Friendship with Christ
…so keep loving. Keep loving Jesus. See how Jesus has loved you, and me, and others around him, and go love like that.
Nourished on the Word
We fill our hearts and our minds with his Word, right? We do that. That's the data. That's the stuff that the Holy Spirit uses, and we just fill it. He gives us understanding as time goes on. We have to be patient, but faithful, and understanding is Word, seeking understanding, meditating on it, praying through it.
The Whole Point
Pain before joy; death before glory. What we see that day at Lazarus’ tomb is not a Jesus who stands aloof from our pain and our grief, but experiences it Himself, not merely for His own glory, but so that you and I can enter into joy and glory. And friends, that is the whole point!
Seeing Through God’s Eyes
In healing the man blind from birth––the lesson for all of us in this is that that is all of us! All of us are blind from birth. We’re born into a world separated from God, into a reality separated from God, we’re blind to our fallen nature, our sinful nature, and it takes God coming into us and healing our blindness for us to do this.
Beyond Snap Judgements
In this story Jesus demonstrates for us how we can move beyond our snap judgments and do the work of seeing and connecting with the person in front of us, even if that means crossing traditional boundary markers, to lead with love, to give others the benefit of the doubt, to meet people with curiosity, to be truth-seekers with others instead of assuming that we’re the expert in the room.
Following God’s Plan
Even when we break that relationship in our sin and disobedience, God’s plan has always been the same. At its core it’s about the restoration of that relationship. God’s plan is the reclaiming and remaking of his family.
Clothed in Christ
“Like Adam and Eve, we reach for fig leaves that cost us nothing when what we need are the covering of skins that cost the blood of another.”