hope ⁽¹²³⁾

Psalm 118, Romans 5:1–5, Hebrews 12:7–13 Patience. The old quip, “don’t pray for patience, for then God will provide circumstances that require it.” Endurance and patience. One is primarily a verb in scripture (Endure), while the other is a noun. In other words, they are…

John 6:40-44, 1 John 5:13-21 Jesus’ words in John can be limiting if we let them be. For example, if we were too literal in seeing or not seeing Jesus (John 6:40), most of us would not have much hope for eternal life. There are…

Genesis 47:18–26, Acts 4:34–5:11 In the United States, land has long represented freedom, self-reliance, hope, and self-determination (on one hand), slavery, clearances, eviction, theft, and deceit (on the other hand. How can such divergent perspectives be? Well, for many Native Americans the initial immigration of…

Psalm 103, 2 Peter 1:3–11, 1 John 1:5–2:2 Have you ever whittled, shaping a piece of wood cut-by-cut, flick-by-flick, putting something into life that was only in your mind? While God does not use a knife to whittle on us, through others and life’s trials…

Genesis 1:24–2:1, Genesis 3:6–13, Psalm 11, Matthew 6:22–23 Up through verse 25, God’s creative acts end with the epithet, “…God saw that it was good.” Then God made mankind. With the completion of that act, “…God saw that it was very good.” The word very…