Acts 20:32 ”Now I’m turning you over to God, our marvelous God whose gracious Word can make you into what he wants you to be and give you everything you could possibly need in this community of holy friends.

One of the Pharisees asked him over for a meal. He went to the Pharisee’s house and sat down at the dinner table.

Just then a woman of the village, the town harlot, having learned that Jesus was a guest in the home of the Pharisee, came with a bottle of very expensive perfume and stood at his feet, weeping, raining tears on his feet. Letting down her hair, she dried his feet, kissed them, and anointed them with the perfume.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man was the prophet I thought he was, he would have known what kind of woman this is who is falling all over him.”

Jesus said to him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”

“Oh? Tell me.”

“Two men were in debt to a banker. One owed five hundred silver pieces, the other fifty. Neither of them could pay up, and so the banker canceled both debts. Which of the two would be more grateful?”

Simon answered, “I suppose the one who was forgiven the most.”

“That’s right,” said Jesus. Then turning to the woman, but speaking to Simon, he said, “Do you see this woman? I came to your home; you provided no water for my feet, but she rained tears on my feet and dried them with her hair.

You gave me no greeting, but from the time I arrived she hasn’t quit kissing my feet. You provided nothing for freshening up, but she has soothed my feet with perfume. Impressive, isn’t it? She was forgiven many, many sins, and so she is very, very grateful. If the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal.”

“What do these Scriptures mean to you,” I asked.

“That He chose me,” one said.

“That I have spiritual blessings that I’m not choosing,” said another. (more…)

Luke 2:1-7 (The Message)

About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. This was the first census when Quirinius was governor of Syria. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for.

So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David’s town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there. He went with Mary, his fiance, who was pregnant.  While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 

She gave birth to a son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the hostel. An Event for Everyone

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him.

Later Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners.

But when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with such scum?”

When Jesus heard this, he said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.” Then he added, “Now go and learn the meaning of this scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices’. For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

(Matthew 9:9-13)

“I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work.” 

“For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think. Just as rain and snow descend from the skies and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth, doing their work of making things grow and blossom, producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry, so will the words that come out of my mouth not come back empty–handed.

They’ll do the work I sent them to do, they’ll complete the assignment I gave them. Isaiah 55:8-12

6-11Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin’s every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ’s sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did.

12-14That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.  Romans 6, The Message

John 12:46 (New Living Translation) I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in me will no longer remain in the darkness.

I was in Brazil, deep in the heart of the rain forest. It was midnight and a native friend asked me if I wanted to crocodile hunt. I thought he was kidding. I and four others piled into the small boat.

It was pitch black and trees hung over, crisscrossing to block the moonlight. I thought about the pirahhnas swimming perilously close to us. Water seeped over in drops as our combined weight made the boat ride low.

One of my new native friends had shown me a picture the day before. I thought it was joke. It was a photo of an anaconda split open from end to end. The snake was massive in width and length. Lying inside was a fully-dressed decomposing corpse. His clothes were that of a tourist –shorts, long white socks, and a funky hat he would have never worn at home.

“Stay out from under the trees on the Amazon,” he said when he showed me the picture.

I glanced up from my perch on the rocky boat. We were gliding under trees.

Crocodiles. Pirahhnas. Anacondas. (more…)