Podcasts about imagine jesus

Welcome to Day 2644 of Wisdom-Trek. Thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom Day 2644 – New Testament Orientation – Jesus' Message to Gentiles and Jews - the Cross Putnam Church Message – 06/01/2025 Sermon Series: New Testament Orientation Message 6: “Jesus' Message to Gentiles & Jews - the Cross”   Last week, we explored The Four Gospels - Four Witnesses to the King Core Verses: Matthew 28:18-20 (NLT) This week is Sermon: 6 of 12 Title: Jesus' Message to Gentiles & Jews - the Cross Core Verses: Hebrews 3:1-2 Matthew 28:18-20 (NLT) Core Verses: Hebrews 3:1-2 (NLT) “And so, dear brothers and sisters who belong to God and are partners with those called to heaven, think carefully about Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our faith. For he was faithful to God who appointed him, just as Moses had been faithful in all God's house.” Opening Prayer Our Gracious and Holy Father, we come before You this day with hearts open and minds eager to receive Your truth. As we gather to explore the profound message of Your Son, Jesus, we pray that your Holy Spirit will illuminate our understanding. May we grasp the depth of His faithfulness, the power of His victory, and the boundless love extended to all—Jew and Gentile alike—through His sacrifice on the cross. Guide our thoughts, stir our spirits, and transform our lives, we pray, in the precious name of Jesus. Amen. Introduction: The Unveiling of a King's Message As we continue on this incredible journey through the New Testament! We are now in our sixth week, and today, we stand at a pivotal juncture, peering into the very heart of Jesus' mission. If you could have walked up to Jesus, as many did, and asked, “What are you about? What is your core message?” what would He have said? Today, we will explore four crucial aspects of His message—ideas that might not always get the attention they deserve, but are foundational to understanding Jesus, His kingdom, and the radical inclusion He brought to all nations. We'll speak of Jesus' faithfulness, His decisive victory over demonic powers, the revolutionary relationship between Jew and Gentile forged in Him, and finally, the profound meaning of the cross. (Bulletin Insert) Jesus' Faithfulness: A Quiet Carpenter's Perfect Obedience Our journey begins with a look at Jesus' faithfulness, a quality often overlooked amidst the dazzling miracles and powerful teachings. The writer of Hebrews—a sermon in itself—highlights this in our core verses today: “He was faithful to God who appointed him, just as Moses had been faithful in all God's house” (Hebrews 3:2, NLT). Imagine Jesus, not as the public figure we know from His ministry, but as a young man in Nazareth. For nearly 30 years, He lived a quiet life as a carpenter, the son of a carpenter. There were no public miracles, no grand sermons, just the humble rhythm of daily life. And yet, when He emerges for His public baptism, the heavens declare, “And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.” (Matthew 3:17, NLT). What was God pleased

What did Jesus say when He prayed? - Fr. Lucas Laborde. Click here for today's readings.How would you like to summarize your life? Imagine Jesus speaking to the Father about you. What are the good things He says? What do you find most inspiring in the character of Jesus?

Let's connect the dots.  Imagination can play an essential role in constructing negative images of our concerns.  And that snowballs into doubt and depression.  Try this.  Imagine Jesus giving you what you need to face any situation.  

Discussion QuestionsSermon Overview Follow Jesus the suffering King into the greater gain of his kingdom.Digging Deeper    Read Luke 9:18-27.1. Imagine Jesus standing before you today and asking, “Who do you say that I am?” How would you answer that question? 2. Jesus describes himself as the “Son of Man” in verse 26. It was a title used in the Old Testament to mean human. With that, read Daniel 7:13-14, which expands the term. Using that background, what did Jesus mean when he said he was the “Son of Man.”3. In Luke 9:24, Jesus says, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” What does it look like to lose your life for the sake of Christ? 4. What's one area of your life where you're more self-centered than Christ-centered?5. How can this group encourage you to become more Christ-centered in that area? 6. Who have you seen “lose their life” for the sake of Jesus? What did (or does) that look like for them? 7. What hope does this passage give us when we feel like we're losing out in this world because we're following Christ? 8. In what ways would following Jesus now be unpopular or met with opposition?9. Read Galatians 2:20 and Titus 2:11-14. How do the truths in these passages empower us to take up our cross and follow Christ? 10. The whole notion of taking up your cross and following Jesus may seem crazy to those who don't trust in Jesus. If an unbelieving friend or family member were to ask why you've chosen to deny yourself and follow Christ, what would you say to them? Prayer

The apparition of Christ at the Sea of Tiberias - Fr. Lucas Laborde. Click here for today's readings.Can you recognize Christ in the journey of your life, and maybe in more recent events and circumstances? Imagine Jesus asks you that triple question: Do you love me? What is He expecting from you? What would you reply?

Read OnlinePhilip said to Jesus, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father'?” John 14:8–9Today's liturgical feast is in honor of two of the Apostles, Philip and James the Lesser.  Little is known about James other than that he was chosen by our Lord for the apostolic ministry and that we have one of his letters, which is contained in the New Testament.  James eventually went to Jerusalem and led the Church for a few decades until he was stoned to death as a martyr. Philip preached in Greece, Phrygia and Syria.  He and Saint Bartholomew were thought to have been crucified upside down. Philip preached upside down from the cross until his death.In the Gospel for today's Mass, we are presented with an encounter that Philip had with Jesus. Though this encounter appears to be a rebuke of Philip by Jesus, it's a rebuke that is quite heartfelt. Jesus says, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip?” Jesus did, indeed, spend much time with His disciples. They stayed together, ate together, traveled together and spent much time talking with each other. Therefore, Jesus' comments to Philip emanated from His real and lived personal relationship with Philip.Take the first part of that statement to begin with. “Have I been with you so long…” Imagine Jesus saying this to you. Is this something He would be able to say to you? Is it true that you do spend much time with Him? Do you spend time reading the Gospels, speaking to Him from the depths of your heart, conversing with Him, praying to Him and listening to His gentle voice?But Jesus goes on: “...and you still do not know me...?” This is a humble truth that is important to admit. It is true that even those who have a very deep and transforming life of prayer do not know our Lord deeply enough. There is no limit to the transformation that can take place in our lives when we know Jesus personally.Jesus' statement goes on: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” So the next question is this: “Do you know the Father?” Do you know the Father's love, His care for you, His perfect will? Though the Father and the Son are united as one God, They are still distinct Persons, and we must, therefore, work to establish a relationship of love with each one of them.As initially mentioned, the comments from Jesus are a gentle rebuke of love to Philip, and He wants to speak this same gentle rebuke to you. But it's a rebuke of love meant to encourage you to get to know Him better. It's an invitation to personalize your relationship with Jesus and the Father in a real and concrete way. Do you know Him? Do you know the Son of God? Do you know the Father in Heaven?Reflect, today, upon these loving questions of our Lord as if they were spoken to you. Let His words encourage you to get to know Him more deeply. Pray for your relationship to become more personal and transforming. And as you get to know our Lord more intimately, know that it is also the Father in Heaven Whom you are getting to know. My divine and personal Lord, it is the deepest desire of Your Sacred Heart to know me and to love me. Fill my heart with this same desire so that I will not only know You, dear Lord, but also the Father in Heaven. Heavenly Father, I thank You for Your perfect love and pray that I may open myself to that love more fully each and every day. Saints Philip and James, pray for me. Jesus, I trust in You.Paolo Veronese, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsSource of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2025 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Behold, I come quickly. Imagine Jesus saying those words today. In Revelation chapter 22, we will hear God himself give His final warning. And it's intended for those living in the end times, on the day of His return to the earth. We're going to analysis the Lord's final warning on this edition of The Endtime Show. ---------------   📚: Check out Jerusalem Prophecy College Online for less than $60 per course: https://jerusalemprophecycollege.com 📱: It's never been easier to understand. Stream Only Source and access exclusive content: https://watch.osn.tv/browse   ⭐️: Birch Gold: Claim your free info kit on gold: https://www.birchgold.com/endtime ☕️: First Cup Coffee: use code ENDTIME to get 10% off: https://www.firstcup.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sermon 4/6/2025 – Jn 12:1-8   The prophet Isaiah brings us words from our Lord God:  “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” This is a beautiful reminder that God will surprise us God makes a way for us God brings out an army of fighters for us God nourishes and replenishes us Whatever we face, God is there, navigating beside us   The arc of the Gospels from Luke these past weeks have been building the tension toward Jesus' arrest and crucifixion We can feel the tension within the community The Pharisees are threatening Herod's wish to kill Jesus They're grumbling about what Jesus is doing and who he's hanging out with (all the wrong people) And Jesus is responding with outrageous parables about how God isn't going to fall in line with human expectations God is extravagant in God's love for God's people God will protect God's people like a fierce mother hen God will nourish the fig tree until it bears fruit God will welcome the wayward son with open arms and celebration “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”   In the midst of anxiety With the threat of death Burdened with tension God is there God is about to do a new thing Can we perceive it? Can we? Because fear Anxiety Tension The energy of these emotions act like walls Huge barriers to God's love Barriers that make God's love, mercy, tenderness and forgiveness sit on the outside of our hearts --- One thing we know about anxiety and tension – Is that they spread They are more contagious than Norovirus or Influenza A As they travel among people and communities   So today, we hear the words of the prophet Isaiah and the Gospel story about Jesus in a safe place, the home of his friends His chosen family – Lazarus who he raised from the dead, and Martha and Mary These people who are close to Jesus have been shown the nature of God through the person of Jesus They have been shown God's extravagant love again and again Through parables And miracles Through Jesus raising Lazarus from death But the tension from the community is there, It's seeped in It has spread into their home Into their hearts and minds as Mary does a new and extravagant thing   We read these stories year after year We know that Judas is the “bad guy”, who will betray Jesus to the soldiers leading to his imprisonment and crucifixion But having a woman act as the “good guy” is surprising It would have been even more surprising then than it is now For Mary to demonstrate God's abundance For Mary to break cultural expectations Challenging gender roles As she takes her hair down Uses an entire pound of perfumed oil And wipes Jesus' feet But Mary's role isn't the only surprising role in this story We see the human side of Jesus, the fierce advocate, the strong defender, the wise teacher, the righteous Son of God, As he sits and acknowledges his need of tenderness His need of support His weariness from these past months As Mary cares for him Wiping the tension out of his whole body through his feet   “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”   We acknowledge the intimacy of this act on Maundy Thursday when Jesus washes the feet of his disciples Imagine the intimacy of Mary wiping Jesus' feet with her hair and expensive perfume… Imagine how close she would have to sit to Jesus… Imagine her face, and her gaze upon him… Imagine the smell of the perfume, an entire pound of it, filling her nostrils and wafting up to Jesus' face, filling his nose The lovely fragrance spreading…permeating the entire room Lingering… Imagine his gaze upon her… As Jesus sits around the dinner table, surrounded by others, and Mary touches his feet for the first time… Imagine Jesus' surprise as she continues ministering to him until the entire jar is gone… “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”   Now imagine God caring for you in that extravagant and tender way Imagine God knowing all you've done And not done All you've endured And all you're facing in life Imagine God bringing God's self so close to you So close, just a hair's length away Close to even the dirtiest and sorest parts of yourself Not just the parts you'd offer first But even the embarrassing and hurt parts The parts you keep tucked away and covered Imagine God coming so close to those parts And blessing them Wiping them Loving them Anointing your past, present and future With a beautiful and unexpected fragrance That takes over your whole self That fills the whole room That is obnoxious in a way that even others notice “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” /         /         /         / We are so often like Judas Keeping track Judging Anxious As the tension of our community and world Spread and infect our spaces Our school and work Our congregation Our homes Even our thoughts and hearts Which is why this season of Lent is all about repentance Turning back toward God Taking a chance to let down the walls and barriers The hardness this world has erected within us And let God in Let God sit so close to us Let God let down God's hair Let God use the whole jar And reach our most unpresentable parts Let God tenderly touch those parts of us Let God wipe them clean, Let God bless them, and anoint them with God's extravagant and Holy love Amen

