Day 38 -- Syncing Spirits

I think prayer is one of those things that mystifies. We know we need to do it and so we do it and in doing so treat God as some sort of divine Pez dispenser and then are confused when the results come back mixed. As a pastor I encounter people all the time who confess to me their great disappointment with prayer. The frustration and faith deflation of not having our hearts' greatest needs answered is beyond discouraging. And so we cease the conversation with our God.

Prayer. Praying together. What's it all about? If praying isn't about getting what we think we need for daily life, then what's the point?

I made the shift to digital time management back in the Fall of 2002 with my Handspring Visor PDA. I love it. Broke that one and bought another. Broke that one too, and then bought a third all within the space of a year. A year later they came out with color screens and costs really began to drop. So I purchased another one. Really, PDA's, especially if your a technophile, are wonderful things.

But the coolest thing about them is that they "sync." You can hook them up to your computer and manage your information either on the PDA or on your desktop, sync the devices, and your information is stored redundantly, a very handy thing if you're like me and you tend to break your technology. All it takes is a press of a button and the synced devices are on the same page. But if you don't do it regularly, the information begins to wander. You make changes to one or the other of the devices and there's an information shift and pretty soon the reality between your PDA and your desktop no longer matches. In situations like this, one or the other of your interfaces isn't current, which means you're not current, which means "you are out of sync."

Somehow in the life of faith we came to believe that prayer was about fire retardation or fire control...managing the tragedies, real and potential, on our doorsteps. Again, the idea is that when we need God, we go to him, make our request, and if we're good little boys and girls we get our divine request.

But this isn't a very mature way of approaching God, conversation with him, and communion with he and his body. Because prayer isn't primarily about me, or you, getting our needs met. No, prayer is about syncing our human spirits, as individuals and in community, with God's Spirit. Prayer then is not a narcisstic endeavor, regardless of how dire our circumstances may be. It's an act of alignment, bringing our consciousness and lives and stories in accord with that of the mind, life, and story of the God that raises the dead.

This sort of prayer, in community, matures us. It calls us into a consciousness and hope and life that's so much greater than our own, that sees our temporal circumstances from vantage points way more expansive than the myopic one we each share as individuals.

The truth is, we NEED to sync our spirits, as individuals and community, with the Spirit of God...asking to see and discern God's heart, God's will, God's life, God's hope. When we do, the vision we'll be given is so much greater and life giving, and life maturing than anything we could have ever had before.

So my prayer for you, syncing my spirit with God's Spirit, is that we might all move from superficial pray-ers to profoundly consistent spirit sync-ers...that our lives might be aligned with the story and the life of the Resurrecting God.

Syncing spirit with you...

Pastor Nathan

Day 37 -- Preparing for Worship: Becoming an Empty Cup

Sometimes the most profound ideas come in the simplist of images. I've always loved Buddhist (Zen) wisdom as well as that of the Toaists. There are times I hear Jesus loudly speak in places where we wouldn't typically expect to find him.

Buddhist addage: In order to fill your cup, you must first empty your cup.

This is the core of what I believe lies behind the idea of preparing our hearts for worship. We are so filled up with the stuff of the world, it's hard if not impossible to receive Christ's alternative vision of the kingdom. We have MSNBC, FoxNews, CNN, the papers, web news, and the radio screaming at us a thousand different reasons that we should be afraid, should act self-protectively, and she either run and cower or take up arms and fight insane wars.

We are anxious and afraid. Perhaps that's the reason Jesus' most frequently invoked command is "Fear not!" The human condition is an anxious one. We are always precariously poised between a past we cannot change and a future we have so little control over. So we live anxiously.

Preparing ourselves for worship is about making space for a different story. It doesn't cause fear. It creates faith. It doesn't incite in us despair. It blossoms forth hope. It doesn't drive us towards death. It creates in us life. It doesn't incite us to act self-protectively. It incites us to live selflessly from the abundance and power of the God that raises the dead.

I'm aware, as a pastor, that all too often I don't do the sort of preparation I need to do to hear the message of worship either. I enter the space of worship harried, concerned, frantic, distracted, and ruffled.

