This Advent season, we've been sharing meaningful stories that reflect the hope, peace, joy, and love found in Christ. Watch these stories and be inspired by how God's promises transform lives.
Read MoreYou would think that after a childhood filled with so much danger, Jesus would have lived by one rule: self-preservation. Instead, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even a criminal’s death, in order to save his beloved. Jesus could have wielded his power to save himself on the cross. For that matter, he could have just avoided a lot of pain and suffering by not leaving heaven in the first place. And yet, the great I Am took the form of the most vulnerable human we can think of, a baby, and died the most vulnerable death we can imagine, a Roman crucifixion. Love led Jesus to sacrifice himself to save others.
Read MoreTrue joy is not dependent on happy circumstances. It’s transcendent joy, but it’s not blind to the crushing realities of the world. The apostle Paul, who was not foreign to suffering, described his ministry as “Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing”. During heartbreaking circumstances, he rejoices with the constant expectation of God’s faithfulness. Christianity is honest with brokenness but persistent for joy. The musician Bono once said, “Joy is an act of defiance.” He hit it right on the head. Because Joy is more than an emotion, it’s also an adopted attitude that resists cynicism or fear, and it defiantly sets its hope on future promises.
Read MoreAs we join the saints of old and those around the world in remembering Jesus’ first coming, I’m celebrating the peace of Christ with you this week of Advent. The Lord has been kind; He steadies our hearts; and in this time nearing Christmas 2020, here are aspects of peace I’ve been meditating on/learning experientially that have helped to steady me.
Read MoreBefore 2020, waiting with longing hope was something to read about in the Bible. We could attempt to empathize with the Jews, waiting for their Messiah, but we may not have experienced the level of grief and desire they were feeling. But how do we deal with a general suffering experienced by all of us at once?
Read MoreFriends, analogies only go so far but what happened to the Grinch on Mt. Crumpit, reflects what the Holy Spirit has done in those who believe the gospel.
Read MoreThe process of adopting our daughter went very smoothly and every step of the way the Lord continued to reveal His heart to us. Adoption is the perfect example of how God's Love works. When our daughter came to us she was so frail. At 1 year old she weighed just 14 pounds. She was dirty, undernourished, and terrified. She did not understand who we were or that we already Loved her deeply. As she grew she became stronger. Her fears gave way to joy and seeing her begin to smile at us as we talked to her filled our family with some much elation that we could not imagine how we had ever lived without her...
Read MoreMy daughter completed her treatment and returned home to begin rebuilding our family's relationship, but the road to restoration was a complicated one and shortly after she returned home, we found ourselves at odds again. I was determined to make our relationship work but all my best efforts continued to fail. Months later, sitting in a church service, I found myself once again unable to communicate what was happening in my heart. But this time it was not because of my battered relationship with my daughter; it was because I was suffering a stroke...
Read MoreAfter mourning this loss for a short time, we mustered all the resolve we could find and began our fertility treatments again. But this time our hearts were simply too broken to endure the rollercoaster process any longer. We discontinued the treatments and tried to come to terms with the idea that we would never have a child of our own. During this extended season a number of friends had suggested the idea of adopting a child. This was something that we believed in but the Hope of having our own biological child had always been our focus...
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![Finding [True] Joy](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/55e5d42ce4b0abd912a44a85/1608154027295-QM33LRIE1KP56F7NT2A0/Advent-Squares-02.jpg)
