.

Christ is RISEN. He is the first fruit, raised ahead of us, reigning with us until the last enemy, death, is destroyed. Church, in Adam all die, but in Christ we are all made alive. Be alive in Christ this Easter day. 

The cross of Christ reveals the horror of what we've done to the world, to each other and to ourselves; and in the same moment, reveals the depths of God's love for us and the potency of God's power to save us. Beloved, we really are in bad shape, but we are held with a love that goes deeper than our worst and is working even now to liberate us from the fear of death. Behold the man upon the cross.

 Yahweh is our unbreakable promise… He always finds a way to fulfill His word and work powerfully through quiet, unseen acts of courage and obedience. As followers of Jesus, we are invited into that same story—trusting that even our hidden faithfulness matters and is part of a much bigger story that we may never fully see.