Messages inviting us to live in and from the Love of God revealed in Christ Jesus.
Notes Here Horatio Spafford. “It Is Well with My Soul.” Manuscript hymn, 1871. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress (8)
Into a world longing for a Power strong enough to remove their oppressors Jesus looked past the Palms to embrace the Passion of the cross to unveil real and lasting Peace. Not by might, not by power as it had been known and defined but by My Spirit. A power revealed in self giving self emptying love and forgiveness - Peace for every man woman boy and girl and that is good news.
The Good News we proclaim in a world filled with distortion, distance and disconnection of every kind. There is a Man who trusts His Love is enough to Liberate and give life to the most broken to restore - Sonship like Jesus!
You see repentance is not just about our decision to stop doing certain things - its more about agreeing with God about what is real and true! Repentance beloved is agreeing with God about reality.
The Words God spoke over Jesus at His baptism were enough not just to rescue Jesus from temptation but allow Him to proclaim and reveal another Kingdom – His belovedness is the basis of His life and ministry. In a world filled with 'good ideas' of how to use power to make our life work, the Fathers words of love over you and me today are still the basis His Kingdom is revealed and that is Good News.
Transfiguration then is not just an event to Peter, James and John but a glimpse of themselves, weighed down with sleep - with the weight of life. When they awake they see the dazzling glory of Jesus, is this what a human being looks like transformed from the fatigue and weight of by the good opinion of God towards all He has made - maybe this is reality? Beholding what you are and Becoming what you see – is to be formed and transformed by what is lasting and true.
Beloved the Good News we proclaim today in a world divided by wounds, fears and innumerable barriers God's Kingdom still comes when we hear His invitation and surrender to His Mercy! Mercy that enables us to freely love our enemies. Not as a spiritual task but as a result of mercy being rooted in us.
Real Religion - as revealed and defined by Jesus is not measured by the Power Centers of earthly empire and influence but by lives surrendered to Mercy and led by Love. The Good Life is the actual blessed life where God is able to love the world through you and me today and that is Good News!
In the deep Jesus reveals a deeper mystery something beyond hard work and effort - lives not defined by success, failure, emptiness or clutter - but in the abundance of encountering the mystery of the measureless heart of the Father revealed in Christ. Here they encounter what they had never known before measureless grace! And that is Good News.
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In the place and to the people looking for life, hope and change by either violent resistance or legalistic righteousness - Jesus enters the story and changes the story. He simply came as a son of His mother Mary and He changes the story from shame to honor from fear to joy! This is more than power on display this is who God is and what God does. He has come to invade humanities mortality by embracing mortality and revealing His life and that is good news!
Beloved the whole gospel could be summed up in this point: to tear filled angry young lady and to you and me - its time to rethink everything. Jesus was manifest to reveal that the living God looks at us, and says to us what he said to Jesus on that day. ‘You are my son/daughter, the one I love and in you I take great pleasure. He sees us, not as we are in our broken places, but as we are in Jesus Christ ( I never knew you is about how God knows you) and that is Good News.'
Beloved the Good News Gospel of Jesus that John describes in our text today “And the Word became flesh and lived among us and we beheld His glory” This is the good news - Christ has come to where we actually are...not where we would like to be- but as He is to reveal Heaven and restore earth!
Notes here Getty ImagesFor Unsplash+
To shepherds in the fields in the dark of night, in weakness and vulnerability light has broken in to proclaim a song that will anchor their life in Wonder - a Savior has been born for you - the forgotten and forsaken - He is Christ the Lord. And this is the message of Advent beloved in a place and at time that would normally be cold and dark - light and sound broke in to proclaim Good News to the most weak and vulnerable - Peace on earth and Goodwill to mankind. It was good news then and it is good news now - God became flesh - Wow!
The Good News we proclaim today in a world laden and weary with fear - Hope is the promise of Gods salvation in the man Christ Jesus. Hope arrives in person. So what do we do now? We repent. By changing our mind, our heart and our life - we change the way we live as a people surrendered to Hope over fear. A life that is not ruled by fear but by love and that beloved is good news.
The Good News we proclaim today is that Jesus came from His home to bring us home. His journey filled with betrayal, fear, manipulation and death had one clear goal to destroy the power that held humanity and creation under the grip of fear and death. He comes to a people living in exile from the garden of created order with God as an exile to bring the back home!
Advent beloved is a call to a different calendar for one simple reason to set a rhythm and pattern of calling out lives back into the real story - God became a man and changed the story forever - God in Christ has set things right for us and that is Good News! And really is all we need for Christmas.
