To fear God for nothing
Job has been blessed with the good life. He has it all. He has what’s sounds like to be a lovely family, grown children who like each other enough to…
Preacher: Isaac Villegas
Are you jealous?
Here’s how I like to tell my story of church wandering, of moving from one kind of church to another—the way I’ve switched Christian traditions several times during my forty…
Gentleness born of wisdom
“Who is wise and understanding among you?” James asks in our reading for today. “Show by your good life that your works are done with gentleness born of wisdom” (James…
Mercy triumphs over judgement
We misrecognize. We get people wrong. We interpret the lives of others according to the ideas in our heads. We make evaluations based on our inventions of types of people.…
Eat my flesh
At this point in the story, Jesus has become a big deal. These verses we heard today are at the end of chapter 6, but we should remember how the…
Bread from heaven
This week the Bible passage are all about food again, just like last week. The central story this time is the miraculous provision of manna in the desert. God hears…
Food in due season
The Bible passage we heard make me hungry. They’re all about food. Psalm 145:15, “We look to you, O God, and you give us food in due season.” In 2…
Woe to the shepherds
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the LORD” (Jeremiah 23:1) Jeremiah prophesies God’s condemnation of leaders who forsake their people, shepherds who…
Toward redemption
“This is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people” (Ephesians 1:14). I remember those summers as a kid when the public library would have their reading…
Content with weaknesses
“I am content with weaknesses… for whenever I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). I have a lot of weaknesses. Spiritual, emotional, physical, relational. A very long…