Rev. Leili Shirmast unpacks the story of blind Bartimaeus in Luke 18:3543, inviting us to reflect on Jesus question: What do you want Me to do for you? Through this final miracle before the cross, were challenged to consider our own spiritual blindness and cry out in faith to the One who still hears and responds. To catch up on the latest sermons from Deep Creek, go to iTunes, Spotify ordeepcreekanglican.comand check out the website for more info about whats happening. We are a welcoming and growing multigenerational church in Doncaster East in Melbourne with refreshing faith in Jesus Christ. We think that looks like being life-giving to the believer, surprising to the world, and strengthening to the weary and doubting. Read the transcript Our Bible reading today comes from Luke chapter 18, verses 3543 (that's on page 163 of one of the red Bibles, if you have one of those): Luke 18:3543As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. He called out, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me!Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to Him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, What do you want me to do for you?Lord, I want to see, he replied.Jesus said to him, Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God. This is the word of the Lord. Good morning. Have you ever wondered what it's like to be blind? When one of our five senses is lost, the others often become stronger. For those without sight, the world is not empty; it's full of sound, touch, and imagination. They experience the world in a different way by sensing the heat of the sun, hearing the rustling of leaves, and identifying objects by touch. But blindness also brings challenges. Reading, recognizing faces, completing everyday tasks, or moving through a busy street requires adaptation and creativity. One inspiring example is Helen Keller, a blind and deaf author and speaker. She once said, The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touchedthey must be felt with the heart. Despite being deaf and blind, Helen learned to read, write, and speak, and became a powerful advocate for the blind. A few years ago, we helped a blind lady stay at our place for a few days while she took care of some government-related tasks before returning to her city. When she arrived, we showed her around the house and helped her navigate the space. After she left, I tried to put myself in her position to understand her experience. I closed my eyes and attempted to move around different areas of my house and do normal daily activities. It was incredibly difficult and stressful. After just two minutes, I had to stop and couldn't continue. Jesus Heals Blind Bartimaeus In today's miracle story, we see a blind man sitting by the roadside begging. This is the last recorded miracle of Jesus in Luke's Gospel, before He goes to Jerusalem and is crucified. In this moment, He restores the sight of a blind man. We don't know for certain whether this man was blind from birth or if he lost his sight later in life. What we do know is that the only thing he could see was darkness. When we face sickness or struggle in life, many of us hold on to the hope of healing. Perhaps this blind man also carried that same hope. Luke does not mention his name in his Gospel, but in Mark 10 we learn that his name was Bartimaeus. In the first century, being blind was often seen as a punishment from God for a person's sin. Because of his blindness, Bartimaeus had no way to earn a living and was forced to beg on the roadside to survive. There were no schools for the blind, no job opportunities, and no government support system like we have today. He couldn't take care of himself independently and had to rely entirely on the generosity of others for food, shelter, and daily needs. Bartimaeus blindness was only physical, and Jesus taught that there are two types of blindness: physical and spiritual: Physical blindness the loss of sight, making it hard to navigate the world. Spiritual blindness the inability to see the truth of God. People may hear His words but fail to understand them. When we are spiritually blind, we can't navigate our way in God's world or find our way into His Kingdom. In the Old Testament book of Isaiah, we see both types of blindness addressed. Isaiah prophesied that God would open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf: Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Isaiah speaks of the coming of God's Kingdom and the Messiah, declaring that when His Kingdom comes, the blind will see and the deaf will hear. There will be physical healing because the Messiah is ushering in God's restoration for humankind. But in Isaiah 42, we see that the Messiah also comes to address the spiritual blindness and deafness of Israel. After explaining more about the Messiah's mission, God then rebukes Israel for their spiritual insensitivity. Though they have witnessed His works and heard His words, they fail to truly see and understand. They don't pay attention; they don't listen. It is as though they are blind and deaf. The Old Testament prophecy that the coming of the Messiah would be a time of physical and spiritual healing for blind eyes and deaf ears is fulfilled in the miracle of Bartimaeus. When the blind Bartimaeus was sitting by the roadside begging, he heard people passing by and got curious. He asked what was happening, and they told him, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. Bartimaeus, without any hesitation or second thought, called out, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! This is interesting, isn't it? The crowd identified Jesus as Jesus of Nazareth, but Bartimaeus called Him Son of David. In 2 Samuel and Isaiah, we see that the Messiah would come from the lineage of David and establish an everlasting kingdom. Bartimaeus was physically blind, but he recognized Jesus as the Son of Davidthe promised Messiah, the Savior, and the one who has the power to heal. Bartimaeuss cry was a prayer; it came from a place of faith. It recognized who Jesus was, and it humbly yet boldly asked for His mercy. Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me! People tried to silence him, but he didn't give up or listen to them. Even though he could not see Jesus' miracles with his own eyes, he had heard about them and believed. He trusted that Jesus, the Son of David, could restore his sight. Meanwhile, the disciples who had witnessed Jesus' miracles still struggled to fully understand who He was. Bartimaeus, though blind, saw Jesus for who He truly was. Another of Helen Keller's famous quotes is: The only thing worse than being blind is having sight, but no vision. Bartimaeus was blind, but he had the spiritual vision to recognize the Messiah. There may be moments in our faith journey when we face obstaclesthings that try to stop us from believing, trusting, praying, calling out to God, or obeying God. But like Bartimaeus, we should not be discouraged. Instead, we should cry out even more. The Bible tells us to pray and not to give up. So Bartimaeus cried out louder, and Jesus heard him and stopped. He ordered the man to be brought to Him. Then Jesus asked him, What do you want me to do for you? Jesus Question: What Do You Want Me to Do for You? What do you want Me to do for you? What do you want Me to do for you? We are in a series on the questions Jesus asks, and here is perhaps the most powerful one: What do you want Me to do for you? What is your real need? What are you seeking that only God can provide? Imagine Jesus is passing by Deep Creek today. Would you cry out for His help? And if He asks you, What do you want Me to do for you? what would your response be? Last week, after our Saturday service at the cathedral, a young Australian man came to me and asked for prayer. When I asked how I could pray for him, he said, I want to know God more. I want to know who I am and learn to trust the Lord more. How would you answer Jesus question? Maybe you would ask for: physical healing spiritual renewal freedom from addiction the ability to see not just with your eyes, but with your heart Perhaps you might need: restoration God's mercy wisdom a deeper understanding of who God truly is, and who you are in Him Or maybe you're in a season where it's difficult to ask God for anything at all. Bartimaeus could have asked Jesus for many things. He could have had a long list, but instead he asked for one thing God's merciful healing. Jesus heard Bartimaeus and stopped for him, meeting his need. Bartimaeus didn't hesitate; he didn't worry about being an inconvenience. He didn't second guess what Jesus was asking him. Bartimaeus went straight to the center of his need and urgently came to Jesus with that need. If we want to receive from God, we must ask. We must act with urgency, calling out to Him and being ready to respond. We should not be discouraged when we cry out with faith, He will be merciful to us just as He was merciful to Bartimaeus. Jesus paused His journey to respond to Bartimaeus. He is not distant or too busy; He is actively listening and responding when we call out to Him. Do you believe that Jesus stops for us today? Do you believe He hears our cries, meets our needs, and is able to give us hope? When I ask myself these questions, especially during seasons of struggle or when I find myself wondering "Why me?", I remember the times in the past when I cried out to God and how He faithfully responded. Reflecting on those moments of God's faithfulness encourages me to believe that He hears me even now, and that He is at work in my life. Conclusion: Call Out to Jesus in Faith In the last couple of weeks, as we've gone through Luke's Gospel, we have focused on how Jesus' questions can bring hope into our lives. As we conclude this series and prepare for Palm Sunday next week (followed by the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus), let's hear Jesus ask this final question again: What do you want Me to do for you? This question invites us to have faith in Him and to cry out to Him. Today is the day we have to call on God and ask for His help. We never know if we have tomorrow, so we shouldn't waste time or lose hope. He is the only one who can heal our blindness and give us new sight. He is near, so let us call out to Him. Why not come into this Easter seeking to answer this question from the depths of who we are? To do this, we need to use Easter as a time to reflect on: who Jesus is what His cross and resurrection promise us what they might say about who we are how He sees us what we truly need Only then can we fully answer His question. No matter what we face, the cross stands as a powerful sign that brings light to our darkness. Jesus invites us to follow Him to the cross and the resurrection, knowing that He is with us and can bring true hope. He calls us to worship Him and to invite others to do the same. As we prepare to celebrate Easter in two weeks, we ask ourselves: What do we want Jesus to do for us? Let us fix our hearts on the cross and reflect on how it brings us hope. The sacrifice of Jesus reminds us of His deep love, and His resurrection assures us that hope is never lost. Let's take this moment to come before God in prayer and cry out to Him together. (With the band, let us pray together.) Closing Prayer Lord Jesus, with all our hearts we believe that You are here today. You are passing by and You are near. You hear our cries, and You see our needs. With this confidence, we come before You, laying down our burdens, our desires, and our deepest longings. Lord, help us to examine our hearts. What do we need today? Do we need eyes to see You for who You really are? Do we need to know our identity as Your beloved children? Do we need hope hope for transformation, renewal, and healing? Jesus, we cry out to You. We don't want to waste time. We don't want to miss this moment. Come and meet us, Lord; come and meet us in our place of need. We need You. We need You to hear our prayers. We need Your healing touch physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We need freedom from anything that keeps us distant from You and Your love. Lord, restore us. Heal our broken relationships with You, with our spouses, our children, our families, and our friends. Teach us patience, and help us trust in Your perfect timing. Open our eyes so we can clearly see the path You have prepared for us. Lord, we want to see You not just with our physical eyes, but with the eyes of our hearts. We want to behold Your glory; we want to know You more deeply and walk in Your truth. Come, Lord Jesus. Stop for us; turn Your face toward us and meet us right now. We surrender everything into Your hands. Come and meet us, Lord. Amen.

Today we close out our theme of love for this month, as well as this week as we have been talking about intimacy. We've looked at a level of closeness that God can provide that should affect every relationship we have in life—from our families to the groups of people we associate with. God allowing us to be His temple changes everything as to how we approach all of life and every relationship.In John 17, as Jesus was in the garden knowing the cross was only hours away and all the brutality of sin was about to be placed on Him, He didn't pray for Himself, but for intimacy and unity among the people who would believe in Him—those who were with Him on that day, those throughout the centuries, all the way to us today.Imagine Jesus in the Garden alone in the dark, knowing the soldiers were on their own to take Him to the cross. Hear Him crying out to God through the filter of that reality and listen for how He prays for you …“I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began! “O righteous Father, the world doesn't know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.” (John 17:20-26 NLT)Did you catch the same language as Paul later used as to where God will be?Did you hear His prayer for you?Did you hear His cry for intimacy between you and the Father?Listen once more … this time I'll abbreviate and focus on Jesus' prayer for you and I today …“I am praying … for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. … “O righteous Father, the world doesn't know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.” (John 17:20-23, 25 NLT)How should you respond to the Bible passages we have read this week? What did you hear that encouraged you? Challenged you? Convicted you? Intimacy is such an important concept to understand, grasp, an grow in, especially as Christ-followers, because we have no barriers to be able to love as He loves.Let's pray together: “Heavenly Father, help me in all my relationships to be a reflection of intimacy with You. I am Your temple and I want the world to see Your life and Your heart through my life and heart. As above, so below.”

 Imagine Jesus lavando seus pés! Foi o que aconteceu com os discípulos. Aprenda mais sobre o poderoso exemplo de serviço de Cristo.

1. Tim talked about Peter's response to Jesus after, heeding Jesus' illogical directives, he and his partners catch literally more fish than their nets and boats can hold. For this first question, you're invited to take the time as a group to imagine a personalized scenario similar to that in today's passage. It may take some time, and you may need to encourage each other if you're struggling to come up with ideas or if some are feeling self-conscious. This is just an exercise and an experiment for all of us. Help each other where needed. Have fun with it! (And if it flops, thanks for trying!

 Audio recordingSermon manuscript:I have been a pastor for many years now, but this is the first New Year's Eve service I have ever preached for. In Iowa neither of my congregations had services on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. If memory serves, I attended a New Year's Eve service when I was a kid. However, my childhood congregation more often had New Year's Day services. New Year's Day is eight days after Christmas, which means that the focus is on the circumcision and naming of Jesus. So tonight is the first time I've every preached for a New Year's Eve service. As I considered the texts that you heard tonight, I was struck by how differently the Bible teaches compared to what is customary with the New Year. For example, New Year's Eve is a well-known party night. A lot of people get drunk on New Year's Eve. Jesus says in our Gospel reading: “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks.” Imagine Jesus coming to find people soddenly drunk. How can they open the door when he knocks? Losing yourself in food, drink, drugs, and other pleasures is an agreeable way to pass the time. It's not nonsensical. It's a way to cope, to forget the troubles of life, and to receive some comfort. It's understandable, but how differently our Lord Jesus speaks in our reading tonight! Another thing we associate with the New Year are New Year's resolutions. It's a time to set goals, make plans, and fix what we don't like. If we believe in ourselves and don't give up, we can achieve our dreams. Compare this to our Old Testament reading. God says to his people: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” We do not naturally believe that returning and resting will do anything good for us. We do not believe that quietness and trust are our strength. We believe in ourselves. All that's needed is to be sufficiently motivated. If only we could stay sufficiently motivated, then all our New Year's dreams would come true, and we would be outstanding. All of our readings tonight would have us look to someone else besides what we customarily look to for betterment. How can 2025 be better than 2024? Our readings encourage us to believe more firmly in God. This has to do with the first table of the Law, the first three of the Ten Commandments. You should have no other gods. You should fear, love, and trust in God above all other things. You should not believe in other things, no matter how useful those other things might appear to be. The second commandment is that you should not misuse the name of the Lord your God. Instead of misusing God's name, you should use it well. God's name is used well by calling upon it in every trouble, praying, praising, and giving thanks. But in order for anyone to use God's name rightly, that person must believe that it will work. The reason why we do not pray like we should is because we do not believe like we should. We do not worship God the way we should is because we do not believe in him the way we should. Unfortunately, we believe that we can be better blessed spending our time and energy pursuing other things. So how can we believe in God more firmly? There is only one way to do that. We must hear the Word of God that tells us about him. The Word of God is inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is living and active. It produces faith. Therefore, as the catechism teaches about the third commandment, we should not despise God's Word, or assume that we already know it sufficiently well. If that were true—if you knew it well enough already—then your prayers would be much more fervent than they are currently. We should gladly hear and learn God's Word so that we know God better, so that we believe in him more confidently, and so that we can better speak to him with our prayers and praises. The first three of the Ten Commandments have to do with our spiritual health. God spoke these commandments for our good, for our benefit. It is good for us to believe in God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, because he is the only God. The other things that we treat like gods will disappoint us in the end, even if, in the meantime, we manage to get some pleasure or comfort from them. We should be prepared, not just for 2025, not just for some small, momentary, change in our fortunes, but for meeting our Maker. We've made it to the end of 2024. What if 2025 is the last year in which we will live? What if 2025 is the year that gets chiseled onto our gravestone? What if 2025 is the year that Jesus comes back? Jesus said in our reading: “The Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” We must be prepared to meet to God. To meet God well there is no substitute for believing what he has said. If you managed to climb all the mountains of the world, accumulated all the wealth, all the knowledge—whatever you could possibly accomplish—none of that can ever do what taking to heart what God has said will do. And the good news is that what God has said is good. He has revealed that he is for us, and not against us. Paul says in our epistle reading, “If God is for us, then who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” Paul is using sound logic. God is for you. How do you know that? Because you are so awesome, cool, healthy, and what not? No. You know that because he gave his Son, Jesus, to be your Savior. God's good will towards you doesn't depend on you. He is the one who acts. He is the one who saves. God's Word teaches that your confidence should be completely in him. Even if you should end up with troubles, poverty, shame, or danger, Jesus remains the Savior. Even if you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, your Good Shepherd is with you. He will take you where you need to go. In conclusion, God's Word gives us the opportunity to reorient ourselves. Instead of looking for happiness in any number of things, look to God instead. There is nothing like God. There is no help like God's help. Listen to what his Word says. Believe in him. Call upon his name with your prayers and praises. Then you are dressed for action, ready for your master to come home from the wedding feast.

