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A "Glimpse" of the 70's Sending

7/9/2025

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98
He sends out the Seventy to minister
Luke 10:1-24
LATER ON THE LORD commissioned seventy other disciples and sent them off in twos as advance-parties into every town and district where he intended to go.
     “There is a great harvest,” he told them, “but only a few are working in it—which means you must pray to the Lord of the harvest that he will send out more reapers.
     “Now go on your way. I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Don’t carry a purse or a pair of shoes, and don’t stop to pass the time of day with anyone you meet on the road. When you go into a house, say first of all, ‘Peace be to this household!’ If there is a lover of peace there, he will accept your words of blessing, and if not, they will come back to you. Stay in the same house and eat and drink whatever they put before you—a workman deserves his wages. But don’t move from one house to another.
     “Whatever town you go into and the people welcome you, eat the meals they give you and heal the people who are ill there. Tell them, ‘The kingdom of God is very near to you now.’ . . . 
*     *     *

In the moment…
IN A DISTANT WAY, he remembers (almost as if by some kind of second-sense) how it felt to create the entirety of the scene around him. 
     The composition of the water-molecules, infinite in their expansive lake-sized cohesion, lapping against the scraggly shoreline: he remembers making them. 
     The heights of the opposite edge of the lake; the sloping-up and descending-down of their western fringe: he recalls shaping them with his own hand. 
     The sound of the bird calls, the chirruping of the crickets, a distant howling of dogs, the wind, the rustling of the leaves—he thinks about his many conversations with his Father; how they’d compared and contrasted the strengths and weaknesses of attaching certain heavenly sounds to the earthly sounds bestowed on each. 
     How the sea, the sky, the earth, the heights, the depths, the stars, the sun, the planets, the deserts, the forests all resounded with their component parts in the heavenly. 
     How it all resides within his heart and mind—both then and now—as he sits by the sea and watches the way his friends all go out.
     He is watching these thirty-odd pairs of them walking away. He has placed the whole power of the Kingdom in their hands. 

     He closes his eyes to take a nap in the sunshine.
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A "Mysterious Spiritual Value"

6/23/2025

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“Corrupt forms of love wait for the neighbor to ‘become a worthy object of love’ before actually loving him. This is not the way of Christ. Since Christ Himself loved us when we were by no means worthy of love and still loves us with all our unworthiness, our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. …

“What we are asked to do is to love; and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbor worthy if anything can. Indeed, that is one of the most significant things about the power of love. There is no way under the sun to make a man worthy of love except by loving him. As soon as he realizes himself loved – if he is not so weak that he can no longer bear to be loved – he will feel himself instantly becoming worthy of love. He will respond by drawing a mysterious spiritual value out of his own depths, a new identity called into being by the love that is addressed to him.”
Thomas Merton
Disputed Questions
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A "Pointillisms" Sample

6/16/2025

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45.74 We come to know Him so that others may come to know Him.

45.75 Beloved, we will be loved and be love.

45.76 Jesus still snares the steps of those who’d follow rotely. Then, falling, prone, He raises them up to follow Him.

45.77 How extravagant are our prayers for the world’s salvation? ie. How many brothers and sisters do we want?

45.78 Where we look for life is where we believe goodness lies.

45.79 Salvation: to believe that Jesus is alive—and say it. Thus the Word Himself enters the life; hope and salvation the heart.

45.80 We call on One who, possessed forever of the gracious heart of God, is ever inclining His human ear.

45.81 The tragedy is not that, seeking Him we will somehow not attain Him,—He has, remember, promised all seekers their finding of Him—but that so many seekers are simply seeking so many other things.

45.82 Choosing His grace, we find ourselves: chosen by Him.

45.83 Chosen by Him, we find Him: choosing to grace us.
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A "Pentecost Sunday" INversion

6/9/2025

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In honor of Pentecost Sunday at Anchor today, we used the combination of Matthew 15 and Mark 7's version of the same narrative to paint a picture of how "the spirit of religion" so often tends away from the heart of Jesus. In essence, we were asking: If religion looked like the scribes and Pharisees wrangling with Jesus over the ritualistic act of handwashing, what are the spirits of those infused by the Holy Spirit meant to look like? More simply, what would be the exact opposite of Matthew 15 and Mark 7, in the economy of Pentecost? 

