Pursuing Jesus

Being a disciple of Jesus is not the kind of thing we can do alone, anymore than we can play baseball alone.

In Luke 15 Jesus teaches that beyond receiving grace, we are called to extend grace to the people around us.

Jesus calls us to pursue maturity - to not just sit around as if it will happen automatically. Pursuing maturity means taking up the Christian disciplines.

When he calls the first disciples in Matthew 4, Jesus says, Come follow me, and I will make you fisher of men. This is a three-fold invitation: to commit to him, to walk with him, and to be responsible for others.

Over against assessments that Christianity is a religion, a moral system, or an eternal insurance program, I claim it is best understood as the story climaxing in Jesus, in which God invites us to participate

What is the primary job of a pastor? Looking at what Paul says in Colossians, I see it as presenting the gospel to people, and presenting the people to God, perfect in Christ.

While anger can be a necessary and appropriate response in a sinful, broken world, we and the people around us suffer when consumed by anger. Considering Moses in Numbers 20, we explore some ways to put anger in its place.

Small churches and Christians at poorly attended events make much of Jesus' statement, "Wherever two or three gather, there am I with them." If we read this verse in context, it means something rather different than we commonly assume.

We say, "Seeing Is Believing." Sometimes it is - and we're rightly skeptical. Other times, however, we will fail to see until we believe. Jesus challenges us to see as he sees, and to see from within his story.

In Matthew 7, Jesus commands us not to judge. How can we understand that when making judgments is a necessary part of life? Taking "condemning" as the practice to avoid helps us part of the way. Even more, we want to become the kind of people who so hunger for Christlikeness that we willingly submit to correction by others so we can reach that goal.