Sign-up for my free 20-day devotional, The Word Before Work Foundations, at http://TWBWFoundations.com--Series: Christmas Vocations Part IIIDevotional: 4 of 4After [the Magi] had heard [King Herod], they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. (Matthew 2:9-10)Today concludes our series exploring the vocations of some of the characters in the Christmas narrative and what they can teach us about our own work today. Today, we end with the famed Star of Bethlehem.Now, I know it's a stretch to say that a star has a “vocation,” but hear me out. Because this star plays a huge part in the Christmas narrative, leading the Magi to find and worship Christ the King.But Scripture makes clear that it's not just this star that does the work of glorifying God. Psalm 19:1-3 says that all “the heavens declare the glory of God…day after day they pour forth speech,” even though “they use no words.”Believer, if inanimate stars can glorify God and give testimony to his awesomeness, you better believe that you—God's image bearer—can do the same through your work.We see evidence that this is true all throughout Scripture. Take Nehemiah as an example. After rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem in an astonishingly fast 52 days, Nehemiah's enemies were forced to give God credit and glory because they “realized that this work had been done with the help of God” (Nehemiah 6:16).Passages like this one point to an important truth: You don't have to be evangelizing with your words to glorify God. You can also glorify him by evangelizing with your work. In what you do—the products of your work—and how you do it—the processes by which you work—you can create cravings in the lost for things that are “true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy” (Philippians 4:8).And the creation of those cravings is good in and of itself. Why? Because if the craving you're creating through your work can only be satisfied in full in Christ, you are setting the lost down a path that dead ends at a single true Source.You and I are called to reflect Christ, “the bright and morning star” in everything we do, including our work. So as we look towards 2025, let me leave you with 5 questions to ponder and journal through to that end:What can you point to that was most “true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy” about your work in 2024? And how can you do more of that in 2025?Where is the Holy Spirit convicting you that your work is not “true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy”? What's one action you can take to rectify that and better reflect Christ next year?If your co-workers were asked to point to evidence that you are a follower of Christ, what would they point to?Which of your co-workers do you feel the Lord leading you to share the gospel with explicitly in 2025?Imagine Jesus is sitting across from you right now. What would he say about your work in 2024? And what feedback would he give you as you head back to the office in 2025?

What if Jesus moonlighted as a globetrotting rock star during his "lost years?" Buckle up for a hilarious odyssey through history and imagination as we stitch together tales of Jesus' rumored adventures in places like Japan and India, with a touch of musical flair. Imagine Jesus, or Issa as he's sometimes called, strumming a guitar on the Silk Road, earning the moniker "six-string savior" in a mythical band of holy rollers. We playfully reimagine Jesus' journey from boyhood to spiritual rockstar, studying under Buddha's tutelage in India, and perhaps even jamming with Siddha yogis. The mysterious "Scrolls of Isa," possibly hidden away in Tibetan monasteries, spark our curiosity about the intriguing intersections of mythology and reality, all wrapped in comedic banter and whimsical musings.Our playful exploration doesn't stop there. We ponder connections between Christian and Eastern traditions, speculating on cultural exchanges and shared spiritual practices that may have shaped religious history. Could Jesus' miraculous deeds be linked to yogic powers, or are they simply tales spun from cultural encounters? With a nod to pop culture icons like Spider-Man and the Beatles, we humorously contemplate Jesus' potential influences and inspirations. As we sign off with a cheeky farewell, we remind our listeners to support their local comic shops and prepare for whatever adventures await in future episodes.

Imagine Jesus eating his last meal knwoing he would be betrayed by someone he is celebrating with? In this message Pastor Aaron shares why it was necessary, and God's purpsoe was fulfilled.

The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost. Imagine Jesus asking you directly, “What do you want me to do for you?” It's a question that reaches deeper than we might expect. Explore the story of Bartimaeus, a blind beggar whose answer changed his life. As he threw off his only possession, Bartimaeus saw something beyond sight—he recognized Jesus' power to give him what he truly needed to follow him. Uncover how Jesus invites us to look beyond our first requests to the deeper needs that free us to walk with him fully.Guest Preacher: The Very Rev. Andrew McGowan, Dean & President of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University#episcopal #episcopalchurch #episcopalian #church #jesusmovement #wayoflove #christian #anglican #allarewelcome #christianity #prayer #jesus #iglesiaepiscopal   #theology #anglicanchurch #holyspririt #faith #stmarksnewcanaaan #ens #ecct #spirituality #bible #scriptures #joy #peace #grace #hope 

Hebrews 7:26 For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; Please worship and enjoy with me this description of Jesus. Never was there a more holy high priest than Jesus. Oh, the beauty of holiness. Holiness entails the concept of oneness or union with God. Jesus is fused into one with the Father and Holy Spirit, and all function as one beautiful, glorious being. Psalms 29:2, “Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to His name; worship the Lord in holy array [the beauty of holiness].” Holiness also means set apart from something (this world) to something (to God). There's no one like Jesus. As we look at Him and all the other high priests who ever served in God's temple, Jesus stands out in incomparable grandeur and beauty.  Unlike all other high priests, Jesus is innocent—literally, He stands apart from what is evil or bad. Not one thought, word, or deed is associated with evil. His life is also undefiled, spotless, or unstained by any evil. Evil has not touched Him. I'm reminded of something Jesus said to His disciples on His last night with them. John 14:30. “I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.” There is not one desire in Jesus for anything the devil has to offer. That is not true of any other high priest. The basic idea within the word separated from sinners is the idea of a chasm or a space between items or people. He is exalted above us. We are earth bound, associated with sin and evil, defiled, stained, and corrupted with lust for this world. Do you see us as a group standing together on the earth? But Jesus is not like us sinners. He is lifted up above the heavens. Can you see the space between us? Therefore, God has made it clear that He is fit to act as our intercessor with God forever. Imagine His life now as your life! Imagine Jesus standing in for you in the presence of God. Imagine God counting the beauty and glory of Jesus' life and character as yours, and worship Him.  My dear friends, we are indeed blessed beyond words. Could God do anything more for His beloved? It is fitting, it is clear, that God can do no less than the absolute greatest possible thing for those He loves, and that He has done. He has given Himself to be our righteousness, our redemption, our sanctification, and our confidence in His presence. Therefore, love others out of His fullness.

Now we know that the easy way to feel more love for your wife, your kids, yourself and everyone…Is to PLUG INTO the Kingdom of God that is at hand… meaning AVAILABLE right now.Pray to plug in and feel it…Think of Jesus a few extra times today…Imagine Jesus with you…And let me know what kind of difference you feel.Listen on the Strong Men Strong Marriages Podcast.Watch on YouTube here. [Lorena new links here]https://youtube.com/shorts/EaYEZ3b_PyM [Lorena new links here]Dr. MikeP.S. If you're a high achieving, professionally successful Christian man who is ready to create incredible sexual, mental and emotional  intimacy with your wife, and create an amazing legacy for your family to follow… starting TODAY…CLICK HERE to apply to join my Strong Men Strong Marriages program. 

Imagine Jesus asking you to visit the person who took the life of your own child. Not only that, but how would you respond if you felt called to give that person a Bible? How would you feel?   On a recent episode of The Patrick Madrid Show, Patrick shared an incredibly touching letter from Sherry, a listener from Milwaukee. Her story is one of heartache, faith, and an extraordinary act of forgiveness that really hits home.   Sherry's Story:   The Letter: Sherry wrote to Patrick, feeling the need to share something deeply personal. At the National Eucharistic Congress, she and her husband attended a morning Mass and found themselves sitting next to Patrick. She saw this as a sign from God, prompting her to open up about her experience.   A Tragic Loss: Sherry revealed that her daughter and unborn granddaughter were tragically murdered by her daughter's supervisor from Home Depot. The pain and sorrow from this loss are unimaginable.   A Divine Message: During adoration at the Congress, Sherry felt Jesus speak to her heart. He told her to visit the prison and give a Bible to the man who killed her daughter, with his name engraved on it. Jesus conveyed that just as this man's name would be on the Bible, he is also etched in Jesus's heart, emphasizing that everyone is held in His heart.   Steps Toward Forgiveness: Sherry and her husband have begun the process of visiting the prison. She described the Congress as life-changing, propelling her towards this incredible act of forgiveness.   Patrick's Response:   Patrick hoped that the Bible, carrying both the tragic and redemptive messages, would touch the heart of the man responsible for her suffering.   A Heroic Act: Patrick described Sherry's act of forgiveness as heroic and prayed that the graces she experienced at the Congress would continue to flow through her and touch the life of the man she is forgiving.   Sherry's letter is a powerful reminder of forgiveness, mercy, and healing. While the pain is probably soul crushing, she still chose to show Jesus' love to this person.   May Sherry's journey bring her healing and peace, and may her loved ones rest in eternal peace. Let's also pray for the conversion of this man in prison. Lord, heal His heart. 

Are you ready to fully open your heart to God? Discover how even a busy vacation can lead to a profound spiritual reflection. Join me, Megan Ashley, as I take you on a heartwarming journey inspired by Revelation 3:20. Imagine Jesus knocking at the door of your heart—are you leaving a chain on it? This episode is a powerful conversation about partial versus full openness to God's presence in our lives. Together, we'll explore the importance of stepping beyond our hesitations and allowing God complete access to every part of us.In the second part of our journey, "Choose Full Access to God," we delve into the significance of wholehearted devotion. With biblical insights and personal reflections, we'll discuss why it's essential to trust God with all aspects of our lives, including the hidden and painful corners. To conclude our episode, "Spreading Love and Encouragement," I'll encourage you to share this message with those you love and leave uplifting comments. Let's support each other on this spiritual path, embracing the transformative power that comes from loving the Lord with all your heart, mind, and soul. Tune in and don't miss out on a chance to grow together in faith!Other topics you will hear:-Spiritual Openness-Revelation 3:20-Total Surrender-God's Will-Challenges -Encouragement-Faith-Relationship with God-Serve-Faithfulness-Healing-Redemption-ConnectionConnect with us: @immeganashleyWebsite: https://www.themeganashley.comCall me at 265-792-8819My Amazon Storefront:https://www.amazon.com/shop/immeganashley Youtube: In Totality In Totality with Megan Ashley Is edited and produced by Idea to Launch PodcastsSign up for our PATREON for EXCLUSIVE access and additional:https://www.patreon.com/meganashleySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Send Us Your Thoughts via Text Message.In this episode of "Thee First Five," we delve into the profound peace that comes from trusting God from the bottom of your heart. Join us for a serene guided prayer moment where we create space to experience God's love and guidance. In a world full of distractions and constant noise, it's crucial to find stillness and open ourselves to God's presence.We start with deep breaths to calm our minds and bodies, inviting God to fill us with His presence. As we reflect on Proverbs 3:5-6, we are reminded to trust in God with all our hearts and listen for His voice in every aspect of our lives. Imagine Jesus, our reliable and trustworthy guide, who hears all our prayers and never lets us down.Through personal anecdotes and thoughtful reflections, we explore the true meaning of trust. Surrender your concerns, express your gratitude, and invite God to keep you on track. Experience the freedom and contentment that comes from releasing the need to control everything and placing your faith entirely in Jesus.Tune in to this episode to renew your faith, find tranquility, and embrace the refreshing peace that only trust in Jesus can bring.Thank you for joining us on "Thee First Five". We hope this guided prayer has brought you peace and a sense of God's presence. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review our podcast. Share it with friends and family to help spread the word. Connect with us on social media for more daily inspiration and join our community of believers committed to starting each day with God. Tune in tomorrow for another episode that will help you center your spirit and start your day right.

Pastor Jen DeWeerdt's message, "Who Do YOU Say I Am?", dives deep into one of Jesus' most profound questions about His identity. Imagine Jesus sitting with His disciples, asking them to reflect on who they believe He truly is. Peter's bold declaration that Jesus is the Messiah isn't just a statement—it's a life-changing realization. This message will remind us all that recognizing Jesus as the Son of God can transform every part of our lives.

Pastor Jen DeWeerdt's message, "Who Do YOU Say I Am?", dives deep into one of Jesus' most profound questions about His identity. Imagine Jesus sitting with His disciples, asking them to reflect on who they believe He truly is. Peter's bold declaration that Jesus is the Messiah isn't just a statement—it's a life-changing realization. This message will remind us all that recognizing Jesus as the Son of God can transform every part of our lives.

