I am convinced that, in the end, the truthfulness of Christianity rests on our faith in the claim that Israel is the unique God-breathed, God-inspired witness and testifier to the reality and truth of the one, true God for all of humanity for all time.

We must appreciate how accepting Jesus brings meaning and purpose to all the choices and decisions of our lives, without, at the same time, making God ultimately responsible for everything we have ever done.

Let's not live forgettable lives before our God.  Let's not choose to be part of the chaff that the fires of history and justice will burn away.  What role shall we play in His story?

Now, more than ever, we need Christians who will take up the call to follow Jesus; Christians who will not let the things we've lost justify ungodly attitudes and behaviors today; Christians who will look again to the earliest Christians as models for what it means to live in the midst of hostility and persecution.

We all must redeem what we have been graced by using our gifts in service of those who need what we are especially equipped by God to provide.

We should avoid temptation whenever we can, but we should also believe that with God if a crossroads of temptation, desire, and opportunity takes us unawares, we are not destined to fail.

The truly faithful look always to go above and beyond any requirement, seeking to be as forgiving as possible, as generous as possible, and as gracious as possible.

We are free not only to consecrate ourselves entirely to God as Ruth did.  We are promised true transformation through the gracious promise of God to sanctify us through and through.

We can rejoice in the midst of suffering, we can receive peace in the midst of life's storms, we can celebrate when the world mourns, and we can discover a peace and contentment that will follow us through all the days and seasons of our lives, not because God promises us no suffering, but because God promises us that the joy set before us is so unimaginably bright that this short journey through this testing ground of our faith will make all of this seem worthwhile.

We are called to speak, to believe, and to embody the Gospel, not that the world may find it appealing, but that the world might see God and God's way in us and through us.