Walking The Walk

"You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts."   ~2 Corinthians 3: 2-3 Think about that for a moment. You are a letter from Christ. Every day, your neighbors are reading you. They're watching how you handle stress, how you treat your family, how you respond when things don't go your way. They may never pick up a Bible, but they're reading the gospel story written in your daily life.   The question isn't whether people are reading your life, because they are. But what story are they reading? Are they seeing Christ's love, patience, and servant heart reflected in your everyday actions? I've lived in the same small community my whole life--in fact, we built our house on the corner of the family farm. Small towns have a reputation ...

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." -2 Corinthians 12:9 Theologians and historians have speculated for two thousand years what the "thorn" in Paul's side was that he talked about in 2 Corinthians 12.  John Calvin believed that thorn was spiritual in nature--the sting of a guilty conscience for falling into doubt or shirking his duties.  Martin Luther thought that thorn was Paul's constant struggles against those who opposed him and tried to undo the work he was doing--God's work.  Some have believed that thorn was sin, or sexual temptation.  Some believe Paul was referring to an actual physical ailment.  There have been many theories about what that physical ailment might have been--chronic headaches, epilepsy, bad eyesight (perhaps a lingering symptom of the blindness he was struck with on the Damascus Road),  or a recurring fever. The truth is, we really don't know.  We know it was a burden to Paul, and he as...