"We can let life's hurdles and hardships be like arrows pointing us deeper to the heart of Jesus. Imagine Jesus leaning in close and saying,  Yes, in all things my Father works for the good of those who love Him. (Romans 8:28)  Yes, daughters, do not grow weary or lose heart. I endured the cross so you can endure whatever you face. (Hebrews 12:1-3)  Yes, don't give up! In me you will never be overcome or crushed. Affliction and persecution will come but in Me you'll find unending joy and unconditional love. (2 Corinthians 4:7-18)  Jesus isn't advocating for us to shove hard things under the rug or slap on a mask of false positivity. No, He's offering us the truth:  When we rely on God all things really are possible – and our capacity for resiliency is just one example.  We can allow disappointment and bitterness to choke out our zest for life and trust in God. Or we can let life's hurdles and hardships be like arrows pointing us deeper to the heart of Jesus."Leave a comment for Becky: https://incourage.me/?p=240019--In our book, 100 Days of Strength in Any Struggle, you'll discover where strength really comes from—Jesus, who holds everything together. Learn to find Him right in the middle of it, ready to strengthen you and give you rest. Order your copy today at incourage.me/podcast! The (in)courage podcast is brought to you by DaySpring. For over 50 years, DaySpring has created quality cards, books, and gifts that help you live your faith. Find out more at DaySpring.com.Connect with (in)courage: Facebook & Instagram for daily encouragement, videos, and more! Website for the (in)courage library, to meet our contributors, and to access the archives. Email us at incourage@dayspring.com. Leave a podcast review on Apple!

Jesus prayed, “I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves” (Jn. 17). Acts 1:15-17, 21-26 Psalm 1 1 John 5:9-13 John 17:6-19 Friendship According to Aristotle and Jesus 1. “We seek one mystery, God, with another mystery, ourselves. We are mysterious to ourselves because God's mystery is in us.” [i] Gary Wills wrote these words about the impossibility of fully comprehending God. Still, we can draw closer to the Holy One. I am grateful for friends who help me see our Father in new ways. This week my friend Norwood Pratt sent me an article which begins with a poem by Li Bai (701-762). According to legend he died in the year 762 drunkenly trying to embrace the moon's reflection in the Yangtze River. Li Bai writes, “The birds have vanished from the sky. / Now the last cloud drains away // We sit together, the mountain and me, / until only the mountain remains.” [ii] For me this expresses the feeling of unity with God that comes to me in prayer. This poet was one of many inspirations for a modern Chinese American poet named Li-Young Lee (1957-). Lee's father immigrated to the United States and served as a Presbyterian pastor at an all-white church in western Pennsylvania. Lee feels fascinated by infinity and eternity. He writes this poem about the “Ultimate Being, Tao or God” as the beloved one, the darling. Each of us in the uniqueness of our nature and experience has a different experience of holiness. He writes, “My friend and I are in love with the same woman… I'd write a song about her.  I wish I could sing. I'd sing about her. / I wish I could write a poem. / Every line would be about her. / Instead, I listen to my friend speak / about this woman we both love, / and I think of all the ways she is unlike / anything he says about her and unlike / everything else in the world.” [iii] These two poets write about something that cannot easily be expressed, our deepest desire to be united with God. Jesus also speaks about this in the Gospel of John, in his last instructions to the disciples and then in his passionate prayer for them, and for us. In his last words Jesus describes the mystery of God and our existence using a surprising metaphor. At the center of all things lies our experience of friendship. On Mother's Day when we celebrate the sacrifices associated with love I want to think more with you about friendship and God. To understand the uniqueness of Jesus' teaching, it helps to see how another great historical thinker understood this subject. 2. Long before Jesus' birth the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) studied at Plato's school in Athens (from the age of 17 to 37). After this Aristotle became the tutor of Alexander the Great and founded a prominent library that he used as the basis for his thought. Scholars estimate that about a third of what Aristotle wrote has survived. He had a huge effect on the western understanding of nature. He also especially influenced the thirteenth century theologian Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) and therefore modern Roman Catholic approaches to Christian thought. For Aristotle God is eternal, non-material, unchanging and perfect. He famously describes God as the unmoved mover existing outside of the world and setting it into motion. Because everything seeks divine perfection this God is responsible for all change that continues to happen in the universe. We experience a world of particular things but God knows the universal ideas behind them (or before them). For Aristotle God is pure thought, eternally contemplating himself. God is the telos, the goal or end of all things. [iv] Aristotle begins his book Nicomachean Ethics by observing that “Happiness… is the End at which all actions aim.” [v] Everything we do ultimately can be traced back to our desire for happiness and the purpose of Aristotle's book is to help the reader to attain this goal. Happiness comes from having particular virtues, that is habitual ways of acting and seeking pleasure. These include: courage, temperance, generosity, patience. In our interactions with others we use social virtues including: amiability, sincerity, wit. Justice is the overarching virtue that encompasses all the others. Aristotle writes that there are three kinds of friendships. The first is based on usefulness, the second on pleasure. Because these are based on superficial qualities they generally do not last long. The final and best form of friendship for him is based on strength of character. These friends do not love each other for what they can gain but because they admire each other's character. Aristotle believes that this almost always this happens between equals although sometimes one sees it in the relation between fathers and sons (I take this to mean between parents and children). Famous for describing human beings as the political animal, Aristotle points out that we can only accomplish great things through cooperation. Institutions and every human group rely on friendly feelings to be effective. Friendship is key to what makes human beings effective, and for that matter, human. Finally, Aristotle believes that although each person should be self-sufficient, friendship is important for a good life. 3. The Greek word for Gospel, that particular form of literature which tells the story of Jesus, is euangelion. We might forget that this word means good news until we get a sense for the far more radical picture of God and friendship that Jesus teaches. For me, one of the defining and unique features of Christianity as a religion comes from Jesus' insistence that our relation to God is like a child to a loving father. Jesus teaches us to pray, “Our Father who art in heaven.” Jesus clarifies this picture of God in his story of the Prodigal Son who goes away and squanders his wealth in a kind of first century Las Vegas. In the son's destitution he returns home and as he crests the hill, his father “filled with compassion,” hikes up his robes and runs to hug and kiss him. Jesus does not just use words but physical gestures to show what a friend is. In today's gospel Jesus washes his friends' feet before eats his last meal with them. The King James Version says, “there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved” (Jn. 13:23). [vi] Imagine Jesus, in the actual embrace of his beloved friend, telling us who God is. Jesus explicitly says I do not call you servants but friends (Jn. 15). A servant does not know what the master is doing but a friend does. And you know that the greatest commandment is to love one another. Later in prayer he begs God to protect us from the world, “so that [we] may have [his] joy made complete in [ourselves]” (Jn. 17). 4. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 332-395) was born ten years after the First Council of Nicaea and attended the First Council of Constantinople. He writes about how so many ordinary people were arguing about doctrine, “If in this city you ask anyone for change, he will discuss with you whether the Son was begotten or unbegotten. If you ask about the quality of the bread you will receive the answer, “The father is the greater and the Son is lesser.' If you suggest a bath is desirable you will be told, ‘There was nothing before the Son was created.'” [vii] Gregory with his friends Basil and Gregory Nazianzus wondered what description of Jesus would lead to faith rather than just argument. [viii] Gregory of Nyssa came to believe that the image of God is only fully displayed when every human person is included. [ix] In his final book Life of Moses Gregory responds to a letter from a younger friend who seeks counsel on “the perfect life.” [x] Gregory writes that Moses exemplifies this more than all others because Moses is a friend to God. True perfection is not bargaining with, pleading, tricking, manipulating, fearing God. It is not avoiding a wicked life out of fear of punishment. It is not to do good because we hope for some reward, as if we are cashing in on the virtuous life through a business contract. Gregory closes with these words to his young admirer, “we regard falling from God's friendship as the only dreadful thing… and we consider becoming God's friend the only thing worthy of honor and desire. This… is the perfection of life. As your understanding is lifted up to what is magnificent and divine, whatever you may find… will certainly be for the common benefit in Christ Jesus.” [xi] On Thursday night I was speaking to Paul Fromberg the Rector of St. Gregory's church about this and he mentioned a sophisticated woman who became a Christian in his church. In short she moved from Aristotle's view of friendship among superior equals to Jesus' view. She said, “Because I go to church I can have real affection for people who annoy the shit out of me. My affection is no longer just based on affinity.” [xii] 5. I have been thoroughly transformed by Jesus' idea of friendship. My life has become full of Jesus' friends, full of people who I never would have met had I followed Aristotle's advice. Together we know that in Christ unity does not have to mean uniformity. Before I close let me tell you about one person who I met at Christ Church in Los Altos. Even by the time I met her Alice Larse was only a few years away from being a great-grandmother. She and her husband George had grown up together in Washington State. He had been an engineer and she nursed him through his death from Alzheimer's disease. Some of my favorite memories come from the frequent summer pool parties she would have for our youth groups. She must have been in her sixties when she started a “Alice's Stick Cookies Company.” Heidi and I saw them in a store last week!   At Christ Church we had a rotating homeless shelter and there were several times when Alice, as a widow living by herself, had various guests stay at her house. When the church was divided about whether or not to start a school she quickly volunteered to serve as senior warden. She was not sentimental. She was thoroughly practical. She was humble. She got things done… but with a great sense of humor.   There was no outward indication that she was really a saint. I missed her funeral two weeks ago because of responsibilities here. I never really had the chance to say goodbye but I know that one day we will be together in God. Grace Cathedral has hundreds of saints just like her who I have learned to love in a similar way.   Ram Dass was a dear friend of our former Dean Alan Jones. He used to say, “The name of the game we are in is called ‘Being at one with the Beloved.' [xiii] The Medieval mystic Julian of Norwich writes that God possesses, “a love-longing to have us all together, wholly in himself for his delight; for we are not now wholly in him as we shall be…” She says that you and I are Jesus' joy and bliss. [xiv]   We seek one mystery, God, with another mystery, ourselves. We are mysterious to ourselves because God's mystery is in us.” [xv] In a world where friendship can seem to be only for utility or pleasure I pray that like Jesus, you will be blessed with many friends, that you find perfection of life and even become friends with God. [i] Gary Wills, Saint Augustine (NY: Viking, 1999) xii. [ii] Li Bai, “Zazen on Ching-t'ing Mountain,” tr. Sam Hamill, Crossing the Yellow River: Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese, (Rochester, NY: BOA Editions, 2000). About 1000 poems attributed to Li still exist. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48711/zazen-on-ching-ting-mountain [iii] Ed Simon, “There's Nothing in the World Smaller than the Universe: In The Invention of the Darling, Li-Young Lee presents divinity as spirit and matter, profound and quotidian, sacred and profane,” Poetry Foundation. This article quotes, “The Invention of the Darling.”  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/162572/theres-nothing-in-the-world-smaller-than-the-universe [iv] More from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “Aristotle made God passively responsible for change in the world in the sense that all things seek divine perfection. God imbues all things with order and purpose, both of which can be discovered and point to his (or its) divine existence. From those contingent things we come to know universals, whereas God knows universals prior to their existence in things. God, the highest being (though not a loving being), engages in perfect contemplation of the most worthy object, which is himself. He is thus unaware of the world and cares nothing for it, being an unmoved mover. God as pure form is wholly immaterial, and as perfect he is unchanging since he cannot become more perfect. This perfect and immutable God is therefore the apex of being and knowledge. God must be eternal. That is because time is eternal, and since there can be no time without change, change must be eternal. And for change to be eternal the cause of change-the unmoved mover-must also be eternal. To be eternal God must also be immaterial since only immaterial things are immune from change. Additionally, as an immaterial being, God is not extended in space.” https://iep.utm.edu/god-west/ [v] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library vol. XIX (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975) 30-1. [vi] h™n aÓnakei÷menoß ei–ß e˙k tw◊n maqhtw◊n aujtouv e˙n twˆ◊ ko/lpwˆ touv ∆Ihsouv, o§n hjga¿pa oJ ∆Ihsouvß (John 13:23). I don't understand why the NRSV translation translate this as “next to him” I think that Herman Waetjen regards “in Jesus' bosom” as correct. Herman Waetjen, The Gospel of the Beloved Disciple: A Work in Two Editions (NY: T&T Clark, 2005) 334. [vii] Margaret Ruth Miles, The Word Made Flesh: A History of Christian Thought (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 105. [viii] Ibid., 108. [ix] From Jesse Hake, “An Intro to Saint Gregory of Nyssa and his Last Work: The Life of Moses,” 28 July 2022: https://www.theophaneia.org/an-intro-to-saint-gregory-of-nyssa-and-his-last-work-the-life-of-moses/ “For example, Gregory says that the image of God is only fully displayed when every human person is included, so that the reference in Genesis to making humanity in God's image is actually a reference to all of humanity as one body (which is ultimately the body of Jesus Christ that is also revealed at the end of time): In the Divine foreknowledge and power all humanity is included in the first creation. …The entire plenitude of humanity was included by the God of all, by His power of foreknowledge, as it were in one body, and …this is what the text teaches us which says, God created man, in the image of God created He him. For the image …extends equally to all the race. …The Image of God, which we behold in universal humanity, had its consummation then. …He saw, Who knows all things even before they be, comprehending them in His knowledge, how great in number humanity will be in the sum of its individuals. …For when …the full complement of human nature has reached the limit of the pre-determined measure, because there is no longer anything to be made up in the way of increase to the number of souls, [Paul] teaches us that the change in existing things will take place in an instant of time. [And Paul gives to] that limit of time which has no parts or extension the names of a moment and the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians 15:51-52).” [x] Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses trans. Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson, “Preface” by John Myendorff (NY: Paulist Press, 1978) 29. [xi] Ibid., 137. [xii] Paul Fromberg conversation at One Market, Thursday 9 May 2024. [xiii] Alan Jones, Living the Truth (Boston, MA: Cowley Publications, 2000) 53. [xiv] Quoted in Isaac S. Villegas, “Christian Theology is a Love Story,” The Christian Century, 25 April 2018. https://www.christiancentury.org/lectionary/may-13-easter-7b-john-17-6-19?code=kHQx7M4MqgBLOUfbwRkc&utm_source=Christian+Century+Newsletter&utm_campaign=1ccba0cb63-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_SCP_2024-05-06&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-31c915c0b7-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D [xv] Gary Wills, Saint Augustine (NY: Viking, 1999) xii.