Consider the words and logic of those combined passages, but in their exact inversion:

And Jesus was approached by followers and disciples intent upon His Way. They had noticed how He Himself walked in freedom before God and man. Jesus would eat, He would go to market, He only considered important the arrival of the Kingdom of Heaven. So His followers and disciples put this question to Jesus, “How should we remain free with your freedom?”

Jesus replied, “My friends, I myself described you perfectly when I once stated, ‘If you are faithful to what I have said, you are truly my disciples. And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free!’ If you listen to the voice of my Spirit—who will ever live within you—you will be faithful to what I said… which is freedom!” 

Then He went on, “It is wonderful to watch you following the Way of the Spirit: this is my own life extended through yours! For I said to you, ‘Follow Me’—and this is how you do it! What an extraordinary display of my everlasting life—through yours!”

Then He turned toward the crowds—those not yet knowing of His Way—and said to them, “Watch these, my friends, living out my Way. For I have chosen to place my Spirit right there within them—right inside the inner lives of these followers—and it is this Spirit which makes them clean. They are free now… and you may be free too.”

Later, we His disciples approached again and asked, “Do you really mean that we are to walk in the freedom of following only your Spirit?”

Jesus replied, “Every branch which abides in me, the vine, shall be nourished; shall be strengthened; shall produce my exact fruit. You will never-ever be alone. And, you are meant now—everyday—to be a guide to your fellowman: show them the Way home.”

We asked Him to explain Himself further.

“Oh!” He laughed, “you are so dear to me! Can’t you see that your greatest inheritance is receiving of my Spirit; that never again will you be anything less than heavenly to me? For my very Spirit will go into your heart and make you ever more like me; you will be made pure; you will learn to bear my fruit in your everyday life. What will flow forth from you will be extraordinary, uncommon—just like Me—and the world will get to meet me by getting to meet you. From my Spirit within will flow love, generosity, life-giving, purity, kindness, goodness, truth-telling, brotherliness, open-handedness, encouragement, humility, and wisdom! All this goodness will flow from me, through my Spirit, unto you—you will follow my Way and show the world what I am capable of!”
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The Citizens of the Kingdom

4/7/2025

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The citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven possess its wonders in the inward depths of their own humility. They accept the heavenly comfort offered them as they mourn for the kingdoms of the earth. They aim not at claiming anything here for themselves; yet, possessing nothing, they attain to everything worth having. They delight in feasting daily on the goodnesses of the Kingdom of Heaven: their satisfaction knows no end. ​

The citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven are merciful with the mercy they’ve received; they, in turn, receive additional mercies. They are of the truest-hearted natures, and, by those, they experience daily glimpses of the face of God. They are passionate after peace and bring its bounties where’er they go: they are sons of God, like Jesus, in this. They are fearless in their sufferings and carry their courage, intact, within them: they are, too, like Jesus, in this.

The citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven are joyful—yes, effervescently joyful—for their lives are already “hid with Christ” in Heaven. They are following in His Way alongside Him, surrounded by the glory-cloud of witnesses from all the ages.

Thus the citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven are countenanced.

The citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven are truly blessed. (paraphrased from Mt. 5:1-12)
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Steadily-learning Disciples

3/31/2025

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“The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as ‘Christians’ will become disciples – students, apprentices, practitioners – of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.”
Dallas Willard
The Great Omission
*     *     *     *
Jesus left there and as he passed on He saw a man called Matthew sitting at his desk in the tax-collector’s office. “Follow Me!” He said to him—and the man got to his feet and followed Him. (Mt. 9:9) ​
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The "Visible Expression" in us!

