From Peterson's intro to Luke: "Religion has a long history of reducing the huge mysteries of God to the respectability of club rules, of shrinking the vast human community to a 'membership.' But with God there are no outsiders. Luke is a most vigorous champion of the outsider. He's a Gentile himself. He shows how Jesus included those who were held outside by the religious of the day: women, common laborers, racially different, poor. He will not have religion as a club. All of us who have found ourselves looking in on life with no hope of gaining entrance (and who of us hasn't felt it?) now find the doors wide open, found and welcomed by God in Jesus." Amen!
Warehouse 839 Church exists to introduce or reintroduce God's amazing love to folks who've not found the church to be a welcoming place, or who have moved away from God for other reasons and desire to return.
Reliable teachings and history.
Childless Zachariah and Elizabeth. Angel. Prayer heard. Name your son John. He will turn people back to God. He'll tell of God's arrival, soften the hearts of parents to children, and kindle devout understanding among hardened skeptics. He'll get people ready for God." Paul Swartz encouraged me by telling me that I reminded him of John. I live in that hope.
"So, this is how God acts to remedy my unfortunate condition." Same angel who visited Z goes to see Mary. "Good morning. You're beautiful with God's beauty--inside and out!" What a great good morning. Do you suppose God says that to us each day? Do we hear?
"I'm the Lord's maid, ready to serve." That we might have the courage and confidence to say this, and believe it, so we might live it!
Almost sounds like Mary got pregnant on the way, or at the moment, as Elizabeth addresses the baby in Mary's womb.
"I'm bursting with God-news! I'm dancing with the song of my Savior God." Mary's song. Prophetic word. Mary knew her family story, the story of salvation.
EP: 3 great reversals in the way we experience the world when God conceives new life in us. 1. God establishes God's strength and disestablishes the proud; 2. God puts down the people at the top and lifts up people at the bottom; 3. God fills the hungry and sends the rich away empty.
Prayer begins when God addresses us. First God speaks; our response, our answer, is our prayer. Do we, like Mary, hear and receive, believe and submit, to the word that conceives Christ in us?
"Don't be afraid. I'm here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide.
Love the story of Simeon and Anna.
The child grew strong in body and wise in spirit. And the grace of God was on him. Jesus stayed behind after Passover, unbeknown to his parents. They went back to Nazareth, and Jesus matured, growing up in body and spirit, blessed by both God and people.
2 Corinthians 1-3
"God comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, God brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. " I share this with folks because of my experience and shared experience of others, and I've assigned it to the nature of God in community. Never knew it was from scripture. How cool is that?!
"Instead of trusting in our own strength or wits to get us out of it, we were forced to trust God totally-not a bad idea since he's God who raises the dead!" Rescuing as many times as we need rescuing. It was God.
"Whatever God has promised gets stamped with the Yes of Jesus...God affirms us, making us a sure thing in Christ, putting his Yes within us." Yes=Amen. God says yes to all of us-always yes.
"We're not in charge of how you live out the faith, looking over your shoulders, suspiciously critical. We're partners, working alongside you, joyfully expectant. I know that you stand by your own faith, not by ours."
Don't know what happened, but something did:
"Now is the time to forgive this man and help him back on his feet. If all you do is pour on guilt, you could very well drown him in it. My counsel now is to pour on the love. The focus of my letter wasn't on punishing the offender but on getting you to take responsibility for the health of the church. So if you forgive him, I forgive him."
Forgiveness. Often the verbal equivalent of a shoulder shrug. Forgiving shapes the person who forgives and the one who is forgiven.
"In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance." Do you smell like the love of God in Jesus Christ? Like life?
"Written with Spirit on spirit, Christ's life on our lives!"
"If the Government of Condemnation was impressive (Moses and the 10 commandments), how about this Government of Affirmation?" Interesting...
"God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And we are transifgured (Mt 17, Mark 9) much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him."
Change is possible. We don't have to stay where we are. But change isn't automatic, nor is it inherent in us. Change has a cause; it's rooted in relationship with Jesus Christ. Are you able to see how God has brought changes in your life? What's the story you can tell about God's living, active presence?
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