Grace and Mercy Day in 2nd Grade
Mrs. Kinder, my son Jacob’s second grade teacher, told us on orientation night, “I’m big on mercy. So, throughout the year, we’ll be having grace… Read More »Grace and Mercy Day in 2nd Grade
Growth
The (re)Born Identity of Security: Remembering Who You’ve Become Through Baptism (Col. 2:6-23; Gal. 3:15-4:7)
“The Bourne Identity” was a 2002 film based on a book by Robert Ludlum.[1] “The Bourne Identity” begins with the crew of an Italian fishing boat sighting a man floating unconscious in the sea. After pulling him out, the crew of the boat discovers gunshots in the man’s back. While treating these wounds, the ship’s medical officer finds a device embedded in the man’s hip. The device contains the number of a safe deposit box in Zurich. Eventually, the man regains consciousness. He doesn’t know where he is or who he is. Over the next few days, the man learns he is fluent in several languages and can perform uncommon tasks like navigating and tying exotic knots. Still he cannot remember anything about who he is. When the ship docks, the man travels to Zürich to investigate the safe deposit box which the item in his hip had indicated. He finds the bank and the box. Inside are several passports containing his picture (all under different names and nationalities), large amounts of assorted currencies, and a gun. He picks the first passport. It claims his name is Jason Bourne. The rest of the movie records Jason Bourne’s search for his true identity.
Can’t Get No Satisfaction? Focus Your Faith on the Future Rather Than the Past (Phil. 3:12-14) – June 14, 2009
At a recent Reach Group gathering, a young mother at Highland was telling us how one of her girls has not been to the zoo in many months. The little girl does not want to go to the zoo. Why? “She had a bad experience,” the mother told us. The mom described how, one day, she was at the zoo with her daughter and they were looking at the elephants. All of a sudden the mother heard her daughter crying. She looked over and saw this sight: the daughter had stuck her head through the fence in front of the elephants and now could not pull her head back out of the fence. The mother frantically tried to twist and turn and tug and pull. But the fence would not release the daughter’s head. The mother called her husband and told him to come to the zoo immediately. Emergency personnel had to be summoned. They had to cut and bend that fence. What started as a quiet family trip to the zoo became a public and frantic emergency. Finally, they got the little girl’s head out of the fence. And, it’s for that reason the little girl has not been back to the zoo. “She had a bad experience.”
Can’t Get No Satisfaction? Focus Your Faith on a Person Rather Than Piety (Phil. 3:1-11)
A couple of years ago the Associated Press told the story of Stan Caffy. Stan had met the love of his life and asked her to marry him. His girlfriend said, “Yes!” As the two of them began to prepare for the wedding and their lives together, they both cleaned out their garages. They didn’t want to have to move any junk from their current homes to their new home. They packed up all that old trash and took it to Goodwill—old clothes, bicycles, tools, computer parts and other things. One of the pieces of junk in Stan’s garage was a faded and tattered replica of the Declaration of Independence. It has been hanging in his garage forgotten for about a decade. He gave that to Goodwill as well. Days later a man named Michael shopped at Goodwill and purchased that tattered replica of the Declaration of Independence. He paid $2.48 for it. But Michael later discovered that this was no piece of junk. It turned out to be a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence made in 1823. What Michael purchased for $2.48 he later auctioned for $477,650. What Stan has originally treated as trash turned out to be valuable treasure. Sometimes we confuse trash and treasure.
Read More »Can’t Get No Satisfaction? Focus Your Faith on a Person Rather Than Piety (Phil. 3:1-11)