For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. Matthew 18:20
We hear this quoted all the time. The church uses it to solemnize weddings, to invoke worship, to encourage groups of all sorts. It’s even used to validate business meetings where the most spiritual item on the agenda is replacing the air conditioner.
Thus it is no small surprise to most people that Jesus uttered these words in a discourse on church discipline.
Tucked between Palm Sunday and Resurrection Day, the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and his Triumphal Exit from the grave, is the event that put him there: the Crucifixion.
And, as we know, it wasn’t a mere event that put Jesus on the cross, but sin, and that not his own, but of the people he came to save. And, because all of this was part of God’s redemptive plan, we might say that God put Jesus on the cross because of the sin of man.
Jesus had, before Palm Sunday arrived, told his disciples enough to know that palm branches and hosannas would not spell the end of his mission, but that suffering and death would accompany events in Jerusalem.
Continue Reading “Four Things Required to Join Jesus on the Road to Calvary”
An average person speaks millions of words in his lifetime, and has tens of thousands of conversations. Much of that speaking and conversing exalts self.
Think of the subject of conversations that you typically have. They will likely relate to a few primary topics: family, church, work, recreation, politics, sports. Then think of the direction of those conversations: they trend upward, as you elevate yourself in relation to purity, people, and plans. How is it possible with such a flood of self-exalting talk to be humble? Consider what we contend with:
Continue Reading “Three Ways to Bring Prideful Speech to Heel”
At the risk of sounding like one of those new parents who thinks his baby is the most intellectually astute or physically adept and that everyone else wants to hear about the tot’s early exploits, I will reluctantly relate one of my own experiences.
Every new parent thinks that the profound changes that occur in his household as the result of the first child’s birth are the most hilarious and the most novel, but seldom do they prove to be either.
Robert Brooks Faircloth was born to Carrie and me December 11, 1999. It was a marvelous event, but I was crushed that Carrie couldn’t hold out just a little longer and give us a shot at winning all those millennium baby prizes. You can be reasonably assured that I would hold my tongue about it not really being the millennium if we were being loaded up with cool, free stuff.
Given an option, few people would choose a valley in life; most would prefer a mountaintop, or at least level ground that doesn’t slope right into the pit!
Our preference for being lifted up is illustrated in fan attitudes toward sports teams. Every fan claims that his team is “No. 1!”, whether actually superior because it just defeated all other competitors in the tournament, or as the sentimental favorite of devoted fans who believe their team is best no matter how poor the season or how resounding the most recent defeat.
There’s a reason that those foam hands raise just the index finger. They wouldn’t sell many that encouraged fans to give the more honest message “We’re No. 5!”
Continue Reading “How Foam Fingers Illustrate Spiritual Pride”
For years I resisted the need to get a handle on my email inbox. Actually, for years I resisted the need to look at my email inbox.
This was partly due to the fact that email inboxes don’t have handles to get hold of. On top of that, there aren’t even boxes to which one might attach the aforementioned handles, and looking at an email inbox actually means viewing a monitor or screen.
But this isn’t all bad, as you know. With digital mail, there are no wasps to launch angrily from the box into your clothing, no frustrating mailbox doors that never seem to close completely (hence the wasps), no deceased boxes murdered at the end of a high schooler’s baseball bat, no wet, torn, or otherwise defaced Christmas cards from orphans.
Continue Reading “Organize Your Email Inbox and Avoid Wasps”
We know that we should pray to God. And we know that we should desire to pray to God, and we know that we should enjoy praying to God.
But we don’t.
Sometimes, as the saying goes, it seems as though our prayer doesn’t even make it past the ceiling.