But there is a more excellent way, both for life and for worship (because our whole existences are ultimately supposed to be WORSHIP). It involves intentionally creating space for the story of the Risen Christ to works it way into our DNA, changing our minds, hearts, and lives from the inside out.

Emptying my cup with you to receive the ancient transforming story...

Pastor Nathan

Day 36 - The Worship that Makes Sense of Haiti

Haiti is broken. It's so poor...it's government so ineffective...it's arable land so depleted. It just looks hopeless. Throw in conversation about the damage of hurricanes, already destitute people now entirely homeless, nominal crops wiped out, and dirt cookies being sold on the streets. I saw those dirt cookies.

Poverty.

You know, Jesus prefers some people over others. It's the church's "dirty" little secret. We don't like to talk about it especially in suburban affluent USAmerica. Jesus makes it very clear in his gospels that it is the poor he stands with.

Mary the mother of Jesus proclaims before Jesus is born, "He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty" (Luke 1:51b-53).

In Luke 6 Jesus says that the poor are blessed and will inherit the kingdom of God. In Luke 9 Jesus refuses to turn a crowd of thousands away hungry. In Luke 14 the litmus test for true discipleship is the surrender of all possessions.

What do you think Jesus is getting at? Is poverty "preferred" in the kingdom of God?

St. Lawrence was a deacon in the early church in the 4th century. He's remembered as the first church treasurer because he was asked to give an accounting of the church's assets by the Emperor. Lawrence new that the ruler's motives were wrong...and that the counting of assets wasn't being done for the sake of the kingdom but for the pilaging of the church. So on the day that he was due to give his report, he filled the palace courtyards with the poor and widows and down trodden among whom he'd divided the church's liquid assets. The ruler asked him, "What is this? I asked you to give me an accounting of the church's assets?" To this Lawrence replied, "THESE people ARE the wealth of the church."

He was martyred just a short time after--burned to death on a gridiron.

I do not believe that poverty is a more blessed state of being. I think that when you have nothing you have something that people who are immersed in stuff often have difficult finding: open hearts towards God. And I think God values that openness towards him...that state of acceptance that our lives are never fully complete, can never actually be complete, without that reliance on Him entirely.

In addition, God is a protective God, and he loves us all...but especially those who are the victims of systemic and social evil, of the hoarding and greed of those with power, and who find themselves expendable fodder for the comfort of another. Our God is a God of justice. And one of the most frequent refrains of scripture is his insistence on justice for those without power and means...whose situation and station strip them of their God given human dignity and value.

My heart is still aching. More so after this second trip than my first. There is poverty and need all over the world, but I can do something about this small corner. In fact, God mandates that I do.

The week made sense and came together for me on the last day when our traveling group, pilgrims from five different North American Lutheran congregations came together to share worship and communion last Saturday morning. I knew I was going to be a basket case as we began to pass the bread. And I was. In the Eucharist the pain of the world, my pain, your pain, and the pain of Haiti becomes an artifact of history and not an eternal reality. In the Eucharist, you can touch the healing in the promise.

Isaiah writes, "On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of well-aged wine strained clear. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken."

We worship because life and hope in the midst of so much that is wrong in life only makes sense in light of the God who raises the dead, who draws all nations to himself, who promises to swallow up all death forever, and who promises to wipe tears from all faces. This is the God who refuses to turn away the hungry, and who instead draws the hungering thirsting nations to himself and to his life.

I may look at Haiti with my human eyes and see no hope. But when I see Haiti and her children through the lens of God's promises I know for Haiti what I know for me and for you. We belong to God. The children of Haiti do too. And just as he refuses to let us go, he refuses to let them go.

So may God find us standing with those he stands with today, tomorrow, and on our journey to his holy mountain.

Praying blessings overflowing on your lives today.

Pastor Nathan

Day 35 -- Haiti

We're here and we made it safe and sound. Thanks to all of you who have been praying for us.

Perhaps you're wondering how this all came about? I'm a board member for an organization called the Haitian Timoun Foundation. It invests in and builds relationships with grass roots organizations that are working at eradicating poverty here. Pretty phenomenal stuff. Life giving and hopeful.

