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  Ezekiel 39:25-29 Listen to today’s devotional The Jackals are a group of superfans at Spurs games. If you get a chance to meet them, they hand you a paper before the game starts. It has chants, responses, traditions, and moments when everyone stands together. It teaches you to participate in the game's experience instead of just watching it. I thought about that when I read from Ezekiel this morning. God says through the prophet, "I will no longer hide my face from them, when I pour out my Spirit upon the house of Israel." Notice what God promises. Yes, the people will have renewal and forgiveness. But they'll also have communion with God. The Spirit of God is drawing people back into a shared life with God. Too many of us treat faith as sitting quietly in the stands while heaven performs on the court, so to speak. But the Spirit does something deeper. The Spirit teaches us the rhythms of communion with God. The Spirit shows us when and how to stand in courage, to c...

With babies, it's easy to pour more water over their heads. Oh, you can tell they don't like it. If they're asleep, they're not anymore. If they're already awake, their eyes get laser-focused on this man who just poured cold water on them. I'm a more-water baptizer. I'm not convinced the method is as important as some tell us it is. God can work through sprinkling.  That said, the more water the merrier for me! This weekend, I got to baptize an adult. Of course, I used as much water as I could. You can see it on his shirt. Sorry, James! 😇 And I often tell the church that baptism is one of the most joyful and important things we get to do together. Amen y amen. Stay blessed...john

  Joel 2:28-29 Listen to today’s devotional Walter Brueggemann was a prophetic voice to the modern church. His idea of the "royal consciousness" helps us understand how every empire, every system, and every culture trains people to accept the world as it is. Royal consciousness says, "The pain, the disappointment, even the injustice, it's all normal. Nothing will ever change." And that is the world the ancient prophet Joel speaks into. God's people had experienced devastation. Besides losing the tangible aspect of life, their joy and hope were taken as well. But God promises a restoration that comes when the people return to God with all their heart (Joel 2:12). Much would be restored to the people, and they would also experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The first sign of the Spirit is imagination. Listen again to what Joel says, "Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions....

  Romans 8:14-17 Listen to today’s devotional My kids should thank me. I’m not leaving them anything after I’m gone for them to fight about as an inheritance. All I’m leaving are the memories of a great dad 🙂 Of course, most of us probably think of inheritance as stuff we can divide up and argue over. But the apostle Paul describes inheritance as something more meaningful than possessions. We are children of God, and how awesome is that, but we are also heirs with Christ, especially as we suffer alongside him. To understand Paul’s thought, think of inheritance as more than a heavenly reward waiting beyond the clouds. So much of faith gets pushed into the sweet by and by that we miss the shape of life with God today. This inheritance is about belonging. It is about identity, participation, and even responsibility right now. Because an heir carries a family name, a family story, and often even a family resemblance. You can see it in the way people speak. They carry themselves a cert...

  Acts 2:1-4 Listen to today’s devotional Not that they asked me, but I recently recommended that my theology school's mascot should be the Already/Not Yetis. It's a funny reminder of the in-between that we live in. In Acts 2, the disciples were living in an in-between moment. They had already seen the empty tomb and watched as Jesus appeared in the room they had locked out of fear. And they had also received a promise from Jesus: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” So, they waited. But I don't imagine they waited in despair. They were waiting in expectation. The disciples were about to understand that not even resurrection was the end of the story. The risen Christ had changed everything, but Pentecost was about to change them. Whereas resurrection gave them hope, what happened at Pentecost emboldened them. All Christians should be familiar with the idea of living between the promise of God and its fulfillment--what we call the already, not yet...

  1 Kings 8:54-61 Listen to today’s devotional Some moments of worship are more memorable than others. Usually, those are the times when the sanctuary was full of singing. You saw hands lifted in surrender or tears swelling during prayer. Maybe it was Christmas or Easter, or when you remembered the Pentecost fire. Those kinds of worship moments people remember for a long time. And that is okay. Solomon had one of those moments in 1 Kings 8. The temple had finally been completed, and the people gathered to worship. The glory of God filled the place. Solomon offered a blessing to the people that began with an acknowledgment of what God had done. To be sure, that is always a faithful starting point of worship. In his blessing, Solomon tells the people to devote themselves completely to the Lord. I imagine that would have been an easy affirmation for the people to make. After all, they were in such a grand place for worship. But there's a phrase Solomon uses that points beyond that one...

  1 Peter 4:7-11 Listen to today’s devotional When we think something is ending, we tend to loosen up. Think of how the last week of school becomes movie days and parties. The last day at a job turns into long lunches and "what are they gonna do, fire me?" kind of energy. People like to imagine what they would do if they knew it was their last day on earth. Usually, it's a mix of daredevilry and exciting escapades. At the end, most people stop trying. After all, what's the point anymore? But Peter imagines the opposite. Whereas the world might treat endings as permission to coast, the gospel treats endings as a reason to become more loving. Now, there are different interpretations of what Peter meant when he wrote, "The end of all things is near." Did he mean the end of all time? A particular season? Or a general sense of coming judgment? Either way, for Peter, the end's nearness is not a spiritual deceleration. Instead, he doubles down on what matters m...