We’ve all got a part of ourselves we refuse to hand over—the place that says, You don’t get this, Lord. Heading toward Jerusalem, Jesus told a parable about a nobleman whose citizens hated him and sent word: We do not want this man to reign over us. The question is whether that refusal still has the last word.
Pastor Tim helps us think about the next question in the New City Catechism (“What are the sacraments or ordinances?”) as we start a section of the catechism considering Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
We want our way to be heard right now. We want results yesterday. But, if that’s not the approach God takes towards us, is it the approach we should take towards others?
Most of us are quicker to panic over a dying phone battery than over a dying spiritual one—we coast along, confident we’re fine, while the indicator drops lower than we’d ever admit. As Jesus calls a written-off man in Jericho, He challenges all of us on this: “Do we know how much we need Him?”
Are our words promising things we have no intent to do that leave people to die or are they much needed refreshment in a hurting world?
Pastor Tim helps us think about the next question in the New City Catechism (“What is the Lord’s Prayer?”). How does the prayer Jesus taught us help us to understand Him and His will for us better?
How does showing care in how we relay information speak to our state before God? It is part of the broader picture of who we are in Jesus.
Clear words can still sail right past us when they aren’t the news we want. In Luke 18, Jesus tells the Twelve exactly what’s about to happen to Him, yet they were just like us: they didn’t want to hear.
Do you like receiving critique and correction? Me, neither. But God offers us loving correction that draws us closer to the beauty He intends and, when we do it right, the correction we give and receive each other can do the same.
There’s always one thing we’d rather not put on the table when God asks us to give something up—and we usually know exactly what it is. In Luke 18, a rich man walks away from Jesus grieving because that one thing is precisely what Jesus names, and the disciples’ stunned question in response—”then who can be saved?”—turns out to be our question too.