Mission Faithwalk

                 Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.” (Mark 9:35) Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. (Romans 13:8) “His master replied, ‘ Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’ (Matthew 25:21) This is the sort of passage that some people will put in a bold font with a font size at least 20 (as above). They will gladly put it on signs with an even bigger font and shove it in the face of anyone they decide isn’t obeying it. Doing so is specifically not practicing the sort of servanthood they demand from their opponent. And before we announce that “we would never do that!” we should keep in mind that we treat other verses the ...

                 Such confidence we have through Christ before God.   Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (II Corinthians 3:4-6) Competence [1590s, "rivalry" (based on compete ), also "adequate supply," both senses now obsolete; 1630s as "sufficiency of means for living at ease," from French compétence , from Latin competentia "meeting together, agreement, symmetry," from competens , present participle of competere , especially in its earlier sense of "fall together, come together, be convenient or fitting" (see compete ). Meaning "adequate range of capacity or ability, sufficiency to deal with what is at hand" is from 1790.] ( Competence - Etymology, Origin & Meaning ) Granted, the word was chosen with i...

                 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”                  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:33-39) Quick not...

                 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31-32)                 Who can be against us? That question has always baffled me. If God is for us, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the angels, and the cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1) are all for us. Those are obvious. So is the answer to the question. Who? Lucifer and all his buddies,  the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12), Add to those all the people who have been taught to hate us, and perhaps worst of all, us. Granted, none of those are as great as those who are for us, but that’s the answer to “who can b...

                   And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. (Romans 8:28-30) And the image of a father continues. Fathers are supposed to work for the good of their families. If a son or daughter disowns and hates a father, and specifically works against the father’s goals, it would be normal for the father to stop fixing everything for the child, to allow the child to go off and return like the man in the story of the Prodigal Son. Those who remain, fathers, will teach to be the best they can be according to whatever model they deem appropriate. And those who work within those principle...

                 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God . (Romans 8:26-27) Continuing the line of thought from the past couple of days, when a good father  is allowing a child to struggle or even suffer a little because it will help the child, what does the father do? I’ve seen reels  on social media of fathers who seemingly aren’t paying attention catching a falling child, or grabbing something  that would either hurt the child, or that the child knocked over. The old standby for this is the father holding the bike up and running alongside while the kid learns how to pedal and balance the bike. Then, of course, there is the father that taunts or coaxes his ch...