2/10/2025

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For the last few months, I've been positively stuck on the words of Colossians 1, and I want you to join me in that "stuck" spot. Consider the overwhelming progression of theological concepts (and Heavenly realities!) offered to us by Paul, here:

"Now Christ is the visible expression of the invisible God. He existed before creation began, for it was through him that everything was made, whether spiritual or material, seen or unseen. Through him, and for him, also, were created power and dominion, ownership and authority. In fact, every single thing was created through, and for him. He is both the first principle and the upholding principle of the whole scheme of creation. And now he is the head of the body which is the Church. Life from nothing began through him, and life from the dead began through him, and he is, therefore, justly called the Lord of all. It was in him that the full nature of God chose to live, and through him God planned to reconcile in his own person, as it were, everything on earth and everything in Heaven by virtue of the sacrifice of the cross...

"For I am a minister of the Church by divine commission [as are we too!], a commission granted to me for your benefit and for a special purpose: that I might fully declare God’s word—that sacred mystery which up to now has been hidden in every age and every generation, but which is now as clear as daylight to those who love God. They are those to whom God has planned to give a vision of the full wonder and splendour of his secret plan for the sons of men. And the secret is simply this: Christ in you! Yes, Christ in you bringing with him the hope of all glorious things to come." (Col. 1:15-20, 25-27)
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Christ's Breadth of Sympathy

1/13/2025

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“Christ avoided suffering until his hour had come, but when it did come he seized it with both hands as a free man and mastered it. Christ, as the Scriptures tell us, bore all our human sufferings in his own body as if they were his own – a tremendous thought – and submitted to them freely. Of course, we are not Christs, we do not have to redeem the world by any action or suffering of our own. There is not need for us to lay upon ourselves such an intolerable burden. We are not lords, but instruments in the hand of the Lord of history. Our capacity to sympathize with others in their sufferings is strictly limited. We are not Christs, but if we want to be Christians we must show something of Christ’s breadth of sympathy by acting responsibly, by grasping our ‘hour,’ by facing danger like free men, by displaying a real sympathy which springs not from fear, but from the liberating and redeeming love of Christ for all who suffer.” 
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Letters and Papers from Prison
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An Imagined Conversation

12/9/2024

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Despite the fact that they are One, perfectly mutual in their self-understandings, perfectly aware of the mind of the Other, perfectly in-sync in every conceivable way, I want us to imagine a conversation between the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit prior to the mass indwelling you and I know as the first Pentecost. This would be some time in the ten days between the Ascension and that morning...

“Spirit,” Jesus says, “unless they are born of water and of You, they cannot enter into our Kingdom. You must cause them to be born all over again.”

“Yes,” says the Spirit, “for the thirsty have come to You and, believing in You, they have drunk. Now I will go to them and be the flowing rivers of living water that will flow out from their hearts.”

“Will you be their constant help?” Jesus asks.

“I will,” returns the Spirit. “I will be with them forever. I will abide with them--within them—they will never not be with You; I will carry Your very Spirit into their spirits.”

“Will you teach them?” asks Jesus.

“I will,” responds the Spirit. “I will teach them anything they wish to know. I will bring to their remembrance everything You’ve ever said to them. And I will be their living peace.”

“And what of the ones who do not know me?” Jesus asks.

“To them I will bear witness,” the Spirit says.

“How will You do that?” asks Jesus.

“By bearing witness from within those ones who are Ours,” the Spirit replies. “Their lives, filled with Me, filled with You, will convict the world of its sin, show Your righteousness, and point away from judgment. The lives of Your friends will be just as Your life.”

Jesus is quiet a moment. “My friends…” He says, softly. “I miss them already.”
​

“Oh, but you need not!” the Spirit laughs. “For I will be with them, guiding them always unto You—unto the Truth—and I will whisper to them everything You want them to know. Whatever I hear You saying, I will say to them. I will glorify You by taking what You are, who You are, and pouring it into the inner lives of those friends of Yours. Nothing that is Yours will not be theirs.”

