“Even when we’re far, God is still near.”
That’s because above all else, God is OUR FATHER. That’s how Jesus described Him in Matthew 6 when He was asked about how we are to relate to God. Not just as servant to Master, or creature to Creator, but son/daughter to Heavenly Father.
And that means that no matter how far we may go, God is always near.
Read MoreIt's time for Part 2 in our series BUILDING BLOCKS: A Life of Prayer and this week, we're talking about the first room in our house of prayer: SIMPLE PRAYER, aka the family room of the house.
Simple prayer is ORDINARY people bringing ORDINARY requests to an EXTRAORDINARY Father. And while that may seem pretty elementary, it's the foundation of a life of prayer and without it, you'll struggle to achieve any level of intimacy in your relationship with God.
“casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7
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Every now and then, I read a passage in the Bible that touches my heart in a way that leaves me speechless. Literally speechless – nothing at all to say. And that isn’t an easy task considering I’m someone who makes a living out of talking - and talking specifically about the Bible!
But recently I found myself at that exact point as I was reading and meditating on the story of the Prodigal Son (see Luke 15:11-32).
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Understanding the concept of "The Father" can be bewildering. The challenge is being able to separate YOUR father from OUR Father.
If you think of how you came to be, there's a good chance that within your parents’ grand design there was a child. But what they couldn't design was how you would turn out: the color of your hair, the width of your smile, the sound of your voice… these were all things that weren’t within their control.
But when God added you to His grand design, every inch of you was intentional: the color of your hair, the width of your smile, even the sound of your voice.
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“Do you think we should leave the kids or not? Will they be ok without us? Or should we just take them with us and forget about the waterpark?”
That was the conversation that I had with my wife just three days ago as we were debating whether or not to leave our children – ages 8 and 6 – at a waterpark during our church’s weekend getaway to a local resort. They wouldn’t be alone there. They’d be with several other members of the STSA family – about 100 or so – but they would be without us.
As you can imagine, everyone was super excited to go to the waterpark on Saturday afternoon (remember it was Memorial Day weekend). But Marianne and I had to return home for a wedding that evening. So we had to decide what to do with our kids. They were excited to go to the waterpark, but we were worried.
Read MoreYesterday I preached a sermon based on the story of the Prodigal Son (which I’ll assume everyone knows but it wouldn’t hurt to go back and read it as a refresher, see Luke 15:11-32). The story is an exact fit for all that I wrote about last week. When I read the story in the morning, what jumped out at me was how deep the boy had fallen and how amazing his deliverance was. He went from the deepest pit to the highest palace in no time.
How deep did he sink? We often have this picture of the Prodigal Son eating pig’s food with dirty animals in a pen. But actually that is NOT what the Bible says. The Bible doesn’t say he ate food with the pigs; what the Bible says is actually that it was even worse than that.
“And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.” Luke 15:16
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