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  Ezekiel 1:1-3 Listen to today’s devotional I once read a scholarly article that asked a strange question. Was the prophet Ezekiel on drugs? If you've read his letter, you understand. I'll let you chase that rabbit trail on your own. In the meantime, recall that Ezekiel's name means something like "strengthened by God." And when you step into his story, you can see that is his testimony. Right now, our church is walking through the book of Lamentations. These are five poems written by the prophet Jeremiah, a contemporary of Ezekiel. Our worship series is titled "Hope in the Ashes." Usually, when we talk about hope, we talk about what comes after the ashes. After the grief. After the loss. After the valley. Of course, there is something to celebrate about that. But if we're not careful, that kind of hope always lives just out of reach. It's like something that's only on the other side of what we're going through. Lamentations doesn't ...

  Psalm 146 Listen to today’s devotional "Kings and kingdoms will all pass away..." I love that line from that old familiar hymn. It's a beautiful way to sing that all the kingdoms of history have an expiration date. Even the ones we know and live in today. I heard once that if you believe the empire can't fail, then the empire has a firm grip on you. The psalmist of Psalm 146 also sees that all the plans of every kingdom perish when they're gone. Everything they worked for, fought for, and bragged about is gone. There were accomplishments and embarrassments, strengths and moral failings behind all those plans. Still, they are all gone. The writer compares the bound efforts of all the kingdoms of the world to God's reign, which is forever. So, as people of God, we get to choose. Which kingdom will we honor and trust? Now, let's be honest, it's easy to trust what feels powerful. For example, we live in the most dominant, militarily equipped country the ...

  Colossians 1:9-14 Listen to today’s devotional They were the smarter ones, but they wanted to know where Jesus was. As a new pastor in the beginning stages of discerning my call, I wrote a paper on my theology. I don't recall what all I wrote. But I do remember having to answer for it in front of a group of colleagues. Of course, that group was more experienced and theologically trained than I was. And they asked some tough questions that showed it. I could tell this was important. Then someone said, "John, where's Jesus?" I wasn't quite sure what that meant. Like, where is he now? It didn't sound like a deep question. The person said they appreciated what I had written, but in all my words, I only used the name Jesus once. I responded with something about Jesus being the foundation of everything I believe about faith in God, and that I thought that was something I could always assume. I got through that and many more interviews along the way. That comment, ...

Genesis 28:10-17 Sorry! My allergies didn’t let me record an audio version today. As part of a recent class, I was instructed to take a prayer walk at a local park. I'm used to doing that at my local church. So, I decided my prayer walk that day would be at the church just one block from where I was. This happened to be one of the largest congregations in my denomination. That means the walk took a while. As I made my way around the huge area, I noticed the usual things you might encounter on a prayer walk. I heard the birds, saw the trees beginning to bloom, heard children playing in a church playground, and noticed how even the wind seemed to be walking with me. At several points, I looked up at the massive building that houses this congregation. When I did, a question came to mind: Why here? At some point, the land where I walked was nothing like it was that day. Someone decided that this place would be where this church would worship and serve. Was it the potential for communit...

  Matthew 6:25-34 Click here to listen to today's devotional To follow Christ is to abandon the need you have to control life. That’s not just harder than it sounds. It's something a lot of us don't want to acknowledge Now, most of us don’t want to control everything, just enough control to feel safe. We want to know how tomorrow will go before tomorrow gets here. We want guarantees and few surprises. But faith doesn't promise that kind of life. Jesus invites us into something deeper, and, strangely, something lighter. “Do not worry about tomorrow,” he says. Not because tomorrow doesn’t matter or because there's nothing worrisome in the world. But because your life is held in God's love, which is, thankfully, stronger than your managing abilities. Worry is often control dressed up as wisdom or conc ern. We carry fear about what is out of our control. In the worry process, we mull over conversations that haven’t happened. We try to solve problems God has not aske...

  Jeremiah 33:1-3 Click here to listen to today's devotional We don't say it aloud, but there is a strange temptation many of us have. We quietly assume that we have finished learning God’s word. We scan through familiar passages. Maybe we memorize verses that carried us through harder seasons. But our comfy approach to scripture only allows us to imagine truths that feel useful, comforting, or even manageable. And, whether we realize it or not, we start believing that we have heard all God has to say. The Bible, though, is a living invitation to life. Not a closed-book discussion. Listen again to what the prophet Jeremiah heard: “Call to me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.” The promise was not that everything would become so obvious all of a sudden to God's people in that moment. The promise is that God is still speaking, still revealing, still unfolding mercy and wisdom in ways you have not imagined yet. There is ...