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Showing posts from April, 2022

True Treasure

"'Sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then, come follow me.' But when the man heard this, he became very sad, for he was very rich."..."Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, 'I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!'" Luke 18:18-25; Luke 19:1-10 It was more than a little hard to watch. The man was truly broken up. On the show, people bring all these different items to the pawn shop to sell looking to get a few bucks out of their "treasure". Sometimes, they do. Other times, like this one, not so much. The man had paid a great deal of money for this autographed whatever with papers of authenticity and everything. He was shocked to discover the whole thing was forgery. His treasure was worth absolutely nothing. In the stories for today, Jesus ran into two wealthy men. One of them came looki

Hidden

"Get up! Command the people to purify themselves in preparation for tomorrow. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Hidden among you, O Israel, are things set apart for the Lord. You will never defeat your enemies until you remove these things from among you." Joshua 6-7 As we boarded our return flight, I began to process the rest of the realities of getting home. Land in next airport, transfer to next plane, land, get luggage, take shuttle to car, drive home. "Drive home", I thought again. "I need the key. Where's the key?", I asked myself and then my sweetheart and then my kids. We all took turns scouring my briefcase. No key. I prayed. We all prayed. It turns out God cares about keys. Deep in the recesses of my suitcase, hidden at the very bottom of my toiletry bag -- the key.   Joshua had a problem on his hands. He didn't even know it until they lost a battle, badly. He and the other leaders fell on their face before God for hours

For or Against

  "Anyone who isn't with me opposes me, and anyone who isn't working with me is actually working against me." Luke 11:14-28 I encountered a new food recently. It's called mofongo. I should have known by the name to tread lightly. Mofongo turned out to be well, let's just say, not my favorite. Well, that's a little disingenuous. I thought it was awful. Others in my family felt quite differently. They thought the mofongo was pretty good. No one seemed to be in the middle when it came to the mofongo. It was a "yum" or a "yuk".  In the Bible verses for today, Jesus revealed an incredibly significant truth. He told the crowd that day as well as us today that when it comes to him, there's no neutral position. I liken it to a V-shaped snowplow. The snow flies one way or another. None of it can stay in the middle. Neutral ground does not exist. It's the same reality with the person of Jesus. No one can "kind of" like Jesus. Ne