Writing and teaching for deeper formation, clearer faith, and everyday obedience to Jesus.
I write and speak about spiritual formation, prayer, identity, discipleship, and living missionally—helping people become more awake to God, more honest about themselves, and more aligned with the life Jesus is inviting them to live.
The world has a gravity to it right now—a pull toward the noise, the chaos, the outrage cycle, the political tension—and most of us have felt ourselves getting drawn in deeper into human affairs. Well, this is not a new issue for us. Jesus says something similar to his disciples in Mark 8:33.
As we turn the page toward chapter 3, it’s important to note what we won’t discover. We’re not going to discover the origin of evil, address the transmission of sin from generation to generation, or describe any particular event that corrupted humanity.
We are working through four themes from Jesus’ teachings on money and generosity. In week one we recognized that there is more joy in giving than receiving. In week two we are warned to watch out for greed. And next up for part three in our series is this: All we have belongs to God.
This is the Good News of Jesus Christ—the one we sing about song after song at Christmastime. He was sent by God from His place of deity to become Emmanuel—God with us. That God would live among us was always the original design.
A young woman named Mary had received surprising news herself. News that could have ruined her life. It could have been the catalyst for Joseph, her fiancé, to call off her marriage. It could have made her an outcast in society. It could have brought out feelings of anger or frustration or disappointment because the life she once thought was hers for the taking was now taken away.
When you live like a son or daughter instead of a slave, you stop measuring yourself against everyone else. Instead, we lean into the fruits of the Spirit, not out of a grind but instead out of creating space and holding space for the fruit to flourish. It takes time for these spiritual fruits to grow. But we must be diligent to continue allowing the Father to cut away the thorns, weeds and fruits of the flesh so the fruits of the Spirit can flourish in us by his power.
There is no ritual, habit, or good work that can self-power us into the Way of Christ. It’s only through the cross and our submission to it, as Jesus submitted to it, that we will experience the fullness of the Gospel. Paul is doing everything he can to keep the Galatian church grounded in their identity in Christ. The cross is now their identity. Nothing else.
Mary Magdalene is a surprisingly misunderstood and under-discussed disciple of Jesus. Although she was not named as one of the twelve disciples, as we will learn today, she was a key part of Jesus’ ministry and the spread of the Gospel.