Jesus smiles. “Well, in that case, shall we begin?”
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A Note From Simon Peter

9/30/2024

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Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, sends this letter to those who have been given a faith as valuable as yours in the righteousness of our God, and Saviour Jesus Christ. May you know more and more of grace and peace as your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord grows deeper… 

…you must do your utmost from your side, and see that your faith carries with it real goodness of life. Your goodness must be accompanied by knowledge, your knowledge by self-control, your self-control by the ability to endure. Your endurance too must always be accompanied by devotion to God; that in turn must have in it the quality of brotherliness, and your brotherliness must lead on to Christian love.

If you have these qualities existing and growing in you then it means that knowing our Lord Jesus Christ has not made your lives either complacent or unproductive. The man whose life fails to exhibit these qualities is short-sighted—he can no longer see the reason why he was cleansed from his former sins.
Set your minds, then, on endorsing by your conduct the fact that God has called and chosen you. If you go along the lines I have indicated above, there is no reason why you should stumble, and if you have lived the sort of life I have recommended God will open wide to you the gates of the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:1,2, 5-11)

For me, this past week, what has felt important about this text—at the beginning of verse 1 and the end of verse 11—is its point of departure and point of arrival: “Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ” and “the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” Identity and citizenship. How Peter interpreted his existence, and the destination of his everyday actions.

And, to that point, I want to “pull the thread through” on the meaningfulness, for all of us, of intimacy-with-Jesus being our everything. As Peter is spurring on his first-century brothers and sisters unto Jesus, what is he also saying to us?
​
  • That our faith in Jesus is exactly of the same sort, and value, as his own faith was.
  • That our faith is accompanied by direct interaction with—and being changed unto—God’s righteousness.
  • That “knowledge of Jesus” is synonymous with the grace and peace of Jesus; that knowing Jesus better we will learn to access more and more.

    After which Peter offers us some challenges…


  • Would we bring our everyday to this? would we delight to walk with Jesus as He refashions our life toward His good?
  • Would we never settle for yesterday’s knowledges of Jesus? would we go on and on, day by day, to know Him more?
  • Would we offer Him our inner lives? would we let Him make our spirits like His Spirit — by His Spirit?
  • Would we learn, with Him, to be steadfast? unshakeable? unable to be moved off this position?

    After which Peter then gives a vision of what this is all like…


  • Jesus, teaching us how to walk with His Father; accompanied by Kingdom-brothers and -sisters; all surrounded by His love.
  • Jesus, growing us toward a life like His: utterly attentive; endlessly fruitful; Kingdom-focused; made Heavenly-pure in Him.
  • Jesus, having called us once, calling us every single day after, to remind us that He’s chosen us for His sort of life.
  • Jesus, always holding us by the hand, escorting our lives along the Way, finally bringing us through the gates into the fullness of the Kingdom.

Friends, is what He offers us not glorious?
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Even More Reminders RE: The New Covenant

9/9/2024

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Perfect adherence to the Law will not save you: the Old tried that and failed.​

Every single person is as big of a sinner as any other: the Old and New agree on that fact.

Trying to make your adherence to the New Covenant about you is returning to the terms of the Old Covenant.

Instead, when Jesus died, your old nature died with Him, and you are invited now to RISE WITH HIM and BE NEW.

You will be as new as the degree to which you allow Jesus Himself to live His resurrected life within you.

You allow Him to do this by believing in Him, by abiding in Him, and by staying connected to Him at every moment: all the time.

Understand: Jesus, in love, has already done it.

Therefore, honoring His life and death and resurrection, we refuse ANYTHING with even a hint of the Old Law of self-perfection.

And, with that, we refuse shame, every form of trying to hide, going-it-alone, discord with the people around ourselves, and, most importantly, any sense of any sort of disconnection with God. 

Under the New Covenant—which was sealed forever by the blood of Jesus Himself—we receive joyous mercy, being known, never being alone, new relationships, and our place at the Family Table of God. 

