JESUS ATE with SINNERS!

JESUS ATE with SINNERS!

by | 2022 May,20 | Pastor's Desk

This confrontation of the All-Good meeting face-to-face with Serpent-breath in the wilderness didn’t go the way the Dragon had become accustomed to. Even more baffling to him was what the Eternal Son did next. Rather than going to the supposed ‘rulers of this world’ He went to the despised and inconsequential: the people of His hometown, Nazareth and those in the socio-economically challenged region of Galilee. 

¶ And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as was His custom, He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and He stood up to read…When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, he went away.
¶ Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to Him, and He laid His hands on every one of them and healed them. And demons also came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!” But He rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew that He was the Christ.
Luke 4:16, 28-29, 40-41

Even more baffling to the Satan was that instead whipping up the mobs and leading a rebellion, the Christ went to the shunned, the despised, the broken, the humiliated, as their dinner Guest! It seemed like an odd strategy, especially to those who had been longing for so long for the arrival of the Promised One…

The Chapters Of My Life

The Chapters Of My Life

by | 2016 Jan,16 | Pastor's Desk

Great story-tellers all do one thing particularly well. Apart from an interesting plot, they introduce us to the story’s characters with just enough narration for us to be both fascinated and curious about them. I consider John Grisham a good example of a master-storyteller for this reason. In his book, The Testament, he paints the background picture of the plot-line by introducing us to the story’s characters. We pull up a chair alongside the narrator and see this story unfold in a way that only God does in reality. As the chapters of the story are laid bare before us the characters of the story become more familiar and fuller to us – particularly the lawyer who is left to find the sole beneficiary of the Estate of the now dead billionaire. Grisham, like all good story-tellers, doesn’t tell us too much too soon about each character.