Posts with the category “sunday-reflections”

Most of us have something we stopped reaching for after a significant loss. A dream that got attached to someone or something that is no longer here. When they left the dream felt like it left with them. But Isaiah says God will carry you. Present tense. Still moving. Still sustaining. The adventure did not die with the loss. It was waiting on the other side of it.  Read More

Most of us have been quietly talked out of our own contribution. Not by one dramatic moment but by a thousand small signals from a culture that celebrates the new and tolerates the experienced. But the Psalm says fresh and green in old age. Not in spite of the years. Because of them. You are not overqualified for what is next. You are precisely qualified.  Read More

Nobody in the middle of a contraction quits having the baby. The contraction does not mean the birth is not coming. It means the birth is getting closer. The intensity is not evidence that something is going wrong. It is evidence that something is about to arrive. Most of us are carrying something this week that feels too heavy for where we are in the story. That is not the end. That is the contraction. Stay in the room.  Read More

Noah warned for one hundred and twenty years. And the thing that should stop us cold is not the flood. It is the patience. One hundred and twenty years of an open door held open longer than anyone had a right to expect. God's patience is still being mistaken for God's indifference. The warning has been sitting in the background long enough to start sounding like background noise. But the warning is the mercy. And every day the door is still open is another day someone can walk through it.  Read More

Most of us have spent our whole Christian lives with a vague picture of what we are actually waiting for. Heaven. Something nice. Something far from here. But the prophets were not vague. They described a capital city, a real table, nations stopping their wars, the blind seeing as a matter of course. Not escape from this world but the best possible version of it under the best possible King. The question Monday is asking: are you building your life on something that survives the trumpet?  Read More

For some of you yesterday was genuinely good. For some of you it was hard in ways you did not fully advertise. The empty chair. The complicated relationship a Hallmark holiday does not fix. The grief that does not take Sundays off just because everyone around you is celebrating. All of that is allowed. God heals the brokenhearted. Not the ones who performed gratitude correctly. The brokenhearted. He is already close.  Read More

From two years old to ninety plus, GracePointe showed up yesterday. A prayer team on their knees before anyone else moved. Quarters at a laundromat. A prayer walk on First Street. Two cars at a car wash. Yards cleaned for faithful senior members while their neighbors watched and wondered who these people are. That wondering is a door. And we are praying God walks through it. Grace in Action is not a Sunday. It is a posture. And the pointe of grace is always outward.  Read More

Yesterday you went somewhere and handed something to someone. You showed up for someone who needed it. And Jesus says you were looking at Him the whole time. The righteous in Matthew 25 were surprised. They did not know they were serving Jesus. They were just showing up. The service project is over but the posture does not have to be. Resurrection living is not an event. It is a direction you keep walking in.  Read More

Peter said he loved Jesus three times. Every time Jesus responded the same way. Not good, I forgive you. He said feed my lambs. The restoration and the assignment arrived in the same moment. You are loved and you are sent. Most of us have accepted the love and are still sitting on the beach. Love for Jesus always has a direction. And it always moves toward someone else.  Read More

Want to go deeper? This blog expands on the message preached on April 19 at GracePointe. Watch the full message at https://gpnaz.church/media. There is a character in C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew named Uncle Andrew.He is present at the creation of Narnia. He is standing there when Aslan, the great lion who represents Christ, opens his mouth and sings the world into existence. Stars appear. Mo...  Read More

Most of us have a "junk drawer" in our house filled with things we don’t use but can't quite toss—old chargers, mystery keys, and expired coupons. We do the same thing with our hearts. We return to old wounds, expired relationships, and past versions of ourselves, wondering why we feel stuck. But Easter reminds us that God isn't looking for us in the graveyard of our past. Discover why it’s time to stop tending to what’s gone and start facing the "new thing" God is doing right now.  Read More

There's a profound difference between showing up and truly being present. We've all experienced it, going through the motions while our minds wander elsewhere, checking boxes on our spiritual to-do lists without our hearts fully engaged. But what if the moments we're sleepwalking through are actually divine appointments in disguise? The Autopilot TrapPicture this: You're driving while texting. The...  Read More