Philip said to Jesus, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father'?” John 14:8–9Today's liturgical feast is in honor of two of the Apostles, Philip and James the Lesser. Little is known about James other than that he was chosen by our Lord for the apostolic ministry and that we have one of his letters, which is contained in the New Testament. James eventually went to Jerusalem and led the Church for a few decades until he was stoned to death as a martyr. Philip preached in Greece, Phrygia and Syria. He and Saint Bartholomew were thought to have been crucified upside down. Philip preached upside down from the cross until his death.In the Gospel for today's Mass, we are presented with an encounter that Philip had with Jesus. Though this encounter appears to be a rebuke of Philip by Jesus, it's a rebuke that is quite heartfelt. Jesus says, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip?” Jesus did, indeed, spend much time with His disciples. They stayed together, ate together, traveled together and spent much time talking with each other. Therefore, Jesus' comments to Philip emanated from His real and lived personal relationship with Philip.Take the first part of that statement to begin with. “Have I been with you so long…” Imagine Jesus saying this to you. Is this something He would be able to say to you? Is it true that you do spend much time with Him? Do you spend time reading the Gospels, speaking to Him from the depths of your heart, conversing with Him, praying to Him and listening to His gentle voice?But Jesus goes on: “...and you still do not know me...?” This is a humble truth that is important to admit. It is true that even those who have a very deep and transforming life of prayer do not know our Lord deeply enough. There is no limit to the transformation that can take place in our lives when we know Jesus personally.Jesus' statement goes on: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” So the next question is this: “Do you know the Father?” Do you know the Father's love, His care for you, His perfect will? Though the Father and the Son are united as one God, They are still distinct Persons, and we must, therefore, work to establish a relationship of love with each one of them.As initially mentioned, the comments from Jesus are a gentle rebuke of love to Philip, and He wants to speak this same gentle rebuke to you. But it's a rebuke of love meant to encourage you to get to know Him better. It's an invitation to personalize your relationship with Jesus and the Father in a real and concrete way. Do you know Him? Do you know the Son of God? Do you know the Father in Heaven? Reflect, today, upon these loving questions of our Lord as if they were spoken to you. Let His words encourage you to get to know Him more deeply. Pray for your relationship to become more personal and transforming. And as you get to know our Lord more intimately, know that it is also the Father in Heaven Whom you are getting to know. My divine and personal Lord, it is the deepest desire of Your Sacred Heart to know me and to love me. Fill my heart with this same desire so that I will not only know You, dear Lord, but also the Father in Heaven. Heavenly Father, I thank You for Your perfect love and pray that I may open myself to that love more fully each and every day. Saints Philip and James, pray for me. Jesus, I trust in You.Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2024 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.Featured image above: SS. Philip and James the Less By Paolo Veronese, via Wikimedia Commons

Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me believes not only in me but also in the one who sent me, and whoever sees me sees the one who sent me.” John 12:44–45Note that Jesus' words in the above quoted passage start by stating that “Jesus cried out…” This intentional addition by the Gospel writer adds emphasis to this statement. Jesus didn't just “say” these words, He “cried out.” For that reason, we should be extra attentive to these words and allow them to speak to us all the more.This Gospel passage takes place during the week prior to Jesus' Passion. He entered Jerusalem triumphantly and, then, throughout the week, spoke to various groups of people while the Pharisees plotted against Him. The emotions were tense, and Jesus spoke with greater and greater vigor and clarity. He spoke about His pending death, the unbelief of many, and His oneness with the Father in Heaven. At one point during the week, as Jesus was speaking of His oneness with the Father, the voice of the Father spoke audibly for all to hear. Jesus had just said, “Father, glorify your name.” And then the Father spoke, saying, “I have glorified it and will glorify it again.” Some thought it was thunder and others thought it was an angel. But it was the Father in Heaven.This context is useful when reflecting upon today's Gospel. Jesus passionately wants us to know that if we have faith in Him, then we also have faith in the Father, because the Father and He are one. Of course, this teaching on the oneness of God is nothing new to us today—we should all be very familiar with the teaching on the Most Holy Trinity. But in many ways, this teaching on the unity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit must be seen as new and pondered anew every day.Imagine Jesus speaking to you, personally, and with great vigor, about His unity with the Father. Consider carefully how deeply He desires that you understand this divine mystery of Their oneness. Allow yourself to sense how much Jesus wants you to understand Who He is in relation to His Father.Prayerfully understanding the Trinity teaches us much, not only about Who God is but about who we are. We are called to share in the oneness of God by becoming united with Them through love. The early Church Fathers often spoke of our calling to be “divinized,” that is, to share in the divine life of God. And though this is a mystery beyond complete comprehension, it's a mystery that Jesus deeply desires us to prayerfully ponder. Reflect, today, upon the passion in the heart of Jesus to reveal to you Who He is in relation to the Father. Be open to a deeper understanding of this divine truth. And as you open yourself to this revelation, allow God to also reveal to you His desire to draw you into Their holy life of unity. This is your calling. This is the reason Jesus came to earth. He came to draw us into the very life of God. Believe it with much passion and conviction. My passionate Lord, You spoke long ago about Your oneness with the Father in Heaven. You speak again, today, to me, about this glorious truth. Draw me in, dear Lord, not only to the great mystery of Your oneness with the Father but also to the mystery of Your calling to me to share in Your life. I accept this invitation and pray that I become more fully one with You, the Father and the Holy Spirit. Most Holy Trinity, I trust in You.Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2024 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.Featured image above: Jesus teaches in the Temple By Jan van Orley, via Wikimedia Commons

https://youtu.be/dWcAzmrKQKM?si=pNohB4XrLBc8O1gS Break Out – 1 – When Your Dream Died Welcome – Easter   Happy Easter   Break Out Caught, trapped, stuck, imprisoned, chained, caged, bound, in limbo, on hold, delayed… ever feel like that? A Plan for Freedom  April 7 - When your faith croaked - How to believe again April 14 – No way forward? – How to turn around April 21 – Need a new start? How to live a new life April 28 – Carrying the weight of the world? How to Exercise Power Today – When your dream died Have you ever wanted something?   Me – Too much…. Church/call   We Marriage – divorce/deathCareer – fired/bad economyFriendship – rejection/trust broken Purpose – failure/no supportHome – foreclosure/bankruptcy   ConfusedShell shockedAngry/Sad   You wanted something, but you lost it. Easter story: Jesus dies, is buried, and rises again… but his disciples did not understand. Luke 24:13-35 2 sad disciples walking to Emmaus (7 miles from Jerusalem) Confused, angry, sad… trying to figure it out.They wanted something, but they lost it.   A guy walks up and asks them what they are talking about. You know who? 15 As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him. 17 He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”   They stood still, their faces downcast.   18 One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 19 “What things?” he asked. “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. 20 The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him;   21 but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. “But we had hoped…”  We know what that feels like   We need a plan for freedom.   When your dream died – How to Hope again. “But we had hoped…”A person can live for… -week­s without food. -days without water. -minutes without air. -not a second without hope. Hope is necessary.   1950s - Curt Richter, a professor at Johns Hopkins – drowning rat experiment.Rats in a bucket – Drown in 2 minRat rescued – lasted days (60 hours) Hope maid the difference Wild rats with fight died just as quickly as domesticated rats.   Not fight… but faith Contrary to how we are taught. Hebrews 11:1 (NIV) Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. The plan for your life must include HOPE.   How do we hope again? The Easter story is about how to hope again. The disciples on the road… Jesus joins them. “26 Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. 28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. 29 But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.   30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.   32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” “I felt something…”   Hope returns before you recognize it Could it be that you felt something today? Could it be that hope is coming back into your life because of God? Feel something today?   Imagine hope returning…Before you recognize…Imagine Jesus walking with you…   Call to Action #1 The Easter Story = Your Story -        Believe the story #3 Feel Hope returning -        Receive the story #3 Minister to the hopeless

Imagine Jesus reciting portions of Psalm 107 knowing his death and resurrection have set free the captives who had longed for him: “He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and burst their bonds apart . . . and cuts in two the bars of iron.” The resurrection has cosmic significance! 

Imagine Jesus reciting portions of Psalm 107 knowing his death and resurrection have set free the captives who had longed for him: “He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and burst their bonds apart . . . and cuts in two the bars of iron.” The resurrection has cosmic significance! 

Imagine Jesus conducting a church performance review, evaluating its strengths and weaknesses. That's exactly what He does, starting in Revelation 2:17! Pastor Chuck Swindoll examines a message straight from heaven to the church in Ephesus. It was a church whose members had exhibited perseverance and endurance. But they'd forgotten their first love! Perhaps you can relate to believers who have been faithful yet, somewhere along the way, have drifted away from the most important thing . . . affection for the Savior! To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/82/29

Imagine Jesus conducting a church performance review, evaluating its strengths and weaknesses. That's exactly what He does, starting in Revelation 2:17! Pastor Chuck Swindoll examines a message straight from heaven to the church in Ephesus. It was a church whose members had exhibited perseverance and endurance. But they'd forgotten their first love! Perhaps you can relate to believers who have been faithful yet, somewhere along the way, have drifted away from the most important thing . . . affection for the Savior! To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/82/29

Imagine Jesus conducting a church performance review, evaluating its strengths and weaknesses. That's exactly what He does, starting in Revelation 2:17! Pastor Chuck Swindoll examines a message straight from heaven to the church in Ephesus. It was a church whose members had exhibited perseverance and endurance. But they'd forgotten their first love! Perhaps you can relate to believers who have been faithful yet, somewhere along the way, have drifted away from the most important thing . . . affection for the Savior! To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/82/29

Today we close out our theme of love for this month, as well as this week as we have been talking about intimacy. We've looked at a level of closeness that God can provide that should affect every relationship we have in life—from our families to the groups of people we associate with. God allowing us to be His temple changes everything as to how we approach all of life and every relationship. In John 17, as Jesus was in the garden knowing the cross was only hours away and all the brutality of sin was about to be placed on Him, He didn't pray for Himself, but for intimacy and unity among the people who would believe in Him—those who were with Him on that day, those throughout the centuries, all the way to us today. Imagine Jesus in the Garden alone in the dark, knowing the soldiers were on their own to take Him to the cross. Hear Him crying out to God through the filter of that reality and listen for how He prays for you … “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began! “O righteous Father, the world doesn't know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.” (John 17:20-26 NLT) Did you catch the same language as Paul later used as to where God will be? Did you hear His prayer for you? Did you hear His cry for intimacy between you and the Father? Listen once more … this time I'll abbreviate and focus on Jesus' prayer for you and I today … “I am praying … for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. … “O righteous Father, the world doesn't know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.” (John 17:20-23, 25 NLT) How should you respond to the Bible passages we have read this week? What did you hear that encouraged you? Challenged you? Convicted you? Intimacy is such an important concept to understand, grasp, an grow in, especially as Christ-followers, because we have no barriers to be able to love as He loves. Let's pray together: “Heavenly Father, help me in all my relationships to be a reflection of intimacy with You. I am Your temple and I want the world to see Your life and Your heart through my life and heart. As above, so below.”

