Think And Let Think

In a time when the word “love” is greatly abused, it is important to remember that the fundamental component of biblical love is not affection or hallmark cars, but service. To love is to serve.

We can put all of our trust in our money, we can use it to do all sorts of things in the world, but if we think that it all belongs to us, or has come to us simply because we deserve it, then we’ve failed to recognize the One from whom all blessings flow.

The church doesn’t exist to make a difference. Instead, the church exists to praise the living God who fills our lives with the kind of joy that sustains us through both the mountains and valleys we experience. Church isn’t about us. It’s about God.

Whenever we open the scriptures and study we are entering into the strange new world of the bible, one that shines a light on what our lives really look like even today.

Worship is practice. We do it over and over to tone our spiritual muscles in order to do the work of the Lord.

To those who love the church: make more room for it, bring to it your best and highest devotion. And to those who are not sure about the church: you will not find perfection here, but come anyway, and help us make the church better.

Offering forgiveness isn’t easy. Receiving it might be even worse.

I’ve been in enough hospitals to hear doctors refer to their patients not by Mrs. Smith or Mr. Jones, but by a room number (or worse: by their disease). There are plenty of people who are judged simply because of the color of their skin, or their political persuasion, or their sexual orientation without their names ever being mentioned. Names are important.

In the realm of the church, in Christianity, to reject Jews, or any other marginalized group, is simply unchristian. For in God’s vision of the holy mountain, Christians are the gentiles who are gathered to join the Jews. We are the outcasts, the foreigners, the outsiders grafted into God’s great communion. To reject the outcast is to reject ourselves.

We can tell ourselves that what happened in Charlottesville will never happen in our town, but it does; it happens each and every day in some small way, shape, or form.

Today we live in a world where we are forever asking, "Who deserves to come into our country?" and "Who is worthy of receiving healthcare?" and even "Who should be admitted to college?" But in the kingdom of God, at the Lord's Table, all are welcome. Always.

Do we feel like the merchant from Jesus' parable? Are we willing to risk it all and throw ourselves completely in for the kingdom? Or, at the very least, have we found a pearl in the church?

If the church is no better than the culture that surrounds it, if it doesn’t embody a different way of being, then it simply isn’t the church.

We might not want to let God take care of our backyard gardens, wasting seeds left and right. But when it comes to the garden of the church, when it comes to people like you and me, there is no greater gardener than the Lord.

We are captivated more by the optimism of “what if” than the pessimism of “it’s too late.” We are held in bondage to the belief that we are more than the mistakes of the past, more that the pain of the present, and more than the unknown of the future. We are prisoners of hope.

The goal of preaching is the hope that people will not remember what you said. The goal should be that the next time someone turns to that part of the Bible it will say a little more to him or her. The purpose of the church, of doing worship week after week, is to give the bible a little more room to shine.

We become God’s people, a people of holy kisses, when the pews of the sanctuary are more like avenues of connection and less like walls of division.

Pentecost may be the birthday of the Church, but it is NOT the birthday of the Spirit.

Today, we throw the word “heaven” around like we throw around the word “love.” We use it as a filler or a descriptor to such a degree that it no longer means anything. And therefore when we say that Jesus ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, we no longer know what we are saying.

What has God done for me? God sent me to a church that listened to me, prayed with me, and loved me in spite of myself. What has God done for you?