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This Week...Red Letter Challenge: Hearing and Obeying the Teachings of JesusJesus said some pretty amazing things. People quote him. Others write books about what he said. Theologians parse his words down to the very letters to squeeze out as much meaning as they possibly can. Some Bible translations put all his words in red so we don't miss them. Beyond the study, the "Wow!" and the highlighting of his words, there appears to be a disconnect between the hearing of them and the obeying of them among his followers. Crazy, right? Well, the time has come for that to end. For the next 40 days, we will be challenged through our Sunday morning messages, groups/classes and a personal devotional book to connect hearing and obeying. The goal? To be molded by the Holy Spirit to make us more like Jesus.

This Week... Jesus Has Sent MeAnanias who? He slips in and out of the pages of scripture so fast that we hardly notice him. It's a wonder we even find his name. I doubt there's this huge line of people in heaven waiting to get to talk to him. Abraham? A big line. King David? His autograph is a hot commodity. Joshua - the warrior leader? No doubt everyone is looking for a fist bump from him. Ananias was just "a disciple" that the Lord Jesus himself tapped for a big job. The job? Lead Saul, the soon to be Apostle Paul, to Christ. Lay hands on him. Give him the Gospel. Baptize him. Then what? Disappear from the pages of scripture to never be heard or seen again. Easy, right? No. Beyond hard. Saul was hunting down people like Ananias and Ananias knew it. So, why not just slip out the back and remain out of the Biblical story? Well, he was a disciple. It's like this... 

This Week...What Child is this?No doubt this question circled around and around in Joseph's head. We don't know how he first heard about it - his betrothed being pregnant. Mary may have told him. If she did right after the angel spoke to her, she then disappeared for three months to her cousin's house. If later, maybe his mom or his aunt noticed the enlarging womb and told him the earth-shattering news. What a shock! None of it made sense to him. This was not something Mary, his Mary, would ever do. He was right, of course, but it took an angel to enable him to overcome the evidence of infidelity. Now what?

This Week...Horns and ShoutsJoshua definitely feels like one of those guys that you want on your side. He was fearless and up for whatever. After spending so much time with Moses and the Lord, this man was ready to fight wherever and whenever God told him to do so. As the first fight neared, how outrageously odd it must have felt to hear the Lord's battle plan. If not for the amazing demonstrations of God's power he had already seen and the in-person visit from the Lord's army commander, he probably would've chuckled and said, "Yeah, right!" The battle plan was more than a little suspect. Joshua (and all of us, too) needed to understand and embrace the reality that God loves to accomplish impossible tasks by impossible means inviting imperfect people to be a part of it. Think Jesus with the five loaves and two fish feeding thousands using the disciples as the waiters. What were Joshua's orders? 

This Week...A Living SacrificeEven the most casual study of the interaction of people with God in the Bible reveals an inseparable connection between obedience and sacrifice. We were made by God and for God. We simply do not function as we were made to function independent of him and his instructions. His call for unconditional obedience is non-negotiable. Jesus wasn't fuzzy about this truth and many stopped following him because of it. "Deny yourself, take up your cross(die) daily and follow me" isn't a real crowd-pleasing slogan.  Abraham was tested by God again and again and again. His final test? Sacrifice your son. God's tests will either break us or bring us to the heights of a relationship with him where the returns are out of this world. What did Abraham do? Great question! 

This Week...Never ForgetWe are challenged repeatedly in scripture to remember. Too often, the urgency of the moment and the power of our emotions draw us into patterns of thought that distract from the information we have stored in our memories. This information, when sourced from God's word provides the correct perspective on our present realities and the wisest course of action in the midst of those realities. Bottom line: Forgetting is a real problem with real consequences. As we near the end of our study in Esther, we find our two heroes, Mordecai and Queen Esther, working very hard to make sure that this mighty deliverance of the people of Israel from the scheme of her enemies would never be forgotten. They had no confusion or lack of appreciation of the imperativeness of remembering. This week we will find ourselves challenged and encouraged to "Never Forget."