Walking The Walk

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life. Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?"   ~Luke 12:25-26 In Luke Chapter 12 verses 22-34, Jesus talks about three specific enemies.  Worry.  Fear.  Selfishness.  The first one He talks about is worry, and that's the one he has the most to say about.  Twice in these verses He commands us not to worry.  In verse 22 He says, "Do not worry about your life." And in verse 29 He says when it comes to food and drink and all those needs we have in our life, "Do not worry about it."  He says God knows we need them and will provide them. There's actually two different words used here for worry.  The first Greek word refers to our mind being distracted.  That's a pretty accurate description of worry.  The Greek word used in the second command is only used once in the New Testament.  The Greek word meteorizomai -- from that word we get the...

 "Teacher . . . we want you to do for us whatever we ask."   ~Mark 10:35 How often do you pray? With some Christians, they pray every day--some even pray throughout the day.  They follow more of a model of "praying continuously" asking for strength, and wisdom, and peace, and patience as needed throughout the day.  And giving thanks throughout the day, every day, when things go well.   With other Christians, they pray when things go wrong.  They see prayer more as a thing you do in a crisis.  Or they may pray when they really want something. These two different approaches to prayer can tell us where God is in our life.  When we live with God in the center of our life, we're more likely to communicate with God frequently, even continuously, because we feel that God is near to us.  God is part of our life.  God is part of our decision-making.  God is there with us whenever we reach out to him.  And there's no concern we...

I preached a sermon on Sunday, and one of the things I said was that sometimes we just get stuck in life.  Too often we get stuck on something in our past and we just can't get free of it.  We're like an anchored ship, we're stuck right where we are until we cut those anchor chains.  And very often those anchors that keep us from being able to move into our future are deeply dug into our past. We carry a lot with us we don't need.  Just rubbish.  Old hurts.  Past failures.  Painful experiences.  Awful things we've lived through.  Ugly words people have said to us or about us that continue to hurt us.  Bad habits we can't seem to get free of.   So how do we get unstuck? The best place to start is with prayer.  Pray about it.  Tell God you want to be free from all this stuff that keeps you living and reliving the past.  Ask God to show you the way forward, and then fix your eyes forward!  Stop looking in the r...

Pastor Todd and Valerie wishing you a happy and faith-filled New Year! I knew 2024 was going to be a year of change.  But I sure didn't expect that big a change!  Pretty much 2024 turned my life into a snow globe after a good shake.  I was ordained.  I retired from my professional career this year (just a couple months ago).  I was called as a full-time pastor--that started November 1st right before the busy holiday season at the church kicked off. So now the dust is settling and I'm finally catching my breath, and here I am like so many others planning the next year.  And I have all those questions pastors have.  Where is God leading me?  What should my focus be?  What would I like to see completed this year?  And how am I going to get there?   And I don't know the answers to some of these questions.  But God does.  So I'm going to be paying a lot of attention to where God is leading me as I have been.  He'...