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  10/30/2021  Matthew 5:43-45 [NIV]      “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous".     So, Jesus, who is my enemy?  This question is suspiciously like the one posed by the Pharisees after hearing the story of the Good Samaritan: ‘Who is my neighbor’?     The teachings of Jesus confuse those who don’t yet have the Mind of Christ.  In order to have His mind, one must believe Jesus is God come in the flesh to die for our sins, AND we are sinners who need to be forgiven.  Only then can we grasp Truth itself.  That doesn’t mean the truth is easy.  We still have our selfish natures—the ‘I Me Mine’ that is the source of all of our anguish on this side of eterni...

  10/25/2021 Ephesians 5:1-2 [NIV] Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. ‘…fragrant offering…’. This phrase always struck me as odd. I know what Paul means, but imagining Christ’s bloody and cruel death by crucifixion to be a fragrant offering hints at something terrible about God, bordering on horror. Terror is the opposite of Horror. They sound like they are both bad, and both are to be feared, but they are not the same. Terror comes from the Light, and Horror comes out of darkness and shadows. We feel terror in the presence of God Almighty and exposed as sinful and unworthy to stand before Him. Horror uses overwhelming fear to paralyze and draw us into darkness and eternal isolation and hopelessness. If the death of Christ served no redeeming purpose, then it is indeed a horror and stench of death. But as an obedient sacrifice to God ...