That is who we are now—and who we'll be. 

For this is what Jesus lived and died and lived again for.
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An Imagining...

7/8/2024

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Let’s say you, as one of the original, early-called disciples, are sitting with Jesus, on a terrace, overlooking the town of Capernaum, the water, the whole of the Galilee. It is evening: the dusklight colors everything orange and purple; the smell of the breeze is strong with the freshness of the sea, below. Those sunset colors are reflecting, rippling, beautifully on those waters. You are sitting at a long outdoor table, finishing your dinner. The town below this terrace is also finishing its dinner: all is quiet. The darkness, subtly, starts to descend.

The mother-in-law of one of your fellow disciples, Simon called Peter, rises from the table; she goes inside and then returns with something sweet to finish out the meal. You watch her as she moves around the table, doling it out. She is a picture of vitality, hospitality, the joy of simply being alive—at noontime, today, she’d been thought to be nearing her death on her deathbed. Then Jesus—now sitting at the head of the table, laughing as, yes, He’ll take another cup of wine—walked into her home and, with a touch and a word, healed her. Right then; right there.

Next to Him—in fact, the very one who’d just caused Jesus to laugh at his well-timed joke—sits a man who, even now, you haven’t actually caught the name of. He is dressed in a tunic absolutely filthy, filled with holes; he looks like a streetcorner beggar who can’t get his act together… Earlier today,—just before the healing of Simon’s mother-in-law—this man had entered the synagogue, out of his mind with the evils of an inward demon. Jesus, with a look, with a word, then healed him just as completely as the woman now setting dessert on the plate in front of you.

After dessert—darkness. Just the sounds of the gusts and the distant splash of the water onshore. Everyone has that feeling of satisfaction: of a good meal and decent wine: they are quiet, enjoying the feel of the evening…

Until, first, one; then another; then two more; then, suddenly, tens, dozens, multiple-multiples of lamplights are visible down below at the edge of town. They look almost like fireflies at this distance. They are appearing, one by one, from within the houses along the sea’s edge; they then are gathering together at the western edge of the village. You and the other disciples, the man from the synagogue, Simon’s mother-in-law—and Jesus—all watch them start ascending this way. Their numbers narrow into a long, glowing, snaking line of lights as they start climbing the footpath that finds its destination upon this terrace…

Hours later—having struggled to stay awake—utterly tired out with the day and the food and the wine—you are on your way into the house to find a corner for sleeping. Crossing the threshold, you look over your shoulder.

Jesus—surrounded by the golden, glowing light of a hundred lamps all around the table—is still in the process of healing every single ailment of the town of Capernaum. He is listening to their requests; hearing their stories; rising and standing, kneeling and considering—He will not sleep until they all are free. And you are on your way to bed… 
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An Instrument of Thy Peace

6/24/2024

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“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.

“Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

“O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved, as to love.

“For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
          Francis of Assisi
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The Challenge of the Incarnation

6/17/2024

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“Dialogue is a token of genuine Christian love, because it indicates our steadfast resolve to rid our minds of the prejudices and caricatures that we may entertain about other people, to struggle to listen through their ears and look through their eyes so as to grasp what prevents them from hearing the gospel and seeing Christ, to sympathize with them in all their doubts, fears and 'hang-ups.' For such sympathy will involve listening, and listening means dialogue. It is once more the challenge of the incarnation, to renounce evangelism by inflexible slogans, and instead to involve ourselves sensitively in the real dilemmas that people face.”
John R.W. Stott
Christian Mission in the Modern World
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A Distance Called Today

5/27/2024

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As, therefore, God’s picked representatives of the new humanity, purified and beloved of God himself, be merciful in action, kindly in heart, humble in mind. Accept life, and be most patient and tolerant with one another, always ready to forgive if you have a difference with anyone. Forgive as freely as the Lord has forgiven you. And, above everything else, be truly loving, for love is the golden chain of all the virtues.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, remembering that as members of the same body you are called to live in harmony, and never forget to be thankful for what God has done for you.

