We’re in week 4 of our Blind Faith series and this week, Fr. Timothy walks us through the 4th sign that Jesus performed, the feeding of the multitudes with just 5 loaves and 2 fish (see John 6).
After seeing this sign, the question that we all must ask ourselves is this: Is Jesus enough, even when I don’t get what I want?
The point isn’t the sign or the gift; the point is WHO that sign or gift points us to.
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“that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” (Philippians 3:10)
As I wrote about last week, we are now officially in the midst of the season of Lent … oh no… wait a minute… I said that I don’t believe that Lent is meant to be just a “season.” A “season” comes and goes with no purpose; the only reason we are in a “season” is because the calendar tells us that it is time for that season.
ASIDE: Coincidentally enough, I just noticed that “spring” officially begins in one week, March 20 – but who cares? That proves my point. No one is expecting that next Wednesday is really any different than this one – it’s just what the calendar says. Seasons make no difference.
Lent is not a season, but rather a journey. A journey has a purpose. We are going somewhere. We have a destination. And on this journey of Lent, we have two specific destinations that we’re trying to reach: a CROSS and a TOMB.
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Sometimes I wish prayer was as easy as using an app. I would ask to get to my next life destination and God would Uber me from point A to point B. I would ask for direction and He'd lead me to google maps. I would ask for creative inspiration and I'd get a Pinterest thread in my thoughts.
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This is a guest post from Peri Koussa - a fourth year PharmD student at MCPHS University in Boston. Aside from being a future health care professional, Peri is also - in her own words - "a closet poet and strong believer in the power of words." You can see more of Peri's work by checking her out on SoundCloud. And if you too are interested in guest posting on my blog, please visit my Guest Post guidelines for more info.
Here I am, a young girl in her twenties, drowning in the waves of a community I struggle to understand. It is a community that boasts of an ultimate feat: finding a soulmate.
Everywhere you go there seems to be some sort of indication that it is time to start the search for 'the one'.
Read More"It doesn't matter what you believe, as long as you're sincere." Right??? WRONG!
We wrapped up the Things Jesus Never Said series yesterday and we talked about how sincerity isn't enough when it comes to belief. We need more than sincerity; we need TRUTH! Why? Because it isn’t enough to believe if what I "believe in" isn’t the truth.
And that's exactly what Jesus came to reveal to us. "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6
Hope you've enjoyed this series as much as I have. Stay tuned for more fun next week as start a new series titled "BRINGING AN ANCIENT TO A MODERN WORLD". Stay tuned for more...
I don't know about you, but if there's one thing I long for it's this: the biggest, fattest hug from God and for Him to look us deep in the eye and say "Well done – welcome home, my daughter (or son)!" I don’t know about you, but I can imagine myself crying oceans on that day.
Every time I think about it, it makes me feel kind of sad that we actually have to live life with all its hardships to get there, but I found myself thinking: Why not live heaven on earth?
I came across recently that says "God is not where heaven is, heaven is where God is."
And that made me think...
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Many people argue that they don't need God, that they are perfectly happy without Him. Those same people usually think that all God cares about are rules and having us obey them. We (Christians) often respond to by saying that God doesn't care about rules, but instead He cares about a relationship. He doesn't want us to be good; He just wants US! He wants ME! He wants YOU! He wants to be with us and us with Him. That is the “will of God” that people so often search for.
But the question I ask is this: why should I want to be with God? (I know this sounds like a basic question, but humor me here).
Read More"Your words were found, and I ate them,and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart" Jeremiah 15:16
Do you ENJOY reading the Bible? Be honest. I know that you probably force yourself to do it, but how often do you actually find JOY when you read God's Word?
That's our topic in this week's message in the You Are What You Eat series. The title of the message is FINDING JOY IN THE BIBLE and it's a topic that I'll bet most people don't think applies to them. We know it is "good" to read to Bible and we know it is "beneficial" to read the Bible and we know that we are "supposed" to read the Bible.
But did you ever know that it can be ENJOYABLE to read the Bible?
Well, now you do. Check out the message above and see for yourself.
“Launch out into the deep.” Those were the words that the Lord Jesus spoke to Peter after a long night of work (see Luke 5), during which Peter labored and toiled to catch fish but had come up empty. After that night of frustration, Jesus commands Peter to go back out into the deep waters and let down his nets and try one more time to find what he was looking for.
You probably know how the story ends [Peter catches more fish than he knows what to do with], that isn’t the point of the story.
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Imagine a father and son spending some quality time together on a beautiful afternoon playing “hide and seek.” The father is hiding in the best hiding spot ever and the son quickly counts to 20 and scurries around the house to find him. The father can’t help but laugh because he knows his son is never going to look there.
The son searches for 5-10 more minutes, can’t find, and gives up in frustration. Victory for the father, right?
No earthly father would ever do that and neither would our heavenly Father either. Actually, He does the exact opposite.
Often we feel that God is in places that we are never going to get to. We convince ourselves that “He’s too far from us” so we just give up.
But this isn’t hide and seek. God isn’t hiding from us. He’s not in some secret hiding spot that only the holiest people can find. In essence, He’s right in front of us at all times, waving His hands in our faces, saying “I’m here, I’m here!” And since we often can’t see Him in front of our eyes, He puts Himself in places we look at every day – to try to get our attention.
He’s in everything! In the nice view we see on our way to work. He’s in nature – in moments of peace. Believe it or not, He’s even in the people we talk to on a daily basis. And He’s in all those places with one mission – He’s determined for you to know Him.
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We all make bad decisions. It happens every day. But there’s a difference between a bad decision and a life-defining and history-altering mistake. Bad decisions are “I think I’ll have another slice of cake please” or “I think my wife will love getting this aerobics video for her 40th birthday!” Those are bad decisions. But these are horrible mistakes:
It’s tough to recover from those kinds of mistakes. Those are the ones that you’ll probably spend the rest of your life trying to recover from.
How about mankind as a whole? What’s our greatest mistake? Aside from Adam and Eve and their big no-no back in the Garden of Eden, what’s the biggest mistake we’ve ever made?
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