A great part of reading the Bible is that we are brought into close relationship with God's desire for the best life for all of humanity. Jesus is the greatest proclaimer and manifestation of God's sincerest will and deep love for us. However, we who read the words of Jesus and seek to follow them may often find them difficult to attain, but when we understand the extensive relationship that God wants to establish with us it becomes much easier.
Salt and light are part of the physical and visual elements that we all need to live well. Simply put, salt enhances food and light illuminates the world around us but each one does much more than that respectively. Normally, we eat large amounts of salt for taste, actually too much of it; but we require certain amounts of a variety of salts to maintain overall good health in moderation.
When I was in college, I worked as a Student Leadership Assistant in our Center for Leadership creating and facilitating leadership workshops and conferences for students on campus. Often we'd get requests from on campus groups seeking to update their mission and vision statements.
"The Beloved Community" is a term that was first coined in the early days of the 20th century by the philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce, who founded the Fellowship of Reconciliation. However, it was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., also a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, who popularized the term and invested it with a deeper meaning which has captured the imagination of people of good will all over the world.
The ritual of the sacrament of Holy Baptism symbolizes the washing away of our sins, the beginning of a new and transformed life in Christ's love and the entry into the church, the body of all believers in God through Jesus our Savior. A baptismal candidate can go through the ritual of Holy Baptism either by being totally immersed in a pool of water and quickly brought back up, by pouring water over the head of the baptismal candidate, or by applying water by hand onto the head of the baptismal candidate. The candidate can be of any age from an infant to a senior citizen.
Although December 25 has come and passed and you may be tempted to put all of the Christmas decorations away, to stop singing carols, and to move on to the next holiday, wait! There's more! Did you know that for Christians, Christmas is not just a day, but a season? Christmastide continues until Epiphany on January 6. Next Sunday, we'll continue to "Carol On" for Christmas!
Anyone who has ever made a large ticket purchase, whatever that amount was compared to their relative income, may know what buyer's remorse feels like. It's a sudden sinking feeling that wells up within you of whatever item that was purchased might one day be too much to handle financially during the life of the loan.
We all need a change of mind and heart, to think and act differently to bear spiritual fruit throughout our life. Consider confession, repentance, and baptism as ways to open up to godly change. They are outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual turning toward God that are renewed and deepened every day. They represent a determined act of human will toward oneness with God.
Advent is meant to be a time of looking closely at ourselves, being aware of our behavior, and focusing on living our lives according to the model that the returning Christ set for us during his first incarnation. It's also to root out any non-Christ-like behavior in our lives.
Often, we become so bound to our life on Earth that I believe we may miss some of the blessed teachings that Jesus has for us because we focus so heavily on our earthly existence. We all have spent years being taught and teaching others about the way things are in the natural world through our experience, using science, learning new phenomena about the cosmos, and continuing to uncover the complexities of human personality and human relationships.
In what way should we live out our faith? In our Bible reading for this week from 2 Timothy 3:14 - 4:5, we're returning to the teachings of Paul in his second letter to Timothy. We may have read this gut wrenching scene as Paul writes from prison for the last time, or have seen it portrayed in a play, a film or on TV but for many of us it is not our favorite part of the Bible to try and model in our daily lives.
Miraculous healings are spectacular and are wonderful for those who have received them. But have you thought about what happened to the people that were healed through a miracle in the Bible?