I've been hoping to gift St. Stephen with this organization. So I shared that I was going on this trip with the council and watched for eyes to light up. Lot's did, but three in particular stepped up pretty immediately. They are: Gail Seeram (our immigration lawyer), Dennis Donahue (the resident urologist), Neil Lund (our friendly actuary), and Danielle Reno. Danielle heard me talk about Haiti on the mission trip earlier this summer on the mission trip and asked if she could go.

So here we are...soaking up a 5th world nation and watching how kingdom mindedness seeks to build human beings even in the most impoverished environments.

We're blessed friends: so incredibly blessed.

I'll do my best to post again...but connections are shaky here and unreliable even when they are present. So check in if you can, and I'll do my best to post when possible.

God loves you all, and I do too!

Pastor Nathan

Day 34 -- SACRIFICE

It's been awhile since I blogged. Between a conference in Atlanta, preparations and the reality of the 35th Anniversary of the congregation, and this trip to Haiti...the firehose I drink from has been larger than usual.

Here's my reflection on sacrifice for Day 34: I've been reflecting on Jesus, whose own sacrifice is a phenomenal thing to behold. I personally have trouble with the typical sacrificial atonement theory for the crucifixion...that Christ died for our sins to appease an angry God's need for justice. This sort of theology moves to easily into a divinely sanctioned form of child abuse/child sacrifice.

And yet, there was a real choice to embrace the cross by Jesus...and the reasoned sense in him that what he was doing in the cross was FOR "many." The powerful thing about this is that the "many" was full of people who hated and reviled him or were simply indifferent to him. We'd expect Jesus to offer himself up for those he (and by extension God) easily love. That's how we tend to love, or would like to imagine that we do. But Jesus, the one who bids us "love your enemies" loved his too. And it is this fact that makes his choice genuinely signifcant and powerful. His choice was "for" us even when ours was "against" him. His words on the cross stand out powerfully as a back drop to the violence he endured that day. "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do."

We are his people. We are a cross-shaped people. Jesus' life is cruciform. Our lives are called to be cruciform. Jesus' life is consciously sacrificial. The call on our lives, in waters of baptism, is no less signficant.

So it is that we talk about sacrifice in the life of the body. Inside the body this means that we are willing to "sacrifice" our anger and resentment at those who have done us wrong (real or perceived) in a movement of Christ empowered forgiveness. Outside the body, the expectation is no less the same.

So the question for the day is this: What sort of sacrifice is before you in the life of this body of Christ?

Praying life in the midst of sacrifice for you today...

Pastor Nathan

Day 33 -- The Shape of RESONANCE: Where Gifts and Passion Come Together

I was in the 7th grade when I heard Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" for the first time. It was an achingly beautiful song I thought...and as it played it stopped me dead in my tracks. I remember the sounds, smells, and location of that moment. I was standing in a gas station on Tucson's east side waiting for a ride. At the time I was selling the Tucson Daily Star to afternoon rush hour drivers on their way home from work.

It was an experience of RESONANCE. This song connected with me...and it was a thing of beauty. It probably won't connect with you the same way...but there is something that you have experience that has caused you to take pause. When we behold things of beauty they literally strike us, like a guitarist plucking a string. If I play an E on my guitar loudly enough and there are other guitars around, all the other E strings will resonate to that sound.

It is a beautiful thing when the gifts God has placed inside us connect with our passions (those things we love to do) and the ways in which God is calling us to serve in the world. If you've ever beheld someone doing exactly what God's designed them to do, you pause and are instantly transported into praise for the beauty of the myriad expression of the plan of God.

Like listening to Connie Touchton sing her beautiful mezzo soprano voice or let loose the Pipe Organ -- it's simply beautiful.

When we use our gifts, connected with what we love to do and are uniquely designed by God to do...our souls sing. The tragic thing is that so many of us haven't discovered the hum of our souls playing the song each is uniquely designed to play.

Which is the search we all have to go on. Srcipture is insistant that the body isn't strong unless we're all playing the instruments we were designed to play. There's only one orchestrat...but each of us has a chair in it and role in the song of creation and redemption and healing and love.

My prayer for you today is that you would discover your song...and the beautiful instrument you have to play to make the music that adds to the beauty of life.

From Atlanta where the leaves are turning yellow, orange, and brown...

