The most wonderful time of the year? Well…for many folks…not exactly. Although the holidays can stir up many emotions, memories, or anxieties, there seems to be a subtle but powerful prescription peppered throughout the 66 books that comprise the Bible. Go ahead, give it a listen, give this thread of thanksgiving a tug and take heart! Practical thanksgiving is like a spiritual anti-biotic, militantly eradicating the disease of malaise from our hearts and minds. Or, as Jesus once said, “in this world you will have troubles, but TAKE HEART, I have overcome the world!”

There’s often a story behind a story. Scripture is filled with plenty of examples. A woman is remembered for touching Jesus’ cloak and gaining miraculous healing. Was it just dumb luck? Or was it something that the woman did because she dared to believe the story behind the story? Peer in as we let the backstory of a familiar tale illuminate the activity of God in our midst.

What is the “Word of God?” Is it a book? Or, is it as the good Book says…the Word of God is a person. The Age of Reason gave us many things. Many good things. But it also leaves a film of unintended consequences whereby many now assume “truth” through their own experience…putting us all at the whim of our own urges. But all is not lost! The Word of God is active, alive and well. Do you know Him? Can you hear Him? Dare you follow where He leads?

Dive down with me into the layers of scripture where deeper understanding is sure to be found! In Luke 19, look on as Jesus encounters Zacchaeus, that wee little man many of us sang about in our Sunday School children’s song. Yet, Jesus’ words stop the music with one culturally-charged turn of phrase. It is this power-packed phrase that lets everyone within earshot know where they stand. Open your eyes and you just might see that it is Jesus himself who has come to “seek and save the lost!”

How well do you really see the things of God? How well do we really hear God in the work-a-day lives we lead? Let the scriptures encourage us with a word – Repent! Be zealous and repent, we are told. Well, let’s just see about that as we open a letter written to a thriving economic center of the early 1st Century. Look and see. Listen and hear. And if you are so bold, repent!

It is interesting that Jesus doesn’t appear to concern himself with right vs. wrong. Instead, his focus is intently on life vs. death. The Bible describes two trees from a garden of old – the Tree of Life and the Tree of Death. How is it that we keep eating from the wrong tree? What might it look like to eat from the Tree of Life and let its juicy fruit run down our mouths as God, God Himself, brings our world back to life?

So, you want to engage the God of the Universe but you’ve heard there are things about you that keep you from Him? Let the extraordinary story of Acts 8 open your eyes, open your ears, and open your heart to the reality that you, yes YOU, can be fully immersed in the life of God…right now! Our God is bigger than most of us are comfortable with. He is the righteous-maker. Look and see. Listen and hear.

Fresh thoughts concerning the second coming of Jesus, the resurrection of the body, and our hope.

It has begun! What, you ask? The Kingdom of God has drawn near…right in the middle of death and injustice, you and me. Matthew 11 shows Jesus using a veiled reference to Micah 2 to explain what this Gospel of the Kingdom is really all about. It’s about living life, real life, smack in the midst of surrounding death. So, enjoy. Live! It has begun!!