One of the things we have been emphasizing in the Spiritual Gifts gatherings is the fact that we are, along with every other human being, created in the image of God, "(Gen.1:26-27) Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created…

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Purpose --- “He now showed them the full extent of His love…”



Our third contextual consideration is purpose. He is going to show them how much He loves them. It must have been shocking to see the Lord remove His outer garments before them and then to gird Himself with a towel, kneel down and invite them to have their feet washed by them. Of all the disciples it is Peter who strongly objects. Why? He is responding by the world’s standards. While the other disciples calmly obey and… Continue

“The evening meal was being served…”



So we come to the second contextual consideration, place. Consciousness of time brings with it a consciousness of place. Jesus had called the disciples together in the context of a meal, the Passover meal (Lk.22:8-20). This is also a connection place; the interception of the vertical in the horizontal. They are together in a time and place sharing a meal which will be the pattern for the later spiritual meal remembrance of His death and… Continue

Three articles will begin today that show the number 13 to be a blessed number. It’s because John 13 is a blessed Gospel Chapter. The way it starts and continues on with Jesus teaching His disciples what it means to be truly human. It takes place in an upper room where He takes the disicples to eat the Passover meal in preparation for the Cross.  The first two verses give us a fresh look. They take us into time, place and purpose. Today we take on the idea of time. Let the verses sink in. The… Continue

You’re on a dark road, walking on a dark night, peering into the darkness, picking your way dark step by dark step. It’s cloudy so there’s no stars or moon for slight comfort. The sounds of whatever are magnified and dark images float into your consciousness. Used to the day and its light you try and escape the imagination that brings hyper visuals of the dreaded unknown. No, you refuse to think about what might happen or what’s out there or what’s making those noises. Got to keep your head… Continue

 Submission to Christ

Our primary authority is Jesus Christ our Teacher and our Lord, and our submission to Scripture is only the logical outcome and necessary expression of our submission to him.  It is to Christ that we come; but Christ sends us to a book.  Not that the book to which he sends us is a dead and wooden letter, or an authoritarian ogre.  He bids us listen rather to his own voice as he speaks to our particular situation by his Spirit and through his written…

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Every so often it's good to hear other voices who see our faith from a perspective that challenges who and what we are as individual believers and believing communities. Read what Jay views as a church that digs into the heart and brings it home to the Lord. ><>W



The Church as a Redemptive Community

Survey after survey confirms what most of us already know. Jesus Christ remains an extremely popular and engaging figure to most of the world, but his church is too often… Continue

Many times people ask about the Psalms, their purpose and place in our devotions. This quote from John Stott may help in that discernment.



"The Psalter speaks the universal language of the soul. 'The Book of Psalms', wrote Prothero, 'contains the whole music of the heart of man.' Again, echoing a phrase used by Athanasius and later by Calvin, it is 'a mirror in which each man sees the motions of his own soul'. Its theology is rich and full. It reveals a God who is both the Creator of… Continue

The Lord is calling the Body together. We are going to have a gathering to study spiritual gifts Saturday January 29th at All Souls from 9-12. This is an opportunity to gather in the Word to renew what Paul calls for, “…that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought (1Cor.1:10).” We are reestablishing together to respond to the Lord’s rebuilding program for this part of His Body. It is not that we don’t know what Scripture says about being the Body together. It is about presently being of… Continue

Several years ago we went to Mt.St.Helen to see the aftermath of the massive explosion that took place there years before. You have to go there to really have a feel for that event. Mt.St.Helen’s was an explosion waiting to happen. It was building an inner pressure that would blow. No one knew just when.



Events like that have a spiritual message. Paul tells us that what you can see gives us a picture of what you can’t see. I was moved to see an invisible reality paralleled in that… Continue

When Jesus said ‘You must be born again’ this was no lighthearted suggestion to kind of mull over the philosophical or religious systems available in the supermarket of opinion. It was a radical leap into the invisible, the unseen, the dimension outside of one’s control. It was a leap into seeing things from a new perspective only guessed at in the past.



In our time the phrase ‘born again’ is used in many areas like when you hear a person is a ‘born again musician, athlete,… Continue

The problem is neither politics nor correctness. That phrase is really a hidden linguistic trap. Being political is one thing. Being correct is another. It’s like comparing apples and oranges. Being political is the attempt to secure a consensus by asserting one’s ideas in the arena of opinion. Being correct is the desire of every individual heart to be and look right. What we need to recognize is that the first one is horizontal and the second is vertical. One is a process and the other is a… Continue

When you approach a new year it is all about celebration on its eve and stalking the alleys of resolutions that are rarely met.  In other words it’s about having a good ‘time’ and setting goals based on wishes to be better in ‘the time we have left.’  Time is the secular motif, the context in which we place our ‘hopes and fears of…

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