Pastor Nathan

Day 32 -- Star Dust

Humility is one of my favorite words. I know that some would assert that I'm not that humble. But I think the reality is that on most days I'm just pretty comfortable in my own skin. I know it's not skinny enough and probably not handsome enough for some...but what else do I have to work with?

Humility is a magical, "stellar" word. It comes from a Latin root word relating to "humus" or earth. So being humble is being earthy or dirt-like. And dirt itself is pretty special stuff. Far from mundane, it's matter that was fired and fused in the furnaces of stars billions of years ago. So dirt, even on our back water planet is literally "star dust."

Scripture maintains that God made us from this earth, this "star dust." Genesis 2:7 tells us, "...then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being."

The Biblical word for "the man" in Hebrew is Adam, which is a derivative of the word adam'ah which is the Hebrew word for "dirt." So Adam as we call the first human isn't a proper name like Nathan or Erin or Dennis or some such. Rather it's best translation might simply be "earth creature."

All this is to say that connecting with our humility is simply connecting with our humanity. It's realizing that we are on the one hand NOT God, and on the other the stuff of stars. Being humble is about being human -- no less and no more than we are created to be. Living from this center and awareness is how we are (no pun intended) grounded in life. Isnt' that beautiful?

This then is the power we have, if we have it, to serve each other without caring whether or not someone else mistakes us for being the gardner. You see, in the kingdom of God, there's no higher calling than the one who works and cleans up the dirt.

And that is something to ponder as we go about our lives collecting degrees, accolades, and attention.

May you be connected to the source of your life (God) and grounded in the reality of your being (dirt) and as you exist between heaven and earth, may you find that the living currents and energies of life flow between those points of being, and in them, you are indeed humble.

Go get dirty!

Pastor Nathan

Day 31 -- Generous

Sometimes you just gotta shut up and let Jesus speak.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

--Matthew 6:19-21

I think that all this text is saying is that when we invest the treasures of our lives in Jesus and each other something pretty strange and remarkable happens. Lost hearts get found again. They get found in the presence of the kingdom, investing in stocks and bonds whose values are assured for eternity.

Here's my challenge to all of you...not just on Day 31, but every day. Because our treasure and where we invest it is a measure (perhaps the most profound measure) of our faith. Invest it in Jesus. Invest it in his body...in the church and the relationships here. Try tithing, and see if your faith doesn't grow and blossom in wonderful and powerful ways.

Praying today that you all will find your hearts investing in the kingdom of God and not the kingdom of self...

Pastor Nathan

Day 30 - "YES, YOU CAN!" - by helping each other

Team Hoyt - World´s strongest Dad - An Inspiration

I saw a clip on these two at a leadership conference last year. Dick and Rick Hoyt, a father son team that together have run over 950 races, 60 marathons, and 6 Ironman triathlongs.

Rick was born in '62 with cerebral palsey. The doctors told his parents to institutionalize him. But they refused and resolved to raise him as normally as they could. At some point Rick heard about a fundraising race for a disabled athlete and asked his father Dick if they could participate.

They did.

Rick told his dad after the race: "Dad, when we're running I feel like my disability disappears."

Dick says that after all these races, "...he is competing and I'm loaning him my arms and my legs so he can compete."

Are you weeping yet? Every time I see these two...

Oh...we human beings are capable of so much ugliness and despair. But then you see things like this, and can see into the human heart the divine imprint...and see that deep down we really do in fact reflect God.

Reflecting God, the Triune God, is about reflecting the best in community. It's about digging deep into each other's plight and raising each other up in faith, hope, and love.

This morning as you hit this day running, just remember, with the help of those around you, and with the help of the God who raises the dead, "Yes, you can!"

God loves you and I do too!

Pastor Nathan

Day 29 -- "Saved to Serve"

"For by grace you have been saved by grace through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God -- not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life."

--Ephesians 2:8-10

Rick doesn't reference this bible passage, but it's immediately what came to my mind. His "saved to serve" is an incredibly Lutheran concept. Luther probably would have stated it a bit differently...but with much the same meaning. I think he would have said, "We are set free to serve." Biblically of course, being set free, restored, and healed are what "salvation" actually means.

It changes the paradigm for life doesn't it? In waters of baptism we are joined to the death and resurrection of Jesus -- which means that we are joined to his MISSION...his very purpose in life for this creation. Which means our death and resurrection (our being set free or our salvation) is for the purpose of God's mission in the world.

