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Galatians 1

We hear much about what makes a leader credible. Experience and results often top the list. But do those alone make someone trustworthy and believable?

Paul points to a different foundation. His appointment came from Jesus Christ, whose grace reached him despite his past.

Because of Christ’s shed blood, Paul was forgiven. Because of His resurrection, Paul was given new life. Now he proclaimed the very name he once persecuted.

His past had not earned him this appointment. Neither had it prevented Jesus from calling him.

We, too, can allow our failures to silence us. We question whether we have anything worth saying or anything worth offering. But God calls us to bear witness to the grace we have received.

Our confidence begins with the One who calls us.

1 Corinthians 13

I know we have all heard part of this chapter at many of the weddings we have been to, or maybe even had someone read it at your own wedding.  That is great!  But I don’t believe that’s what it was always intended for.

Paul wrote this to a church in Corinth that was competitive and full of itself.  People who were showing off their spiritual gifts and ranking each other.  These people were missing the point, entirely.

Paul writes:

• If I could speak every language on earth, but don’t have love, I am just making noise
• If I had every answer and faith strong enough to move mountains, but no love, I’m nothing
• If I gave away everything I owned and sacrificed my life, all without love, I gain nothing

In other words…talent, generosity, and devotion do not count if they are about yourself.  Love is what gives everything else its value.

Love is:

Patient – it doesn’t rush people or put a stopwatch on their growth

Kind – it looks for ways to make someone’s day better

Love is not:

Jealous or boastful – doesn’t celebrate someone else’s win with only yourself in mind or keeps the spotlight on just you

Irritable – it has manners at all times

Demanding – does not keep score or expect something in return

A record keeper – doesn’t save receipts for a later argument

A quitter – it has your back, assumes the best, and never gives up on you

Love isn’t a feeling.  It is a set of choices you make, especially when it is inconvenient.

Your résumé, your knowledge, your reputation all have an expiration date.  How you loved people is the thing that lasts forever.  You can be gifted, smart, and generous, but if you aren’t patient, kind, humble and forgiving with people, you’ve missed the whole thing.

Verse 13 always says it best. If you read it to yourself and you are like me at all, you repeat it in your head like only Alan Jackson could, maybe with a tear in eye, “Faith, Hope and Love are some good things He gave us, and the greatest is LOVE”.

Proverbs 30

The United States has the highest GDP of any country with a projected 32.38 trillion dollars in 2026. GDP is most often calculated by adding government spending, business spending, consumer spending and net exports to create an objective value to measure the health of the economy. The next closest projected GDP for 2026 is China with a projected value of 20.85 trillion dollars. So, the numbers show that we spend a lot of money, but is that actual money, or borrowed money?

After the first quarter of 2026, household debt climbed to a new high of 18.79 trillion dollars. Sure we spend a lot of money in the United States, but most people satisfy their cravings with a buy now and pay later philosophy. Most personal debt use, beyond your means, can be correlated to a lack of contentment with what you have. So how does this connect to Proverbs 30 you might be asking. Read verses 7-9 with me,

“7Two things I request of You (Deprive me not before I die): 8Remove falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches— feed me with the food allotted to me; 9lest I be full and deny You, and say, “Who is the Lord?” Or lest I be poor and steal, and profane the name of my God.”

Agur, the writer of this proverb, is essenitally saying, I want to honor your name and not profane it, so just give me what I need. The temptation in having many riches is to rely on yourself and the things that you have for satisfaction and fulfillment. The temptation in poverty is to take matters into your own hands by finding immoral ways to provide for your needs. All the while we have promises in Scripture that God will provide our basic needs (Matthew 6:33).

So what is this quality that allows us to honor God’s name when it comes to our finances? Contentment. Paul says in Philippians that he learned how to be content. Contentment isn’t just magically manifested in our lives. This is a learned quality that every believer must strive and work for. Paul said he knew how to be abased and he knew how to abound. Translation: he knew how to live on little and how to live on much. The secret is finding your contentment in Chirst. Only then can you do all things. Meaning you can honor God when you have little and when you have much. Jesus will satisfy every craving of your heart if you would just have a relationship with Him. No longer will you need to keep up with the Jones’. No longer will you need the new trendy thing. He satisfies you.