Jesus, Not Just Any PriestHebrews 7-11What do you think about when you hear the word “Priest”?Our picture is often marred by various movies, novels, and pictures.  Imagine Jesus being like a priest in one of those shows like Balleykissangel. The order of Melchizedek- righteousness and peace Gen.: 14:18-20 and Psalm 110:4See how Jesus is a high priest from a different law! Hebrews 8:1-6 a better priest!Jesus inaugurates a new Covenant like Jeremiah prophesied: Jeremiah 31:31-34 quoted in Hebrews 8, see last verse.The outer sanctuary and the Holy Place Hebrews 9:1-5The job of the high priest – replaced by Jesus! Hebrews 9:8,11,14-17The need for blood to activate the covenant. Hebrews 9:21-28The old law does not make perfect! Psalm 40 speaks of one to come later! Psalm 40:6-8Hebrews 10:1,4,9,10 shows the eternal work of Jesus!By faith the early believers were looking for a better country, an eternal one! Hebrews 11:13-16We have come to Mt. Zion and an unshakable Kingdom! Hebrews 12:22-24;Don't mess it up – give him your acceptable service!  25-28!“And Melchizedek the king of Salem brought out bread and wine; now he was a priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram of God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth; And blessed be God Most High, Who has handed over your enemies to you.” And he gave him a tenth of everything.”Genesis 14:18-20 “The Lord has sworn And will not relent, “You are a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek.””Psalms 110:4 ““Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,' for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.””Jeremiah 31:31-34 “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; My ears You have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require. Then I said, “Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.””Psalms 40:6-8 