It is setting us free because it frees us to surrender our own agendas and self-centeredness (never perfectly) to follow Jesus into the mission field of the world, serving his purposes for the sake of the world.

This morning, hopefully you will come to church, will immerse one of your hands in the baptismal waters, and then inscribe a large, wet, cross on your forehead...a reminder of the baptism that sets you free to be on a journey with the Living God for the sake of his world creating and restoring purposes in the midst of this life.

May you discover your life's purpose in Christ's cross and resurrection...and may you discover deeply and profoundly just how powerfully you have been saved to serve (make a difference) in the life of the world.

With heavy eyes and a days fatigue...

Pastor Nathan

Day 28 - The Practice of Forgiveness

I think part of what's difficult about forgiveness is that we tend to do to it what we do to love: we associate it with an emotion. But this couldn't be further from the truth. I'm not insisting that there isn't an emotional component. What I am insisting is that first and foremost, as Warren points out and as the scriptures insist, it's a choice. In fact, it's really clear that Jesus and Paul and the other authors aren't "suggesting" that we do it. They are insisting on it.

Forgiveness is key to life. It's key to healing. It's the key for the transformation of human relationships.

Forgiveness is a choice because it is grounded in the sort of love that is always a choice: the unconditional sort. This stuff is hard for us. Almost everything in our relationships with each other is conditional. Which is where we get screwed up. We get wrapped up in our conditional versions of love (I'll love you if you look like this, act like this, don't hurt me this way, etc.) and the dramas that come with them. When we get wronged (and we always do) we then have to work out systems of retribution. I know people insist all the time "I'll let God judge!" but it is done with a set jaw and a hard look and the sort of insistance that indicates that the person isn't going to let go of the hurt any time soon.

Because we don't want to let the one who caused the offense off the hook. So we "punish" them with our resentment in an effort to exact our retribution. Except this never works. It just slowly eats us up, continues the harm in the relationship, and sees to it that the hurt of the incident thrives on and on and on.

It doesn't work. Unforgiveness only works if the object is to visit harm on another. It is the antithesis of God's peace, of reconcilition, and of healing.

Just to make it clear, it's then the antithesis of LOVE...the action we're called to scripturally.

Make no mistake, LOVING is a mandate. Forgiveness is a mandate because it flows from love. If you are making the choice to love others, even those who've harmed you, then forgiveness is the "DUH" that the relationship calls for. It's just part of the dynamic.

So to the question: "How do I forgive when I hurt over the situation so bad?" I'm so glad you asked. It's just like practicing the habits that build relationships: ATTENTION, AFFECTION, AFFIRMATION. It's a practice, and while practicing it, your emotional self will begin to align itself with your decisions and your actions.

So you choose to act forgiving. You make contact and connect with the offender and COMMUNICATE your forgiveness even when you don't want to. You SPEAK WELL of the other in the presence of others, ESPECIALLY in the offender's absence. You PRAY for them and for their well being. You affirm them authentically any chance you get. And you simply LET GO the offense. You PRACTICE forgiveness. And it will come.

Eventually you will find that you no longer feed the wolf of unforgiveness. It's no longer in you. It's incredibly hard to harbor hatred, resentment, and pain towards someone you pray for and for whom you actively seek the well being of before the throne of God. It simply transforms you from the inside out.

I'm convicted as I write this that I too have some praying to do...an unforgiveness hit list I need to be attending too.

I wonder, are you convicted too? Forgiveness isn't an option. It's a kingdom expectation. Where it's present, you will find the kingdom of God. Where it's absent, you won't. Because you can't experience the kingdom while in the throws of vengeance and resentment. They are fundamentally incompatible.

May you find God's kingdom in your lives today. Even more than this, may you choose to be presen to it in your choice to forgive...

Pastor Nathan

Day 27 -- Coming Clean

Confession is one of those things that everyone seems to have an opinion about. I don't know how many disenchanted Roman Catholics I've come into contact with who've rebelled against their church of origin because of the confessional. They insist the power of the Reformation was that it took the priest out of the church equation as the middle man...that confession is something that you do directly to Jesus and no one else.

