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So here I sit, wrestling through this reality, all the while examining areas of my life where my worship is misplaced. How have I been duped?

I may feel exhausted or discouraged or wounded by events in my life, but do I recognize the underlying battle?

...the Revelation of John for things to come points to a people so engrossed in their self-sufficiency that the thunder of heaven cannot turn their unrepentant hearts - how much like that are we? How much like that am I?

God had kept his promise and given his Holy Spirit to the disciples. And now he was giving it to all who trusted in Christ for salvation.

“How long this world will suffer, how long I will suffer… Do you hear my cries? Do you know the brokenness?”

My trials and suffering feel like the squashing of color and blurring of lines to the point that my portrait isn’t the perfect and skilled mimesis of what the world expects. Yet, there is so much more depth, so much more character.

Even in this chapter, of this overwhelming book, we see how all of scripture is brought together to accomplish the same plan that has been laid out in the Bible all along.

Turns out, I may be pretty good at structuring a prayer, and asking for spiritual-sounding things, but this weekend God reminded me that I’ve also been pretty good at missing the point of prayer.

I don’t have to deny or hide my weakness because the beauty of them is they point to a God who promises to make me new.

When I realized a few months ago that Easter fell on April 1 this year, I initially saw it as incongruous - the high point of the Church calendar juxtaposed with the a day of playful trickery.

Despite the fact that Jesus literally states in the verse that he will be with us “always, to the end of the age,” I often feel alone when confronted with the idea of trying to share the Gospel.

As broken as this earthly existence can be, there are eternal promises that break through and transcend the brokenness.

Much like the city of Pergamum, I followed the only way I had known, and in doing so I had no compass for my life...

The book of Revelation, I have found, as I’m sure have many of you, is one of the books of the Bible where I really have a difficult time getting the message from my head to my heart.

You see, it’s not that God is against towers. He’s building a huge one for us to enjoy...

Living under the new covenant of Jesus’ blood, we also get to see the beautiful picture of Jesus drawing people from every nation, tribe, and tongue to Himself.

There’s nothing like a natural disaster to inspire people to ask deep questions about the meaning of life, justice, and the existence of evil and hardship.

The rainbow is not a promise that life will get better after experiencing a storm. The rainbow is the promise that God will send a rescue, that God will be our refuge.

As we look to 2018, I wanted to first share some very encouraging things.

I feel glimmers of joy as I walk the aisles of Target perusing Christmas decorations or when I’m driving in my car listening to 24-7 Christmas radio, but I also feel sad.

Adam and Eve based their hope on Cain, as a result of an incomplete and flawed understanding of God’s promised redemption.

We look forward and say there is a better day coming because of Jesus. And not only do we look forward, but we hasten it by living today as a renewed people in the midst of that broken world.

Entering into moments of vulnerability consciously and intentionally is risky, but it stops shame in it’s tracks.

What was once unending, immediate, and bountifully provided, within a few bites of fruit was now cursed with enmity, great pain, and toil. Marriage was once to be harmonious and is now divisive, pain is brought forth at the births of our children, God is farther away from us and we dig through thistles for fruit.

The great news is, we already know how the battle ends.

Satan placed doubt of God's goodness and sovereignty in the minds of Adam and Eve just as sin does to us now. Instead of looking to God, we look to the “Tree” for our fulfillment...

We were made for this interdependent community. We were made to share those extreme differences in order to produce extreme growth. We were made to be with one another in order to remove the possibility of the bad: loneliness.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil represents the fall of men and the tree of life reflects the way God designed us to exist. Between these two trees, there stands the tree that Jesus died on to pay the price of the fall and reconcile us to God.

It’s not that God was any less present to them or working any fewer miracles of deliverance and preservation among them over those years; it’s just that they stopped seeing Him. They stopped recognizing His faithfulness to them. And I do the same thing.

God addresses the chaos of humanity through the living Word, the incarnate Jesus. Do you believe that? God has intervened. God is still intervening.

Sometimes, hard things happen, and they’re just hard, and no ah-ha moment comes later when you realize how every painful piece of the puzzle was indeed working together for your good.

I sit there and soak it up with a candle lit and music playing, because the orderliness of the house makes me feel in control and relaxed for the 5 minutes that it stays that way. Maybe heaven will smell like cleanliness and soap...

How often do I “rest” by binging on show after show? Or fritter my time away on silly articles on Twitter or Reddit? Or squander my Saturday on a unimportant book?

As we deal with so much uncertainty in this life, what do we do with that? More often than not, we try to create safety, security, comfort, “home” in the temporary things of this world.

"Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul" -Mark Twain

This Sunday, as we unpacked hospitality, and love was intertwined in every part. Fear creates exclusive community, but love gives way to inclusive hospitality.

If I truly understand that God loves me, not just in some generic sense but intensely and personally, it changes everything. Love like that isn’t something that can be met with indifference, any more than I could respond to a marriage proposal with a shrug.

The good news is God is a homemaking God.

In Daniel’s vision, the journey for God’s people is long and painful, and begs the question; will God’s people finish? Will his purposes prevail? How long must we endure before we feel the relief of redemption?

Looking at Daniel's prayer in chapter 9 makes me realize how much I long to make prayer into a liturgy in my life.

When we are faced with “the writing on the wall”, when God’s Holy presence in our lives unsettles and awakens us to reality- where do we run?

There is such an urgent need for Jesus in this city that it becomes overwhelming and easy to give up on people and our mission.

"Now, how his lordship works out is then through the work of the church. But he is the Lord and is present with and through his church, as we are doing what we are called to do." ~ N.T. Wright

You see, I’m not that different from Nebuchadnezzar. He wanted to build a legacy for himself, and he did. Just like him, I’m trying to build a legacy… And I’m anxious when I think that I might not accomplish these goals or, even worse, that having accomplished them I might see them taken away from me.

How silly to think that large statutes and grand works will last beyond a lifetime! And yet, as Pastor Justin reminds us, we must see ourselves in Nebuchadnezzar’s quest for transcendence, for meaning, for a legacy.

"There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He." -Friedrich Nietzsche

When my head and my heart forget what is true, I find myself sacrificing my life to the myriad gods of health, wealth, work, marriage and home...So how, in the face of both external and internal pressures toward alternate values and identities, can I maintain my identity in Christ?