Christ died to fulfill the Second Great Commandment — love your neighbor as yourself, and to enable us at last to fulfill it ourselves for all eternity! - SERMON TRANSCRIPT - I want to begin this sermon by speaking directly to all of you, who are my brothers and sisters in Christ. I feel a privilege this morning as a messenger of God to tell you that you are infinitely rich, and not only are you infinitely rich, you're getting richer by the day, and someday you're going to come into an infinite inheritance, the scope and magnitude of which I guarantee you underestimate. My task this morning as I begin this sermon is to give you a sense of that richness, the sense of that wealth, that inheritance. Imagine that I were a lawyer entrusted with the opening up of a sealed will, and you've been invited to come and hear as an heir what you're going to get. Imagine a fabulously wealthy business magnate has died, and you're part of the family, and I am going to read the will. I read your name, and I tell you that you stand to inherit millions of shares of blue-chip stock in a Fortune 500 company, thousands of bonds, shares in some oil fields in the Persian Gulf. The list goes on, and on and your mind starts to spin with the realization that all your financial problems are solved forever. That's not what's happening today. I'm not doing any of that, but I am telling you that if you're a Christian, you are an heir to a vast fortune of immeasurably, even infinitely, greater value than any of those things I just listed. Ephesians chapter 1 mentions the word “inheritance” three times. I was pondering that this morning. Ephesians 1:11 says, "In Christ, we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who are the first to hope in Christ might be for the praise of His glory." The first mention of the word “inheritance" in Ephesians 1:11and then Ephesians 1:13, "In Him also, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having believed you are sealed in Him with the promised Holy Spirit who is a deposit guaranteeing your full inheritance until we acquire possession of it.” That's the second mention of inheritance and the gift of the Holy Spirit as a down payment, a payment or a foretaste of that full inheritance. But the one that really captivated me this morning, the reason I'm mentioning it to you now, is the third mention of the word “inheritance” in Ephesians chapter 1. Paul prays for the Ephesian Christians and, through Him, for all of us, that the eyes of our heart would be enlightened in order that we would know the hope to which He has called us, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe. That phrase captivates me this morning. That's why I'm even mentioning this whole concept to you today, the vast inheritance you have in the saints. Sometimes, when we're listing the various forms of wealth held by fabulously wealthy people, we talk about how they made their wealth and what their wealth was in. We use that kind of language, like we would say that Rockefeller made his money in oil. Carnegie made all his money in steel. Vanderbilt made his money in railroads, that kind of thing. Warren Buffett made his money in stocks. So what's our inheritance? According to Ephesians 1:18, our wealth is in saints. Your wealth is in the saints. I'm not going to have you do it, but look around, look left and right. That's your wealth, right there. Your brothers and sisters in Christ are part of your inheritance. You might say that's a little bit of a letdown. I was hoping for something better in heaven. You know that again and again, from this pulpit, I've preached that your genuine wealth is God. What you get when you go to heaven is, you get God. There are so many statements of this, so many pictures of this— the Levites didn't get an inheritance, but God was their inheritance. They represent all of us, I think. A beautiful statement in Genesis 15:1, "Fear not Abram, I am your shield. I am your very great reward." God is your reward. God is what you get. Heaven is all about God. Heaven is all about the glory of God. That's what you get. However, there are other verses that expand our sense of the inheritance. A simple one in the Sermon in the Mount is “blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” We don't just say, "God, we get the earth. We inherit the earth." There are many other such statements and Ephesians 1:18 is one of those. If you look at the earth, we, the redeemed, are going to get the earth. We're going to get not this cursed earth, but we get this earth, I believe, resurrected in a new form called the new heaven and new earth. You're going to get it. You're going to be an heir with Abraham of the earth, and that new heaven, new earth is going to shine with the glory of God. They're not separate. You get God in the form of the new heaven, the new earth, as He has made it beautiful, and His radiance and His glory will shine, for the earth is full of His glory, and it'll be even more evident in the new heaven, the new earth. So with that idea, go back to Ephesians 1:18, our inheritance is in the saints. We are rich in the saints. Our wealth will be in some part each other, and that is in a multitude greater than anyone could count from every tribe, language, people, and nation. That's why I say you are immeasurably wealthy, and you get wealthier every day because every day more people cross over from death to life, and they become part of your inheritance, and you get them just like they get you. I understand why you would feel a little bit disappointed in this because you know you're no great shakes. I'm not trying to insult you, but it's only recently that these words would be overtly true of you. Romans chapter 3, "There was no one righteous, not even one. No one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They've together become worthless." Think about that word. Imagine a worthless inheritance, but that's what we were, but it is not what we are. We were at one time worthless, "There is no one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves, their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Ruin in misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes." That's what you were. That's what I was, but it is not what I am, and it is not what I will be for all eternity. However, because of how terrible we are in our sin, it's not surprising, a little bit shocking, that one of the foremost philosophers of the 20th century in 1944, John-Paul Sartre, said famously, "Hell is other people." Hell is other people. Imagine being his friend and reading that. “Tell me, Jean-Paul, how you really feel about our friendship?” Hell is other people. What I'm saying today, based on Ephesians 1:18, is, heaven is other people. Think about that. Heaven is other people, in part, not in any way minimizing that God is our reward. Actually, it's because the glory of God is going to be shining in unique and beautiful ways through each of the redeemed that each one of them is part of your inheritance because each one of them will shine with the glory of God and of the Father in ways that will be special, unique, and beautiful, and I argue because I believe in a dynamic heaven in which you'll never be omniscient. You'll have a lot to learn. You haven't met most of your inheritance yet. You don't know them yet. You won't know them when you die. You'll meet them in heaven, and it's going to take a long, long, long, long time to meet them, as God in some sense says, "Have you considered My servant Job? Have you considered My servant so-and-so?" You will have the opportunity to consider each of your brothers and sisters and the glories of each one. At that time, the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father, and you are going to see how beautiful they are, how radiant they are, and how glorious they are. As it says in John chapter 3, "Everyone who lives by the lie does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But everyone who lives by the truth comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." So each of their good works, which will have been perfected by the fire of Judgment Day and come through shining, each one of them will be a display of the glory of God in their lives. Their glories will be your glories, their honors will be your honors, their privileges will be your privileges because we're all part of one body, and when one part of the body is honored, the whole body is honored with it. You have a glorious inheritance in the saints, and it's getting richer every day, not just in the redemption of people crossing over from death to life but in the good works they're doing. They're enriching the kingdom of God every day, and so are you, by your good works. I believe that it's relevant to today's text because it is the perfect fulfillment of the second great commandment when we get to heaven. Our sin has made us constricted. We pull into ourselves. All we really care about is us. We pull in, and we become like a medieval castle with a moat and a drawbridge. The drawbridge is pulled up, and we're all about me, intensely committed to selfish me. That's what sin does to us. Redemption does the opposite. It makes us open and expansive to include others more and more and more so that others’ delights are our delights, others' blessedness becomes ours, and we get to live that out now by the power of the Spirit. The more we do, the more the glorious gospel of Jesus will be put on display. The more our church is characterized by that kind of heavenly openness and love in which we really genuinely delight in the blessedness of others, we're willing to sacrifice to make somebody else blessed, and we find delight, personal delight in somebody else's happiness, the more the gospel's going to shine in this church. I tell you, this region, this country needs it. This is a dark place, and we are put like a light up on a pedestal to shine in this dark place. We're a city on a hill. We're called to do this. “Behold how they love one another,” one of the ancient observers of Christians said. Or as Jesus said, "By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." It's this open expansiveness that gets up out of self and includes another in our own happiness so that their blessedness is ours, their delight is ours. Years ago, I saw a movie that pictured this for me, and it depicted a love scene in the movie. It wasn't actually romantic at all, but it was between a man and a woman. It comes from the movie Driving Miss Daisy. Morgan Freeman plays an African-American man hired to drive around an older Jewish woman in the South a number of decades ago, and it depicts their budding relationship. It moves from employer-employee, eventually, at the end of the movie, to friends, just genuinely friends. Morgan Freeman is very elderly at this point, as is the woman Jessica Tandy plays. The woman is very old, she's in a nursing home, and maybe some mild dementia, et cetera. He goes to visit her at the nursing home, and she's sitting there. It's Thanksgiving time, and they have a conversation. They haven't seen each other in a number of years, they get reconnected, and she's not all there, but she definitely knows that he's with her, and she has a piece of pie in front of her that she hasn't started yet, and at some point he says, "Now you haven't eaten your pie." He starts to feed it to her, and as he feeds her each piece, the acting is just really excellent in this. As he feeds her each piece, it's like you can see him enjoying it as though he's enjoying it through her. The enjoyment of that pie is his. It's a beautiful scene, and I think it captures a little bit of what I think it means to love your neighbor as yourself, that you are expanded, your heart is expanded into the joy of someone else's joy. Or we could say negatively, "If someone else is suffering, you're suffering with them, and then to alleviate that suffering brings you delight." You're free now from that pain because you are so joined in your heart. That's what I think it means to love your neighbors yourself. Let's talk about the context. It's the last week of Jesus' life. He's already made the triumphal entry to the cries of “Hosanna.” He's cleared the Temple of its filthy money changers, and He continues his ministry of teaching and of healing there in the temple area. He's in the final stage of His life because His enemies are overtly, clearly plotting His death. They want to kill Him. The chief priest, the Scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, they want to kill Him. They set up one trap after another. First, the Pharisees and Herodians, with their question on taxation, designed to get him in trouble with the Romans and get Him killed. Then the Sadducees, with their ridiculous question about resurrection, that case study with the man that had seven brothers and married to the one woman. Remember that? Then, along in Mark's Gospel, comes this expert in the law who seems different than them. He's a different spirit. I think he really genuinely wanted to know the answer that of all the commandments, which is the greatest, and Jesus's commendation of him is unusual. Jesus answers, "The most important one is this, 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.' The second is this, 'Love your neighbors yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." In the last few sermons, we've looked at the first and Greatest Commandment, the vertical one, love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Now we're going to look at the second one. This commandment is an old commandment that's made new. It's an ancient commandment. Jesus is quoting the law of Moses, as He did with the first and greatest commandment. He's quoting again with the second commandment. It's Leviticus 19:18, "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord." Love your neighbor as yourself. What does that mean? It's not, you have to first love yourself, and then you'll be able to love your neighbor. It's not that. In the sense of this verse, you already fanatically do love yourself. From infancy, you have been fanatically committed to yourself. The infant howling at 3:00 AM is loving him or herself. They can't articulate it, but that is what is going on. They have a need, they want it met. They're increasingly aware of a particular person who keeps meeting the need, and they want that person. They can't even say mama yet, but they are, from infancy, committed to self. This is innate. The command tells us to do for others what we've been doing all our lives for ourselves. One of the articulations of this is in marriage, and I think it makes it a little clearer exactly what this commandment entails in marriage. It says, "Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife, loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it." That's a very practical explication of the Second Great Commandment in the context of marriage. It's very easy to see a very clear connection between the Second Great Commandment and the one Paul gives in marriage, but he specifically is very physical with it. The way the husband feeds and cares for his own body is the way he should look after his wife. I think we could say the same thing in general for our neighbor. Look how you care for yourself. When your stomach is growling and empty, you feed it. When your tongue is dry, you drink. When you have an itch, you scratch it, even if it's right between your shoulder blades and very difficult to reach. You do what you need to do to alleviate the pain. If you are in pain in any way, you alleviate it, you shift how you're sitting in your pew. If one part of your body is falling asleep or whatever, you're going to adjust to alleviate the pain. If your body is cold, you're going to put on a sweater. If it's hot, you're going to get into some AC and alleviate it. If it's raining, you seek shelter. You do this constantly. You've been doing this every day of your life, pretty much every moment of your life, from infancy. The way you've been doing that for yourself, do it for your neighbor, do it for everyone else. I. An Old Commandment Made New This is an ancient command—love your neighbor as you already do love yourself. But . . . we’re told a new commandment, a new command. Jesus said in John 13:34-35, after the foot washing, He said, "A new command I give you, love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this will everyone know that you're My disciples if you love one another." It is effectively an old commandment made new, as John writes in 1 John 2:7-8, "Dear friends, I'm not writing you a new command but an old one which you've had from the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command. Its truth is seen in Him and in you because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining." How is this old command, or ancient command, made new? Jesus is the answer. It's because of Jesus that this old command is now incarnated and it is made new. How is that? First, by Jesus's example; Jesus showed us how to love our neighbor as ourselves. He gave us a role model that we should imitate. He's the only one in history that has ever perfectly fulfilled this horizontal commandment. As we read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we see all of His encounters with men and women and children and with everyone. We just have much information education now in what it looks like to love our neighbor as own self. Then we see it definitely in the atoning work of Jesus and the atonement of Jesus. Jesus said in general universal principle, John 15:13, "Greater love has no one than this, that he laid down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you." The principle is laying down your life. Jesus's teaching tells us what it means to love our neighbor. Jesus's death on the cross is the perfect pinnacle of a human being loving his neighbors. It is a perfect pinnacle example of the Second Great Commandment being fulfilled. As it says in Romans 5:8, "God demonstrates His own love for us in this. While we're still sinners, Christ died for us." Jesus loved His enemies. He gave the infinite gift of Himself under the wrath of God so that we would not suffer eternity in hell. He cared about where we were heading. He cared about alleviating eternal suffering, and He was willing to take it into Himself so that we would be set free, and by gazing therefore at the example of Jesus and at the cross of Jesus. This is a new command. It's an ancient command made new now, and it's made new because the Spirit of Christ is in us working it. If you're a Christian, the Spirit of Jesus is in you, working this horizontal command so that you'll love your neighbor as yourself, and by the Spirit alone can we do it. We've seen this again and again in Ezekiel 36:26-27, "I'll give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I'll remove from you your heart of stone, and I'll give you a heart of flesh and I will put My Spirit in you and move you to follow My decrees and be careful to keep my laws." Consummated in the two Great Commandments., the Spirit of Christ is in us, moving us to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. That's what the Spirit is moving you to do if you're a Christian. Therefore, in Galatians 5:22, the first thing it says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love." That's what the Spirit does in you. When He's working in you, He makes you love. Only by the spirit of the indwelling Spirit of Christ can we truly love our neighbors. God is the source of that love, and He gives us that love that flows out vertically through us, then horizontally out by Christ's mediatorial work and by the linking, connecting work of the Holy Spirit of God. That's how it happens. 1 John 4:7-8, "Dear friends, let us love one another. For love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” There is a beautiful picture in Revelation 22 of the throne of God in the center of the new Jerusalem and the river of the water of life flowing eternally and endlessly generated from the throne, and out it flows. This river of the water of life is crystal clear. I don't think it's very difficult to say, it's also a river of love. So love just flows from God, for from Him, through Him, and to Him are all things. He is the source of love, and you cannot love, not like this, apart from Christ. "Love just flows from God, for from Him, through Him, and to Him are all things. He is the source of love, and you cannot love, not like this, apart from Christ." Let me stop and say to all of you, are you in Christ or are you apart from Christ? Have you received from Jesus Christ the forgiveness of your sins? Have you realized that you are that sinner described in Romans 3, that you are worthless and a viper, and on your way to hell? Jesus came to intervene, to save you, and to die into the wrath of God for your violation of God's laws. Have you come to that place and asked Him? Have you called in the name of the Lord for the forgiveness of your sins? If so, that the moment that happened, you received the gift of the indwelling Spirit of Christ. You began a career of love vertically, and horizontally. II. Love Defined Let's try to understand it. What is love? How will we understand love? We're going to go again to Jonathan Edwards, and Edwards taught us that the soul has two faculties. First, the ability to comprehend or understand things in the universe, including our neighbor, that we're able to understand. It has that capacity to study and know. Then secondly, to be inclined or disinclined to that thing that it studies and knows to a greater less degree, such as liking or loving or disliking and hating. The soul does this. This is what is designed to do by God. I pictured it in terms of a magnetic attraction like a bar magnet north-south attracted, and then, to a greater less degree is, that number line of affection, positive being liking on up to loving and the negative numbers being disliking onto hating. Therefore, I give this definition of love. Love is a heart attraction that results in cheerful, sacrificial action. Love is a heart attraction that results in cheerful, sacrificial action. First, it's heart attraction. Your heart is attracted to your neighbor. Your heart goes out to your neighbor and includes your neighbor within yourself. Therefore, it is not enough just to act. Many people say love is an action, and they're quoting a verse I'm about to quote. It's important that love is action, I get that, but first there has to be the heart attraction. If there's no heart in it, there's no love. You can give the utmost gift, the costliest gift, but if your heart isn't attracted, if it doesn't go out to your neighbor and yearn to bless that, and you don't find personal delight in it, it's nothing. 1 Corinthians 13:3, maybe, in some sense, one of the harshest verses in the Bible, "If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames but have not love, I gain nothing." Wow. I can't imagine a more amazing gift. The individual gave all of their worldly possessions to the poor and died, and they get nothing. Why? Because they didn't do it in love. It's incredible. What that means is, behind that is, there must be a heart attraction. There has to be a yearning to bless the person. My heart is linked to yours. Jonathan Edwards put it this way, "In some sense, the most benevolent, generous person in the world seeks his own happiness in doing good to others because he places his happiness in their good. His mind is so enlarged as to take them as it were into himself. Thus, when they're happy, he feels it. He partakes with them and is happy in their happiness." Isn't that beautiful? That's Morgan Freeman enjoying the pie through Jessica Tandy. That's what it is. My heart is going out. It's expanded and includes you. If you personally get no delight out of your service to your neighbor, you get nothing on Judgment Day. You have to enjoy doing it, delight in doing it. But there has to be an action. Now we get to that other verse I was mentioning. You can't just have really sweet feelings for everybody, and it never amounts to anything. 1 John 3:16-18, "This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth." So you've got to have both sides of that equation. You got to put it together. You can't just have the sweet feelings and do nothing. You can't just do things and not have the feelings. It's together. But it has to be sacrificial actions, it’s got to cost you something. Isn't that what sacrifice is? David said, "I will not offer the Lord a sacrifice that costs me nothing." It's got to cost you. You can measure love by sacrifice. “Greater love has no one than this, that he laid down his life for his friends.” You see, it's a measurement, greater love. So the more the sacrifice, the more love has been revealed. Obviously, literally, to die for someone else is the greatest sacrifice anyone... It's the greatest thing you could ever do. But lesser gifts are sacrifices as well. You're giving of your time, of your energy, of your money. You're giving something that costs you something. You are in some way depleted because you gave to your neighbor, you made a sacrifice for them. But it has to be cheerful. So it's like, "Pastor, you put too much in the definition." But there are Bible verses behind each of these. What kind of giver does God love? God doesn't just love a giver, God loves a cheerful giver. 2 Corinthians 9:7, "Each of you should give..." He's talking about finances, "Each of you should give what he has determined in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion because God loves a cheerful giver." Therefore, Jesus was a cheerful giver on the cross. This is infinitely mysterious, but it's true. In Hebrews 12:2 it says, "We should fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross scorning in shame and sat down at the right hand of God." He looked beyond the misery and the horror of the cross to the good thing that would come from it, the joy. What is that joy? His joy in saving a multitude from every tribe, language, people, and nation, so that they would be with Him and see His glory and spend eternity in heaven. This is my composite definition of love. Love is a heart attraction to another person that results in cheerful, sacrificial action on behalf of that person. "Love is a heart attraction to another person that results in cheerful, sacrificial action on behalf of that person." IV. What Love Is and Is Not Let's describe it a little more— what love is and what love is not. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 describes negatively and positively what it is and is not, "Love is patient. Love is kind. It doesn't envy. It doesn't boast. It's not easily angered. It's not proud, it's not rude. It's not self-seeking. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trust, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." So love is patient, it puts up with a lot. It's long-suffering. It's kind. It freely does good things for people. There's a kindness to love. There's a gladness, a gentleness, a giving nature to love that is wrapped up in the word “kind”. There's a kindness to it. It doesn't envy. It's not jealous over the benefits given to others. There's no envy or jealousy. It is glad to see other people blessed and benefit. You're not in competition with them in that regard. It doesn't boast. It's not proud. This love that we're talking about here is actually a very humble thing. It's humble. It's not rude. Let's put it this way, it's well-mannered. There's just good manners to love. I think all that system of manners that parents teach their children, it's basically Second Commandment stuff. When you're at the table, you don't talk with your mouthful. All of those rules are preciousness of others, you’re caring about others. So it's not rude. It's not self-seeking. It doesn't constantly say, "What's in it for me?" We shouldn't misunderstand that. There should be heart desire. So there is something in it for me. I should desire it. But it's not that selfish, independent, "I want to get something whether you get anything or not." That's what self-seeking means. It's not easily angered. It has a short fuse, it doesn't fly off the handle quickly, and it keeps no record of wrongs. How difficult is that? I'm not remembering what you did to me last week. I'm ready to forgive because I've been forgiven much. It doesn't delight in evil. There's no schadenfreude. It seems like so much of the internet, so much of the digital media is delighting in other people's misfortune, finding humor in some bad thing that happens to another person. Love doesn't do that. That’s not loving. If we see somebody dragged down, we don't delight in it. We rejoice in the truth. What does that mean? Jesus is the truth. I rejoice to see Jesus come into somebody's life. I rejoice to see the Bible's truth flourishing. It delights in Christ and the Bible succeeding in the world and people living according to it. We love that. Then it always protects, always trust, always hopes, always perseveres. It never fails. It just stands with individuals, and it's there permanently. If you ask, what is love like and what is it not like? I would commend 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. How does it act? I can tell you how it does not act. It doesn't do any harm to the neighbor. Romans 13:9-10, "The commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet.' And whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one command, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no harm to his neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.” Remember, I talked a few weeks ago about there have to be negatives after prohibition? You can't just tell our corrupt generation, love is love. Just love how you feel. No, there's a bunch of prohibitions in the Bible, but what Paul says in Romans 13 is that all of those prohibitions are summed up in the positive command to love. Because love doesn't do any harm to the neighbor. So you shall not commit adultery. It is not loving to break up someone's marriage to be a homewrecker. That's not love. Paul talks about that in another place. Don't take advantage of your brother by winning over his wife. That's not love. That's damaging to him, stealing, damaging, taking his things. Those prohibitions are summed up in the statement “love”, because love doesn't do any harm. So that's what love does not do. We don't damage each other, hurt each other. That's where gossip and slander comes in. If I'm gossiping and slandering, I'm destroying somebody's reputation. What does love do? It acts in such a way that the individual is, in some way, blessed. You could do it negatively by alleviating suffering, positively by helping them grow and grace in the knowledge of Christ, bringing blessings into their lives materially, physically. A great statement is Jesus' depiction of Judgment Day in Matthew 25, "All the nations will be gathered before Him and He's going to separate the people one from another as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He'll say to the sheep, the righteous on His right. He'll say, 'I was hungry, you gave Me something to eat. I was thirsty. You gave Me something to drink. I was a stranger, you invited Me in. I needed clothes, and you clothed Me. I was sick, and you looked after Me. I was in prison, and you came to visit Me.'" That's a whole list of actions that you can do out of love. Those are all Second Great Commandment actions, especially on the issue of alleviation of suffering. We Christians should care about suffering. We should care about all suffering, and we should desire to alleviate it. Next week, I'm going to preach on mercy ministry, on the Good Samaritan, and the alleviation of temporal suffering. I heard a long time ago, and I like this, we Christians care about the alleviation of all suffering, but especially eternal suffering. What is eternal suffering? It is the torment of hell. How could that torment be alleviated? There's only one way, by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. How should we care about that? We should care whether people are going to hell or not. It should matter to us, and this is what I taught this past week, Romans 9:1-3. The apostle Paul said this, "I speak the truth in Christ. I'm not lying. My conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, the nation of Israel." What is he saying? Saying, "I would be willing to give up my own salvation if they could be saved. I could wish that, but I can't because I'm not their mediator. I'm not their savior. That was already done by Jesus. But I'm telling you that's the level of my concern for them.” I believe that we don't witness, we don't share our faith like we should, because we don't grieve over lostness and over its ultimate destination like we should. We should ask God to give us a heart of grief and brokenness over lost people, the alleviation of eternal suffering. That's what it is. V. Heaven: Love Perfected As I close today, I just want to expand your mind and bring you into that heavenly realm that we're going to go to, that new heaven, new earth, that eternal state. When both of these commandments, the First and Second Commandment, will be consummated in each of us, how much are you looking forward to that? How beautiful is that world of love going to be when, at last, you'll finally love God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, and with all of your strength, and you'll at last love all of your neighbors as yourself? And you're going to have a lot of neighbors. Revelation 7:9-10, "After this I looked, and there before me, it was a great multitude that no one could count, from every tribe and language and people in nation standing before the throne and the front of the lamb. They were wearing white robes and they were holding palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, 'Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.'" Let's imagine that the thesis of my Heaven book is true. That you'll have a perfect mind and a perfect heart, but you'll never be omniscient. What that means is, you'll be able to learn things in heaven, and the central topic of heaven is the glory of God. The central and the greatest display ever there has ever been of the glory of God is in the redemption of His people by the blood of Jesus Christ. It's the greatest display of glory there ever has been, ever will be. How much of it did you know here on earth? A very, very tiny percent, 0.0001%. How much will you learn in heaven? Much. All of it. How long will it take? Forever. Imagine meeting a new brother or sister, one that lived 263 years before you. They'll be in heaven. He's not the God of the dead but of the living, and you'll meet them. How could you know them? You couldn't. But you'll meet them in heaven and imagine two things. You want to know two things. How were they saved, and how were they used? Imagine being so expansive in your love that you'll actually care about the answers. “Tell me your testimony. How long do we have? Okay, I'll give you two minutes.” It's not going to take two minutes to find out how God sovereignly saved each of your brothers and sisters in Christ, what He orchestrated providentially to bring messengers and evangelists into their lives, either through their family, through missionaries, or through an evangelists, and you're going to be enthralled because it is to the glory of God how they got saved. As the elder asked a couple verses later in Revelation, these in the white robes, "Who are they and where did they come from? You've got forever to answer that question. How awesome will that be? "So please tell me, how did God save you?" Imagine Jesus himself saying, "Let me tell you what I did in his life or her life." Then the second question, "How did God use them? What are their good works? What are their rewards?" Again, you're not in competition because if one part of the body is honored, the whole body will be honored with it. You're going to be delighting in their honors, performance, and privileges as though they were your own because we're part of one body. How awesome will that be? That is where we're heading, brothers and sisters. The more we can live it now, the better for the gospel here in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. Close with me in prayer. Father, thank You for the time we've had to just immerse ourselves in the Second Commandment. We know that it's for the failure of the Second Commandment that all the wars, dissensions, factions, divorces, fighting, and crimes have ever been committed. We thank You that You, Lord Jesus, by Your blood and by Your spirit, are the only remedy, and You are a perfect remedy. We thank You that You have made us rich now in each other, and You're making us richer by the day. Enable us, oh Lord, to love one another by the power of the Spirit to live out the gospel and put the gospel on display here in this region. In Jesus' name, amen.