I've heard this sort of thing from non-Catholics as well.

Warren hits an absolute home run with his devotion today, and whether he knows it or not he is very Lutheran in his outlook on this whole matter.

It's typical today for Lutheran communities to do "corporate" confession and forgiveness. I don't know any Lutheran practice today except a few of the ultra-orthodox sort that practice individual confession and forgiveness. Interestingly, Luther wanted this retained for much the same reasons that Warren illucidates. As Warren points out, forgiveness comes from Christ alone, but healing comes through confessing in community. We need the powerful encounter of "coming clean" with another human being (or several as the case may be) to experience "tangible grace," the unconditional acceptance of another who communicates in flesh to us the forebearance and love of God.

We didn't retain this practive and it's our loss, mostly because we no longer know what confession or "coming clean" is anymore.

But I'd like to suggest this morning that along with baptism, communion, the washing of feet, and the act of individual and corporate prayer, that confession is one of the most powerful tools in our tool box for healing and transformation.

Sit and think on this one and let me know what you think. I think that the challenge for many of us is that perhaps there is no one in our lives we'd trust that entirely to keep the ugliness we need to reveal confidential. We are too much known for our capacity for parking lot conversations and NOT holding things in confidence.

Perhaps we need to decide as a community to architect a new reality?

Warren writes:

"Why does God want us to confess to each other? There are at least two powerful reasons. First, it is one thing to read of God's forgiveness in the Bible, but it is quite another thing to hear and feel God's grace and love in the voices of your friends. When we confess, and then are still unconditionally embrace by our small groups, God's love and forgiveness become more tangible."

"Second, confession reduces the power of a secret. The beginning of healing is revealing. There is something cleansing and liberating about coming clearn through confession. It also allows our group to come alongside us to support and pray for us in our struggle. The purpose of confession is not disgrace, but grace. The purpose of confession is not humiliation, but restoration."

May you find the safety in another to "come clean" today, finding grace and restoration for the weariness you carry in your souls."

Praying for the restoration of Christ...

Pastor Nathan

Day 26 -- Jesus: All Backwards and Upside Down

Friends,

This is what you need to ponder today: the kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of reversals. It's values would offend the Republican political platform as well as that of the Democrats.

In the kingdom of the world, the rich, successful, educated, intelligent, happy, and bellicose are blessed.
In Jesus' kingdom, it's just the opposite. (Luke 6:20-26)

In the kingdom of the world, king's and politicians are anything but servants.
In Jesus' kingdom, the first come last, and the last are first. (Mark 9:33-37)

In the kingdom of the world, a little of anything is never alot.
In Jesus' kingdom, abject lack is the stuff of abundance. (Mark 8)

In the kingdom of the world, the wealthy are blessed and the poor suffer.
In Jesus' kingdom, you need the endorsement of the poor to get in. (Luke 1:46-56)

In the kingdom of the world, children don't have full stature in the life of civil discourse and do not have the same stature that adults do.
In Jesus' kingdom, the children have full stature, and don't have to pass the grown up test to participate in the life of the kingdom. No, the adults have to pass the kid test to enter it (and usually fail!). (Mark 10:13-16)

In the kingdom of the world, you are expected to hate your enemies.
In Jesus' kingdom, you are expected to love your enemies. (Luke 6:27-31)

In the kingdom of the world, s/he with the most post possessions wins.
In Jesus' kingdom, you can't become a follower of Jesus unless you give all of your possessions up. (Luke 14:25-33)

In the kingdom of the world, the kingdom of heaven is someplace "out there," but certainly no where near hear.
In Jesus' kingdom, the kingdom of heaven isn't far away or a place that can only be accessed through death. In Jesus' kingdom, Jesus says "it's among y'all!" (Luke 17:20-21)

In the kingdom of the world what's mine is mine, what's yours is yours, and what belongs to the government belongs to the government.
In Jesus' kingdom, it ALL belongs to God. (Luke 20:20-26)

Most importantly, in the kingdom of the world, death has the last word.
But in Jesus' kingdom, Jesus gets the last word. And it's a word of LIFE! (Luke 24:1-53)

Today, may you discover the Risen Lord in the unexpected places, blessing, healing, and transforming the world around you. Amen

Pastor Nathan