Let Christ’s teaching live in your hearts, making you rich in the true wisdom. Teach and help one another along the right road with your psalms and hymns and Christian songs, singing God’s praises with joyful hearts. And whatever you may have to do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, thanking God the Father through him. (Col. 3:12-17)

Let me point out to you what this doesn’t say: that it is up to us to remake ourselves, to be pure, to earn our way into the love of God. No, in fact, the mercy, kindness, humility, patience, tolerance, forgiveness we’re called to are meant to come from where? By receiving them directly from the Lord. By loving out of the love we ourselves are experiencing.

You see, it is out of our direct abiding connection with Jesus that peace, harmony, and thankfulness in the Body are meant to be derived. And, too, the teaching of Jesus, the wisdom of Jesus, the helping of our brothers and sisters can only flow from Him. In truth, “whatever we have to do,” we can only do our “everything in the name of the Lord Jesus” by actually, actively living our whole lives with Him, and “through him.”

I think we think there’s a great gaping spiritual and even logistical distance between our spiritual dabblings and actual discipleship to the living Jesus. And I think we think the same thing about bearing fruit for Him; and about living our lives like this Colossians 3 passage. I think we think there’s a long spiritual continuum between “where we are” and where we’d like our spiritual lives to be. There is not. The distance is always, simply, today. Knowing what you already know of Him—and confident that He will ongoingly reveal Himself more and more—it is to follow His Way, accompanied by Him, and to do the actual actions of His heart. It is to be carried away by His love of people. It is to be useful to Him in the funny little contexts of our funny little lives. 

Shall we give it a shot. . . today?
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The Lives He JOins

5/13/2024

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61
He heals a woman with a blood condition
Mark 5:24b-34
AMONG [THE CROWDS] was a woman who had a haemorrhage for twelve years and who had gone through a great deal at the hands of many doctors (or physicians), spending all her money in the process. She had derived no benefit from them but, on the contrary, was getting worse. This woman had heard about Jesus and came up behind him under cover of the crowd, and touched his cloak, “For if I can only touch his clothes,” she said, “I shall be all right.”​

The haemorrhage stopped immediately, and she knew in herself that she was cured of her trouble. At once Jesus knew intuitively that power had gone out of him, and he turned round in the middle of the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?”

His disciples replied, “You can see this crowd jostling you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’”

But he looked all round at their faces to see who had done so. Then the woman, scared and shaking all over because she knew that she was the one to whom this thing had happened, came and flung herself before him and told him the whole story. But he said to her, “Daughter, it is your faith that has healed you. Go home in peace, and be free from your trouble.”
Soon after…
A YOUNG GIRL, TWELVE YEARS OLD, is walking down a narrow trail. The trail descends away from her home—high on the hilltop—and follows a ridge, switchbacking back and forth in its descent. To her left, the panorama of the sea is sparkling. The sky overhead is a pale, calming blue. There are only a very few clouds today. She is off the regular path (this trail is the multiyear creation of her own little feet) and she’s looking forward to seeing a friend down in town.​

A woman is suddenly in view, climbing up from the townside. Her shawl is poor, edged with raggedness. She is intent on watching the upward progress of her steps; she doesn’t notice the young girl descending; they come upon each other, awkwardly, and step to the side of one another.

The woman recognizes the young girl. “You are the daughter of Jairus, are you not?” she asks.

The girl nods her head, carefully.

“Will you do me a favor, then, my dear?” the woman asks.

The girl squints her head and says nothing. (This situation, to her, feels fraught.)

