Love God. Love others.

Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:  “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”(Matthew 22:…

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Seeing the Gift

Each year I come to this day, I begin to wonder what the next year will hold. What adventures lie in wait? What relationships will form? How will the coming year be similar or different to the year we have just passed through?But this year feels a little bit different. Certainly, a piece of that difference is the pandemic. If you spend any time on social media, the posts inviting 2020 to end started back in late spring and have only grown in…

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Advent Hope

We journey through this Advent season with COVID cases being on the rise across the country. With the country and our state setting new case and death numbers almost every day and at an alarming rate. We journey through Advent in the midst of a global pandemic that has hopefully made us realize how interconnected we all are as a people and a planet. We journey through Advent, the season of waiting and watching, waiting for approval of a vaccine, watching how people…

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Love Your Neighbors

Jesus said, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” John 8:31 “…the justice/righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for all who believe. Romans 3:22 This devotion is being written ten days before the US election and is intended to be posted the day before the election, November 2. However, because it will serve as a backup, it is possible that it could be…

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Can we learn to love our neighbor?

As we get closer and closer to the election in November my soul is grieving deeply the division and lack of respect for others that politics seems to exude. How we have let ourselves become so divided by party lines that we cannot even have civil conversations with those we disagree with, if we can even talk to them at all. This divisive politics isn’t new, I always dread the TV ads where opponents just seem to disparage each other and not talk…

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A Meditation on Joy

"Sing praises to the LORD, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name. For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning" (Psalm 30:4-5). I heard this story about a college student practicing the piano. They were trying to learn the song "Joy Cometh in the Morning." There was a complicated chord change right after "Weeping may endure for the night, but.…

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Hope Wins

The world seems chaotic lately. Filled with problems that I have no solutions for. There is a lot of grief being held by our community: for lives lost, for justice denied, for the felt loss of agency and certainty, loss of income and stability, for the loss of physical gathering and fellowship. Yet we do not grieve as those without hope. So I invite you to join me in remembering the story of our hope: Before anything that humanity knows ever came to…

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