Imagine Jesus saying to you and your congregation, “All of you make me sick. I don't care how busy you are with ‘church work,' it means nothing to Me. You all need some serious help. Get it together or you're done!” This message is great for us today because our zeal for Jesus tends to cool off over time. Take the challenge and may Jesus ignite your fire for Him!Visit HighBeam Ministry, The Truth BaristaCheck out the Frothy Thoughts Blog!Check out The Truth Barista Books!

Happy Sunday y'all!

In Christ, death is never the last word, just as Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead.HydeParkUMC.org/NextStepsREFLECTION QUESTIONS: 1. What does it mean to follow Jesus, the one who invites us into the fullness of life and death? 2. What tomb are you being invited to exit? To come out of? 3. Where do you see new life in your midst?  4. Imagine Jesus in front of you, asking, ‘do you believe this?' How would you respond? 

What did Jesus say when He prayed? - Fr. Lucas Laborde. Click here for today's readings. So, in this meditation, you may imagine yourself at the end of your life in this world, looking back on your life the way Jesus does in this prayer. How would you like to summarize your life? Imagine Jesus speaking to the Father about you. What are the good things He says? What do you find most inspiring in the character of Jesus? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/lucas-laborde/message

The historical Jesus would champion these modern concepts if he were around today: "Civil rights include the ensuring of peoples' physical and mental integrity, life, and safety; protection from discrimination on grounds such as sex, race, sexual orientation, national origin, color, age, political affiliation, ethnicity, social class, religion, and disability;[1][2][3] and individual rights such as privacy and the freedom of thought, speech, secularity (freedom from religion), sex characteristics, genderlessness, gender identity,  freedom of religion, press, assembly, and movement. Political rights include natural justice (procedural fairness) in law, such as the rights of the accused, including the right to a fair trial; due process; the right to seek redress or a legal remedy; and rights of participation in civil society and politics such as freedom of association, the right to assemble, the right to petition, the right of self-defense, and the right to vote, people choosing to be childfree or parents, people choosing to be single or in a committed relationship (unmarried or married), people choosing to be pet-owners or pet-free and diverse family living arrangements. Article 1 Right to Equality Article 2 Freedom from Discrimination Article 3 Right to Life, Liberty, Personal Security Article 4 Freedom from Slavery Article 5 Freedom from Torture and Degrading Treatment Article 6 Right to Recognition as a Person before the Law Article 7 Right to Equality before the Law Article 8 Right to Remedy by Competent Tribunal Article 9 Freedom from Arbitrary Arrest and Exile Article 10 Right to Fair Public Hearing Article 11 Right to be Considered Innocent until Proven Guilty Article 12 Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence Article 13 Right to Free Movement in and out of the Country Article 14 Right to Asylum in other Countries from Persecution Article 15 Right to a Nationality and the Freedom to Change It Article 16 Right to Marriage and Family Article 17 Right to Own Property Article 18 Freedom of Belief and Religion Article 19 Freedom of Opinion and Information Article 20 Right of Peaceful Assembly and Association Article 21 Right to Participate in Government and in Free Elections Article 22 Right to Social Security Article 23 Right to Desirable Work and to Join Trade Unions Article 24 Right to Rest and Leisure Article 25 Right to Adequate Living Standard Article 26 Right to Education Article 27 Right to Participate in the Cultural Life of Community Article 28 Right to a Social Order that Articulates this Document Article 29 Community Duties Essential to Free and Full Development Article 30 Freedom from State or Personal Interference in the above Rights." The historical Jesus is not anti-nightlife, not not anti-alcohol, not tribalistic against the secular movement, not anti-science, not anti-mathematics, not anti-history, not anti-scholarship, and not anti-ordination/licensing of women and LGBTQIA+. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/antonio-myers4/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/antonio-myers4/support

Philip said to Jesus, “Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father'?” John 14:8–9Today's liturgical feast is in honor of two of the Apostles, Philip and James the Lesser. Little is known about James other than that he was chosen by our Lord for the apostolic ministry and that we have one of his letters, which is contained in the New Testament. James eventually went to Jerusalem and led the Church for a few decades until he was stoned to death as a martyr. Philip preached in Greece, Phrygia and Syria. He and Saint Bartholomew were thought to have been crucified upside down. Philip preached upside down from the cross until his death.In the Gospel for today's Mass, we are presented with an encounter that Philip had with Jesus. Though this encounter appears to be a rebuke of Philip by Jesus, it's a rebuke that is quite heartfelt. Jesus says, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip?” Jesus did, indeed, spend much time with His disciples. They stayed together, ate together, traveled together and spent much time talking with each other. Therefore, Jesus' comments to Philip emanated from His real and lived personal relationship with Philip.Take the first part of that statement to begin with. “Have I been with you so long…” Imagine Jesus saying this to you. Is this something He would be able to say to you? Is it true that you do spend much time with Him? Do you spend time reading the Gospels, speaking to Him from the depths of your heart, conversing with Him, praying to Him and listening to His gentle voice?But Jesus goes on: “...and you still do not know me...?” This is a humble truth that is important to admit. It is true that even those who have a very deep and transforming life of prayer do not know our Lord deeply enough. There is no limit to the transformation that can take place in our lives when we know Jesus personally.Jesus' statement goes on: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” So the next question is this: “Do you know the Father?” Do you know the Father's love, His care for you, His perfect will? Though the Father and the Son are united as one God, They are still distinct Persons, and we must, therefore, work to establish a relationship of love with each one of them.As initially mentioned, the comments from Jesus are a gentle rebuke of love to Philip, and He wants to speak this same gentle rebuke to you. But it's a rebuke of love meant to encourage you to get to know Him better. It's an invitation to personalize your relationship with Jesus and the Father in a real and concrete way. Do you know Him? Do you know the Son of God? Do you know the Father in Heaven?Reflect, today, upon these loving questions of our Lord as if they were spoken to you. Let His words encourage you to get to know Him more deeply. Pray for your relationship to become more personal and transforming. And as you get to know our Lord more intimately, know that it is also the Father in Heaven Whom you are getting to know. My divine and personal Lord, it is the deepest desire of Your Sacred Heart to know me and to love me. Fill my heart with this same desire so that I will not only know You, dear Lord, but also the Father in Heaven. Heavenly Father, I thank You for Your perfect love and pray that I may open myself to that love more fully each and every day. Saints Philip and James, pray for me. Jesus, I trust in You.Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2023 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Imagine Jesus standing in the midst of your life. In the moments where you are not doing anything, but only thinking about everything. He arrives. Can you see him? He is there. He smiles at you. Holds out his hands. Speaks kindly: “Peace be with you." Imagine his deep exhaling of his Spirit. As he breathes out, breathe in his air, the Holy Spirit he gives. Say as you inhale, “I receive your Spirit.” As you exhale, imagine your breath pressing his Spirit throughout your whole body. #sermon #firstpresbyterianbr #holyspirit #peacebewithyou #gospelofjohn

Jesus could have walked away….The only thing that held him to the cross was love. Imagine Jesus stripped, severely flogged, and a crown of thorns jammed into his scalp…Imagine the sight of him, flanked on every side by people yelling, and spitting, and weeping, and laughing…Imagine him carrying a heavy wooden cross over his bloodied shoulders through the streets of Jerusalem…Now imagine him choosing to suffer it all, and remain nailed to the cross….for you! - NEXT STEPS  Looking to take your next step?  We want to help! Text the word NEXT to 909-281-7797 or visit sunrisechurch.org/nextsteps. - GIVE TO SUNRISE CHURCH Imagine what God can do through our giving. You can give today at sunrisechurch.org/give. - FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SunriseChurchCA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sunrisechurchca Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/SunriseChurch

Imagine Jesus himself told you to go and do... as he does... including heal the sick, cast out demons and proclaim a way of life that every single person DOES NOT live up to. "Two by Two" hinges on an amazing sequence where Jesus sends out his disciples. How we see them respond – and our own response – is what TV/film reviewers and Chosen fans Laura Bennett and Ben McEachen get into, during this lively, impactful conversation. #FollowingTheChosen gets up close and personal with every Chosen episode in Season 3, exploring the Bible bits, added bits and "what's that about?" bits. Laura Bennett hosts Hope Afternoons in Sydney, Australia, and UNDISTRACTED podcast. Laura has reviewed TV and movies for Hope 1032 for more than a decade. Ben McEachen hosts Hope Mornings in Sydney. Australia, and co-hosts Money: Faith and Finance. Ben has reviewed TV and movies for Empire, News Ltd and Hope 1032. Listen to more from our Hope Podcasts collection at hopepodcasts.com.au. And send the team a message via Hope 103.2's app, Facebook or Instagram.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today we close out our theme of love for this month, as well as this week as we have been talking about intimacy. We've looked at a level of closeness that God can provide that should affect every relationship we have in life—from our families to the groups of people we associate with. God allowing us to be His temple changes everything as to how we approach all of life and every relationship. In John 17, as Jesus was in the garden knowing the cross was only hours away and all the brutality of sin was about to be placed on Him, He didn't pray for Himself, but for intimacy and unity among the people who would believe in Him—those who were with Him on that day, those throughout the centuries, all the way to us today. Imagine Jesus in the Garden alone in the dark, knowing the soldiers were on their own to take Him to the cross. Hear Him crying out to God through the filter of that reality and listen for how He prays for you … “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began! “O righteous Father, the world doesn't know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.” (John 17:20-26 NLT) Did you catch the same language as Paul later used as to where God will be? Did you hear His prayer for you? Did you hear His cry for intimacy between you and the Father? Listen once more … this time I'll abbreviate and focus on Jesus' prayer for you and I today … “I am praying … for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. … “O righteous Father, the world doesn't know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.” (John 17:20-23, 25 NLT) How should you respond to the Bible passages we have read this week? What did you hear that encouraged you? Challenged you? Convicted you? Intimacy is such an important concept to understand, grasp, an grow in, especially as Christ-followers, because we have no barriers to be able to love as He loves. Let's pray together: “Heavenly Father, help me in all my relationships to be a reflection of intimacy with You. I am Your temple and I want the world to see Your life and Your heart through my life and heart. As above, so below.”

It's the Love that counts,when you're chanting, when you're Ramming,or when you're praying, 'Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me'...PUT HIS MERCY ON. Wear It. Wear the feeling of Mercy, as you hear Him whispering, "You are Worthy and You are Mine."  Peace. Be. Still. I Love you, Niknikki@curlynikki.com Please help me keep the show ad free + Get Merch!▶▶https://www.patreon.com/goodmornings________________________________Today's Quotes:"Imagine Jesus whispering this to you:It wasn't for nothing. Everything that you've been through...It wasn't for nothing. I created you with a purpose.  Even through the darkest valley, you continued to love Me and follow Me. I am able to do exceedingly and abundantly above  all that you could ever ask or think. I am with you always.  Amen if you're thankful."-via IG @iamkenyaware "For the girl who feels anxious for answers, annoyed at the wait, or just plain angry at the outcome ... The Lord will get you through this!"-@Proverbs31ministries via IG"When the mind is quiet, it reflects reality...The mind must sing the I am' without words."-Nisargadatta Maharaj "I hear your heart not your words."-Maharajji"Your heart whispers many things daily. Not many of them end up in your prayers. But trust Him. He knows what you need and He won't disappoint."- @muftimenk via IG "The only freedom we've got is not to react to anything, but to turn within and know the truth."-Robert Adams"To see That which when seen, the wish to see anything more vanishes forever. To hear That which when heard the desire to hear anything else does not awaken anymore. Real darsana (vision) is that darsana after which no more question can arise of vision or no vision or of displaying anything. Darsana must be all-encompassing, unveiled, uninterrupted, indisputable."- Anandamayi Ma"Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere."-Ephesians 6:18"Beloved God, When I have no words to speak, help me remember My words will reach you, but my vibrations will reach you much faster."-Yogananda via The Assisi Institute  Support the show

Imagine Jesus telling his disciples they are blessed when they mourn. How would you respond if you were in the crowd listening to the teaching? Depending on how you understand the word "mourn," you may lean in to hear more or back off because you believe it is too painful. As used here, to "mourn" is to recognize our shortcomings before God. We mourn over our choices that result in sin rather than freedom. When we learn to mourn God's way, it opens the door for the promises of Heaven to come flooding into our lives. And this includes comfort. Comfort is more than a hug from God; it is an infusion of strength. Are you ready for an infusion of strength? Scripture Referenced: Matthew 5 For additional information, visit Ruthhendrickson.org.  Related Content:  His Daily New Mercies| What did you notice the last time you went for a walk as the sun was rising? Did you see the darkness giving way to the light? Did you notice streams of light coming from the sun or the sun's brightness as it begins to climb higher in the sky?  As I was walking along the beach, the sun was rising. As usual, it was lighting a pathway on the water. I stopped walking to pause and look. As I marveled at its splendor, God gently reminded me that His mercies are new every morning. (Lamentations 3:22-23) Continue Reading Connect: Website: https://ruthhendrickson.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RuthHendrickson.org/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ruthhendricksonministries/ LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ruth-hendrickson/72/3b1/a69/ Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/RHministries YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/RuthHendrickson  

Imagine Jesus returning to Nazareth, and his family and neighbors folding their arms, refusing to believe in Him as the Savior. They've made up their minds … and that's a lot like some people today. And today on Know The Truth, Philip De Courcy is turning to Mark chapter 6, to explain the consequences of unbelief. That's today on Know The Truth.