The good news we proclaim is that the meaning of life is not Power to control life - the meaning of life is self giving self giving sacrificial Love!
Into a religious system that attributed value and worth to the strong and accomplished, the powerful and influential. Jesus reveals something beyond those weak measures - something not based in human accomplishment or accumulation.
Beloved the good news we proclaim today is that His Kingdom is closer than you think and comes to the One who invited us to live in whole hearted surrender to that good news that is revealed most not in the result of a ballot box but in the cross and co-suffering love. The greatest commandment is this - Love the Lord you God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. If you understand that, then the Kingdom of God is closer that you think!
Into a world that defined the limits of life by ‘Power and Influence' - where the Great Ones lord it over the little people...where we are hearing the constant message that unless we have the right Person as the ‘leader' of our nation - everything will collapse. Jesus reveals the heart of God and the plan of God that reveals heaven on earth - not by power or influence but by uncontrolling love and forgiveness.
Into a world filled with injustice, hate, division and despair then and now, that leaves us longing for a different existence. What is impossible with man real and lasting peace, justice and genuine love for one another in this life have become possible in this life because God is good.
The Good news we proclaim today is that Jesus did not come just to diagnose the cause of Divorce - but to reveal a Kingdom that sets free, restores and makes whole, this is a Kingdom where love reveals wholeness and grace brings life.
Jesus comes to proclaim a Kingdom led and kept by Love. He comes to elevate others at His expense because that is what Love does. Beloved the Good News we proclaim is that the strategy of Heaven while confusing to the world is still about revealing the Freedom, Forgiveness, Joy and Peace of Heaven to the human heart - not through a complex process of theology and self denial but through the largeness of the Fathers Mercy...that can boldy say who ever is not against us is for us.
This penniless teacher is revealing the same God who hoovered over darkness, empty non life and formless confusion and revealed light, life and order. That God is doing the same in real time to the people and in places we had not thought possible. Light, life and love have come to rescue all of humanity change the story and He still comes to change our story - and that beloved is Good News.
The Good News we proclaim today is that something has come into being that has changed the whole story of humanity - Mercy has triumphed over judgment! And that is Good News especially as we live in a world drowning in harsh judgment against one another and ourselves - Mercy Still Triumphs! God is still in the business of telling another story in your life and mine. Men and women held in captivity for years by addictions, abuses, failures and wounds - The Gospel proclaims God is still telling another story - a story of Mercy.
Faithfulness is not about words memorized, recited, rules kept or duties and obligations fulfilled but a heart cleansed and a life shaped by the radical self giving love of God revealed in Christ! True Faithfulness that Jesus reveals is not about how ‘clean or right' we appear but is love alive in the heart enough that it will follow Jesus example to lay down our life for the good of others and that beloved is Good News.
Beloved the Good News that Jesus proclaims in John 6 to a world filled with disappointment, despair and disconnection that no matter how hard they tried ends in death. Jesus invitation is Eat Well - Bon Appetite. He reveals food that changes everything - it restores, makes whole and imparts life!
Jesus life was about revealing an ‘open secret' - this mystery of faith - that we are included in Him - restored to Garden relationship and representation! This is the mystery of faith that Jesus is attempting to tease in the hearts of His friends - the mystery of Faith. This is a great mystery but believe it or not (and it is hard to believe) Jesus is not himself apart from us any more than he is himself apart from the Father. How can that be true? Because he asked for it to be—and his intercessions cannot fail. EW Green. This is the Good News Jesus proclaimed to His friends and the Apostles proclaim in the epistles you have been included - not to become a part of a the ‘in' religious group that can display supremacy over others but who actually reveal the heart of God in real time.
This is Good News beloved - God knows what it means to be a King of a Kingdom and He knows what it means to be a human. Gods great goal is so much more than removing mans sin problem and giving him a hope of heaven after they die! Gods great goal is NOT to snatch people away from the earth and all of its problems....this is NOT what we see in the Kingship of Jesus. Jesus is not interested in Herods throne or Ceasars throne He is revealing the life of Heaven on earth in real time. And then inviting us to do the same!
The Jesus of the Gospels—the Jesus who won their hearts, and who long ago won mine with the revelation of what is actually Good and Beautiful—needs to be reclaimed. The Love of God revealed in Christ and that beloved is good news.
Jesus who took on our humanity knows all about our hometown - He experienced it first hand! He knows our Hometown but He also knows how to get us Home where we belong and that is Good News!
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