Grace Alone Online

For the next two Wednesdays there will be an ADVENT DEVOTIONAL of storytelling.  Please take time and reflect as we await Christ's birth.  Music used in this devotional:

“Joseph Dearest, Joseph Mine [feat. Ted Williams],” The

“Joseph Dearest, Joseph Mine,” the Festival Consort, from

“Silent Night,” Frank Sinatra, from the album Jolly

“Away in a Manger,” Alan Jackson, from the album Let it

“All is Well,” Vocal Majority, from the album The Spirit

This second Sunday in Advent we focus on being renewed through Christ in us. Images abound throughout Scripture as metaphors for descriptions of the human condition. Strength is easily depicted as a lion, or an eagle soaring through the air. But how might you picture weariness or hopelessness? What object, animal, part of nature, might describe weariness or hopelessness? Isaiah has a message for you, as we explore some of these images.

For the next three Wednesdays there will be an ADVENT DEVOTIONAL of storytelling. Please take time and reflect as we await Christ's birth. Music used in this devotional:

“Here Comes Santa Claus,” Gene Autry, from the album The

“O Little Town of Bethlehem,” Gene Autry, from the album The

“O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” Vocal Majority, from the album The

“Put Christ Back Into Christmas,” George Beverly Shea, from

“Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne,” George Beverly Shea, from the

Our series opener this Advent season fosucing each week on Be Born in Us Today. what does Christ bring us? today we focus on His blessings. From among the many, he calls Abraham to carry the seed of his promise to save the world. He calls you, out of the darkness, to enter His marvelous light.

The concept of eternity is difficult to grasp.  We could describe eternity as “timeless” but we use “timeless” differently than “eternity”.  For example, a diamond ring is timeless beauty.  The ruins of Egypt are timeless.  But Pastor Greg’s sermons are an eternity; they are not timeless.

Jesus had 33 years of time to teach about the impending day of judgment.  We have, at best, 80 years to come to terms with faith and judgment.  Today, we end the church year; next Sunday we begin a new year with Advent.  Today, we focus on the Judgment Day and the coronation of Christ our King of eternity; next Sunday we focus on the birth of that king and begin another cycle of the church year.

I love a phrase from Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol.  Scrooge says to Marley’s ghost, “There’s more gravy than of the grave about you.”  Scrooge doesn’t believe what he sees standing before him, namely Marley’s ghost.  He thinks the apparition is caused by some bad foo he ate.  This thanksgiving, I’m sure more than one of us will be like Scrooge, not believing what we’re seeing because we are more stuffed than the turkey we ate.

Pause for a moment and think about a most beloved gift you’ve received.  For me, it was a camera.  I always played around with my dad’s camera, my mom’s camera, my dad’s Bell and Howell 8mm movie camera – not video.  Finally, when I was thirteen, my parents gave me a Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic 500 Single-Lens Reflex with a screw-thread lens mount developed by Zeiss and Praktika corporations during World War II. 

Sharing joy is one part of the message in our parable of the Talents

Even for the most devout Christian, today’s parable and the next three makes us feel insecure, fear, or perhaps doubt.  They make us take account of our faith and our actions, our sincerity, our devotedness to follow Jesus.  Both Jesus’ and Matthew’s intent, however, is to prepare themselves for Judgment Day with vibrant faith which fuels their daily lives and relationships with others.  You, and only you, are held accountable to be faithful both in your confession of Christ as your Savior, and in leading a life of love and mercy, fueled by that faith.

These next three parables are a call to be prepared and to not let your guard down in a world that would swallow you, and your faith, whole.  It is Christ who overcomes fear and doubt and you must keep your eyes and live your lives on Him.  He is the prize.

Our parable is the last of a series about mercy and judgment.  Jesus tells this parable sometime between Palm Sunday and Good Friday.  This parable not only summarizes Jesus’ earthly ministry but also anticipates His upcoming resurrection from the dead.  It focuses on the wedding feast of His second coming and a king who sends out invitations to the that festal day.

Don’t shoot the messenger.  What a great saying.  Say it and you evade all responsibility related to the message.  “Don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger.”  However, killing the messenger would be the most effective way of killing the message.  This is what lies behind Jesus’ parable today: the Parable of the Tenant farmers, as it is commonly known.