Hope is more and better than an escape plan. The hope we find in Jesus isn’t that we get to leave this earth and go to heaven, but that we get to participate in bringing heaven to earth.

Jesus came into a world marked by conflict to restore what is broken. Christmas illuminates the peace and wholeness God offers us and invites us to gift others that same peace.

There’s no such thing as a private relationship with God. We only become human again when we live up close and personal with friends who are committed to following Jesus in their flesh, too. The more of us who do, the more of us who will.

God doesn’t ask us to confront people with their sin or their need for him. Instead, we trust the Spirit of Jesus at work in us and let the Spirit convince others of God’s goodness as they encounter his love through us.

God doesn't need me to judge others, but he does want me to share the good news of Jesus with them. When grace oozes out of my life, people may want to hear the truth in my life.

Jesus came in the flesh to make his home among us. If our hearts are now his home, then our homes can be reflections of his heart. When we open the doors of our homes and our hearts, we invite others to come home to God’s love for them.

Jesus came in the flesh to help us get back what’s good, beautiful and true and to oppose everything that isn’t. When we live as Jesus we fight like Jesus—for what he’s for and against the injustice that opposes it.

We’re tempted to view work as either a necessary evil or an idol to chase. But Jesus came in the flesh to show us that in God’s kingdom, all work is an opportunity to reclaim the joy of partnering with God to love and care for one another and our world.

We often feel pressure to deny our humanity or be more godlike in order to follow Jesus. But Jesus came to show us how and set us free to be more human, allowing God to be God through us.

Jesus came in the flesh to show us how to live in our flesh. We miss the incarnation when we view Jesus only through his death on the cross instead of through his life in the neighborhood.