Today’s Reading: Psalms 86 

“For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. 

Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name. 

For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol. 

But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. 

Show me a sign of your favor, that those who hate me may see and be put to shame because you, LORD, have helped me and comforted me.”

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Psalm‬ ‭86‬:‭5‬, ‭11‬, ‭13‬, ‭15‬, ‭17‬ ‭ESV‬‬

We play very complicated and complex mental gymnastics daily.  We can be our best cheerleaders and we can be our worst critics.  

Inside our mind we can have conflicting ideas.  We have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit in us and  we have our flesh.  Sometimes we allow our mind and flesh to be influenced by the enemy. 

This is a constant battle. 

The flesh can be used by the enemy to become selfish and self-focused and focus only on us and not on God.  This can allow us to be focused on the situation and not on the revelation and change that God has in store for us after the situation.

We can listen to the Spirit and be able to see our true self in the light of God. When we allow God to create opportunities in us.  This can be fascinating at what we can achieve.

 

Sometimes there can be conflict inside of us where the enemy tries to overcome the Spirit and then this makes us question our own worth and make us think that we are not the best. We allow the enemy to give us lies about our potential. We allow the enemy to take our past mistakes and failures and create disillusioned reflections of ourselves.

 

These are lies. 

God has such amazing things that are ready for us. God’s steadfast love conquers all of the lies and confusions.  Because of his steadfast love, God allows us to resist anything that the enemy can put into our mind. 

We have the ability to channel the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit,  to create these new ideas from these lies. God does not allow these lies to take root. God can clear and evaporate all these misconceptions of ourselves. 

When we are going through these battles within ourselves,  we can see the prayer that David has here in Psalms 86 and see God’s steadfast love and remember…

“For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God.”

‭‭Psalm‬ ‭86‬:‭10‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Revelation Chapter 21

The first 20 chapters of Revelation were those of chaos, judgement, and cosmic battles.  Chapter 21 is the payoff.  John sees the ending God has been working toward the whole time, not people escaping to a cloud somewhere, but God renovating the whole world and moving in with his people for good.

After reading chapter 21, I find myself in a huge moment of reflection.  Let’s go over the bones of the chapter first.

A new heaven and a new earth – Like buying a new investment home.  This is more of a gutted renovation than a demolition.  Same home, completely restored

No more sea – The sea stood for chaos, danger and evil.  Nothing threatening is coming from it anymore.

The city comes down – New Jerusalem, or some would refer it to, Heaven on Earth!  Dressed like a bride on her wedding day.  Instead of heaven being somewhere we go, it becomes somewhere we already are.

God will dwell with them – God isn’t just some distant landlord anymore.  He lives next door, permanently.

No more tears, death, grief, crying, or pain – God personally wipes away every tear.  Every hospital room, funeral, and 2 a.m. worry is gone for good.

AND…..

• God says he is making all things new, not making all new things. He is restoring, not replacing
• ‘It is done’ – The project is finished
• Free water for the thirsty – Anyone who wants life can have it, no charge.
• The warning – This chapter lists those who stay outside like the cowardly, the faithless, murderers, and liars. Evil doesn’t get to move into the new neighborhood

Revelation 21 promises that the story ends with God fixing everything that is broken, living with his people face to face, and making sure pain, death, and evil never get another say.

My Reflection…..

Irony shows up so often in life when you think about it.  I was on the interstate quite a bit this weekend going back and forth from my parents to my in-laws.  I know everyone has seen those signs posted sometimes along the road that say something like ‘Jesus is Coming’.  Well, I saw one on Sunday driving back to Bloomington and it made me think.

The ironic part is how far my thinking about it took me down a rabbit hole and come to find out I would be reflecting on this chapter.  I have been seeing a lot of Senior Pastor Josh Howerton come across all my social media feeds lately.  If you have never heard of him that is fine, worth a look in my opinion.

So I read the sign ‘Jesus is Coming’ and instantly remembered a short video I saw last week of him playing a viral video of a young boy in the hospital coming out of anesthesia after some type of procedure.  It was a tear jerker, I won’t give away the details, but there were a few things the boy said that brought up the book of Revelation.

But here is where I connect Chapter 21 with what I was thinking on my drive back on Sunday.

