Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things.

“For those of us who have seen God at work in our lives, our Psalm is a bit of a lament. As we know, it was God’s intent that His chosen people would live under His mighty hand alone. The people of Israel, whom God had set apart from all other nations would not be like them in having a king. They would be ruled by God…” — Listen here, or download the MP3!

Let Us Go To The House Of The Lord

“‘I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord.’ From a Christian perspective, believers may well have some ambivalence about Advent because it means God is coming to earth. Some of us have problems with God coming – not all believe that will be a time of rejoicing. They feel unprepared as they hear those heavy words of our prayers, ‘things done and left undone’. But it doesn’t have to be this way.” — Listen here, or download the MP3!

The Church Provides Boundaries

“Today we have the community in Thessalonica being taught how to handle Christian people; Christians who do not have boundaries. Talking about boundaries in Church ranks right up there with discussing how much money people give for the spread of the Gospel, doesn’t it?…” — Listen here, or download the MP3!

God Chose You From The Beginning To Be Saved

“The letters to the Thessalonians are absolutely chock-full of comfortable words to believers. One of the themes of these two letters to the church in Thessolonika is the end times and how should Christians behave knowing that Jesus will return just as He promised…” — Listen here, or download the MP3!

“And the Lord said, Come now and let us reason together”

“Today will be a challenge so please don’t doze off – stay with me. This is one of those weeks where the readings all come together to make a consistent statement of the power of God. It is humbling, especially in light of last week’s readings briefly concerning the Christian concept of the Good Life and the Good death…” — Listen here, or download the MP3!

Christian Life and Christian Death

“Paul is in prison and has been abandoned by his friends and co-workers. He is facing his own mortality, even as he continues in his teaching to young Timothy. The events that have led Paul to this place in his life have been of his own choosing. It was not a case of poor Paul being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This portion of the letter shows a man at the end of his life finding meaning in a life lived for Christ Jesus. Hear his words again, “I am already on the point of being sacrificed. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race. I have kept the faith….” — Listen here, or download the MP3!

All Scripture Is Inspired By God

“As the Gospel opens up today, we see Jesus instructing the disciples in the art of persistence seamlessly joined to the subject of prayer. Kind of odd that the disciples would need a lesson in persistence and prayer at this stage of things. Now we may assume that only contemporary, and non-religious people would have problems with these things, but Jesus knew better…” — Listen here, or download the MP3!

Think about how God has set up His salvation…

“Think about how God has set up His salvation. He created us to give glory and honor to Him to the end that all might come to Him. But God did not create robots did He? No, He also implanted free will so that whoever returned to the Father might do it on his or her own…” — Listen here, or download the MP3!

I Know In Whom I Believe

“Did you catch that portion of the Letter to Timothy? The part that intimated that Paul was in prison? Paul finds himself in trouble and yet he still writes these letters to support a younger church leader….” — Listen here, or download the MP3!