“Ask your abba to tell you the story—whether now or later tonight—of your twelve years and my twelve years. We will always share a story together, you and I…”

The woman walks off upward, smiling a smile to herself. The girl watches her climb.
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Allowing Interruptions

4/15/2024

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"We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer 
Life Together
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Grace, Love & Holy Delight

2/26/2024

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"The true meaning of grace... is the love that God breathes into us, which enables us with a holy delight to carry out the duty that we know."​
Augustine of Hippo
"Against Two Letters of the Pelagians"
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The Future of the Kingdom

1/8/2024

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"Perhaps Jesus is asking of you a little task, and, if you find it, later He will ask of you something that is greater. Always keep your eyes open for the little task, because it is the little task which is important to Jesus Christ. The future of the Kingdom of God does not depend on the enthusiasm of this or that powerful person; those great ones are necessary too, but it is equally necessary to have a great number of little people who will do a little thing in the service of Christ..."

"The demands of Jesus are difficult just because they require us to do something extraordinary. At the same time he asks us to regard these as something usual, ordinary."

"I believe that I possess this value: to serve Jesus. I am less at peace than if my goal would be to attain a professorship and a good life, but I live. And that gives me the tremendous feeling of happiness, as if one would hear music. One feels uprooted, because one asks, what lies ahead, what decisions should I make -- but more alive, happier than those anchored in life. To drift with released anchor..."
Albert Schweitzer
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A Motive Thought for Any Day

1/1/2024

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Live in such a way today that everyone, meeting you, wants to believe in Him.
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The Path to the Deepest Mystery

12/26/2023

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"To you whom I love I say, let us go on loving one another, for love comes from God. Every man who truly loves is God’s son and has some knowledge of him. But the man who does not love cannot know him at all, for God is love.

"To us, the greatest demonstration of God’s love for us has been his sending his only Son into the world to give us life through him. We see real love, not in the fact that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to make personal atonement for our sins.

"If God loved us as much as that, surely we, in our turn, should love each other!" (1 John 4:7-11, Phillips)
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"The genius of Christianity is to have proclaimed that the path to the deepest mystery is the path of love."
André Malraux
Anti-Memoirs
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Love's Cleverness

10/30/2023

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“My children, drive it into your heads that you are on the right road. Love one another; be foolish over it, for love is the stupidity of man and the cleverness of God.”
Victor Hugo
Les Misérables
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Today & Tomorrow

10/23/2023

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Today’s openness to the speaking Voice of Jesus (His Holy Spirit) is the guarantee of tomorrow’s leading; too, its potentiality: its adventure. 
​

We will be going then as far as we are willing to listen now.
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The Divine Interruption

8/7/2023

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"Nothing interrupts the normal flow of ordinary life so much as love."
Max Picard
The World of Silence
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We know and, to some extent realise, the love of God for us because Christ expressed it in laying down his life for us. We must in turn express our love by laying down our lives for those who are our brothers...

And if, dear friends of mine, when we realise this our hearts no longer accuse us, we may have the utmost confidence in God’s presence. We receive whatever we ask for, because we are obeying his orders and following his plans. His orders are that we should put our trust in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another—as we used to hear him say in person. (1 John 3:16, 21-23)
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Remembrance (HIstorical) vs. Realization (Experimental)

7/25/2023

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"This fact of the historical Christ brings a high degree of certainty and authority, but not full certainty and authority. For, after all, if Jesus is only historical, it would be authority outside ourselves standing in history. No authority from without can be complete authority for us, unless it can become identified with our very selves, and can speak from within. The Christ of history must become the Christ within. We cannot live upon a remembrance, however beautiful. We can only live upon a realization. But Jesus becomes that. He told his disciples that it was expedient for him to go away, so he went, but ‘he changed his presence for his omnipresence.’ He came back more vital than before. Timid believers became irresistible apostles, for Christ had moved into their inmost souls. Life became merged: ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; and yet not I, but Christ liveth in me,’ cries the transformed Paul. Archimedes, after pondering a mathematical problem, suddenly finds the solution, and in his excitement rushes up the street crying, ‘Eureka, I’ve got it!’ These men, pondering deeper problems, find a deeper solution, and cry from deeper depths: ‘We’ve got it.’ Christ becomes self-evidencing. The historical passes into the experimental. They become witnesses."
E. Stanley Jones
Christ at the Round Table
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