AM I READY???

If Jesus comes later today or tomorrow, am I ready??  I am about half way through my life (hopefully), my children are very young, there is so much we all have yet to experience together.

With that said, I believe I am ready.

No, it is not a quick and easy ‘YES’, but if you give yourself time to think about it, about everything chapter 21 describes, you may very well get to the same conclusion I did.  There is a ton I still would love to do and every day I will keep chipping away at that long list.  But even before the reading, I felt strongly that I am ready.  AFTER reading it I am even more convinced.

Heavenly Father, thank You for the life You’ve given me, for my family, my work, and every blessing I didn’t earn. Thank You for the promise that You will one day make all things new, wipe away every tear, and dwell with Your people forever. I don’t know the day or the hour, but if today is the day You bring that promise to pass, I am ready. And until then, help me live each day with a grateful heart, showing Your love to the people You put in my path. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Paul wrote Ephesians while imprisoned, likely in Rome around A.D. 60–62. By this point, he had given much of his life to serving Christ. He had preached the gospel, planted churches, endured rejection, beatings, opposition, and now imprisonment. Paul could have easily wondered, “Lord, after everything I have done for You, why am I here?”

That makes Ephesians 3 deeply personal. Paul does not pretend that hardship is easy. Instead, he shows us what it looks like to trust God when life does not go according to plan. Rather than focusing on what he had lost, Paul focused on what could never be taken from him: Christ’s presence, God’s purpose, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Paul prays that believers would be “strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man” and that “Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” (Ephesians 3:16–17). God is “with” His people by living within them and strengthening them from the inside out.

I need that same reminder. There are days when circumstances feel frustrating, uncertain, or outside my control. Like Paul, I may not understand why God has allowed a particular season, but I can trust that He has not left me.

God may not remove every difficulty, but He will meet me in it. His presence is enough for today.

Prayer:
Lord, thank You for being near even when life feels uncertain. Strengthen me through Your Spirit today. Help me trust You when I do not understand my circumstances, recognize Your presence in the ordinary moments, and remember that I never walk alone. Root me deeply in the love of Christ and give me the faith to follow You with confidence. Amen.

Acts 16

This chapter of scripture is immediately following Paul’s division with Barnabas over John Mark. Paul takes Silas and departs for his second missionary journey. Shortly thereafter Paul meets his true son in the faith, Timothy. Paul has Timothy circumcised for the sake of their ministry to the Jewish brethren. The Holy Spirit forbade them from speaking the Gospel in Asia minor and then God gave them a vision of a man in Macedonia pleading with them to come and help. Just look at how Paul and his company posture their hearts to be led by the Spirit. When something isn’t going smoothly in my life, I tend to double down and put more effort in to break through and solve the problem. Paul and his travelling companions had hearts soft enough to recognize that they weren’t to push through but were to wait for God’s leading.

The crew sails to Samothrace and then finds their way to Philippi where they find some trouble. After Paul had ministered to Lydia, they were going to go to pray, but the demons tried to distract really quick. This seems to be an extreme example in scripture, but anytime I go to pray, I seem to invite distractions. I am lucky to get five minutes of prayer before my mind starts to wander, my phone starts buzzing, and my dryer starts going off. This is why Jesus tells us to go to our quiet place where there are no distractions.

As Paul casts the demon out of the young girl, her masters realize that their chance at profit was now gone and they have Paul and Silas thrown in prison. And what do we see them do? They start singing and praying in the cold, dingy jail cell. I’m convinced many people, including myself, would say, “God, you didn’t allow us to go to Asia where we had planned to go, just to send us here to Philippi to end up in prison for casting a demon out in your name.” We would say, “God, why are you abandoning us as we are trying to do work in your name.” Paul and Silas didn’t miss the opportunity to minister. All of this was happening for a reason. All of this happened for the salvation of the jailer and his family.

As we serve Jesus, we need to keep a broader perspective of what God might be up to. Remember that your loyalty is to Jesus, not your comfort. God may put you in a crammed cubicle with a bunch of complaining coworkers, for the sake of one person you may share the Gospel with. Are you going to focus on your own comfortability and circumstances, or will you posture your heart in humility to see what God is up to in your community?