Category: Matthew

Bread Offered Every Day

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

John 6:25-35 (NLT)

They found him on the other side of the lake and asked, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs. But don’t be so concerned about perishable things like food. Spend your energy seeking the eternal life that the Son of Man can give you. For God the Father has given me the seal of his approval.”

They replied, “We want to perform God’s works, too. What should we do?”

Jesus told them, “This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he has sent.”

They answered, “Show us a miraculous sign if you want us to believe in you. What can you do? After all, our ancestors ate manna while they journeyed through the wilderness! The Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven to eat.’”

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, Moses didn’t give you bread from heaven. My Father did. And now he offers you the true bread from heaven. The true bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

“Sir,” they said, “give us that bread every day.”

Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

You can live for the moment, or you can seek forever in the moment.

The crowds followed Jesus in part because he had demonstrated an ability to provide for their immediate needs. They hoped for ongoing provisions, along the lines of what the Israelites received in the desert for 40 years.

Now, let’s be clear—when people have immediate, pressing needs, it is hard for them to focus on much else. “How will I feed my children?” can be an overwhelming question.

That’s why James wrote, “Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, ‘Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well’—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do?” (James 2:15-16)

For the simple sake of goodness, we are called as Christians to get people beyond worrying about their basic needs. Such relief also directly supports the mission of the church. Where basic needs are met, people can then more easily think about broader concepts, like a relationship with God and salvation.

A lot of this sounds like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The Bible basically came up with the idea first. Jesus’ Matthean concept of the judgment amounts to a call to lift people out of their day-to-day worries.

Once we’ve acknowledged the basic relief we should provide, we then must stay very conscious of that all-important next step, understanding who we are in relation to God. Having our daily bread, it’s important to move on to a contemplation of the Bread of Life, God’s gift to us.

Through Jesus Christ, we are offered a daily experience of God and his eternally life-altering plan, and once we’re on the way to grasping what this means, we need to invite others to explore and accept salvation, too.

It’s all so exciting, so mind-boggling, that we might even find ourselves forgetting to eat.

Lord, where we see earthly needs, may we respond quickly, and where we see openings to offer your eternal grace, may we move with utmost speed. Amen.

Pick Up Your Mat

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

Matthew 9:2-8 (NLT)

Some people brought to him a paralyzed man on a mat. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, “Be encouraged, my child! Your sins are forgiven.”

But some of the teachers of religious law said to themselves, “That’s blasphemy! Does he think he’s God?”

Jesus knew what they were thinking, so he asked them, “Why do you have such evil thoughts in your hearts? Is it easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Stand up and walk’? So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!”

And the man jumped up and went home! Fear swept through the crowd as they saw this happen. And they praised God for giving humans such authority.

If you’re a Christian, you already accept what the religious leaders in this story could not: Jesus is divine, God in flesh. He has the authority to forgive sins.

We see God’s love shown in two different ways here. The man brought to Jesus is paralyzed. His physical impediment has caused his friends to carry him before Jesus, known mostly at this point as a healer and a prophet. But Jesus doesn’t heal him right away, probably to trigger the religious leaders’ indignation and set up a powerful revelatory moment about who Jesus is.

“Your sins are forgiven.” If these words truly have meaning, how powerful they are! Regardless of our worldly circumstances, regardless of what we may suffer in this life, they are the most powerful words we will ever hear.

And we do hear them still today. Lord willing, we will have communion at Holston View UMC this Sunday. Because of Covid-19, we will handle communion differently, but we will engage with God in this sacrament of cleansing and forgiveness.

Following the liturgy’s call to reflection and confession, I will have the tremendous privilege of saying, “Hear the good news: Christ died for us while we were yet sinners; that proves God’s love toward us. In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!”

Acknowledging that I am just as much in need of forgiveness, those present will respond, “In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.”

Beyond that moment, we will be wise to watch for signs of God’s power at work in our lives, in particular evidence of healing. In the Bible story, as a sign of God’s presence in Jesus, the paralyzed man is able to pick up his mat and walk.

Perhaps we too will see physical healing—if we do, we should declare to others what we have seen. Miraculous healings continue to happen to encourage a world needing to know God is present.

More importantly, there will be spiritual healing. The sins that burden us will be shaken off. We can pick up our lives as people who walk fearlessly with God, thanks be to Jesus Christ!

Lord, we are so grateful that Jesus came among us filled with your power and Spirit, and that your Holy Spirit remains among us today. Amen.

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Like a Child

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

Matthew 18:1-5

About that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?”

Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.

“And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me.”

To see how we fit into the Kingdom of Heaven, it helps to look to our earliest days.

The above verses from Matthew have some important context. Just prior, Jesus and his disciples have been discussing worldly power, the temple and taxes. (A fish ends up covering what Jesus and Peter owe.)

The disciples’ question regarding who is greatest in Jesus’ promised kingdom is similar to questions they ask elsewhere in the gospels: Who will sit nearest Jesus when he is on his throne? And what kind of power will we have?

Jesus’ response forces any thoughtful reader to consider what we had as very small children, and what we have lost as we have grown.

Some words we can meditate upon: Trust. Dependence. Simplicity. Wonder. Innocence.

As we grow older, we find ourselves surrendering such notions to survive. Power structures are in place wherever we go, and they will consume us if we don’t learn to defend ourselves, gain some control, master the system’s complexity, and ideally, learn to run the part of it affecting us.

Blessed are those who don’t have to learn these hard lessons too early in life.

It’s pretty clear to me that Jesus understood the compromises we have to make in the here and now. Sin remains in the world, and it is very dangerous, leading to terrible events that consume even the most innocent of children.

Earlier in Matthew, in the 10th chapter, Jesus said, “Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves.”

This is a delicate balance for a Christian to maintain. We have to learn to navigate the world, but at the same time, we want to retain an adult version of what we had as small children.

Assuming we were blessed with good parenting, our feelings of trust and dependence flowed toward those who raised us. As adults, we can sense something similar in our relationship with God.

Knowing God should restore our sense of wonder, too. If we call him Creator, an examination of his creation should be enough to boggle any mind. And through Jesus Christ, we even can regain innocence, trusting that Christ on the cross cleanses us of our sins.

There also is much to anticipate. When the kingdom completely arrives—when we stand before God, seeing our savior, with the broken world behind us—I expect our childlike states will be fully restored.

Unlike children, we will comprehend everything, but innocence will remain, and God will call us great.

Lord, in the midst of our strategizing and surviving, may we be humble, seeking to live as much as possible in your kingdom now. May our way of living make the kingdom more real to us and those around us. Amen.

Stop Shoving

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

Ezekiel 34:17-23 (NLT)

“And as for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign Lord says to his people: I will judge between one animal of the flock and another, separating the sheep from the goats. Isn’t it enough for you to keep the best of the pastures for yourselves? Must you also trample down the rest? Isn’t it enough for you to drink clear water for yourselves? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? Why must my flock eat what you have trampled down and drink water you have fouled?

“Therefore, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will surely judge between the fat sheep and the scrawny sheep. For you fat sheep pushed and butted and crowded my sick and hungry flock until you scattered them to distant lands. So I will rescue my flock, and they will no longer be abused. I will judge between one animal of the flock and another. And I will set over them one shepherd, my servant David. He will feed them and be a shepherd to them.”

I am guessing that when most of us think of judgment, sheep and goats, we think of Jesus’ words in Matthew 25:31-46. Jesus, however, was expanding on words spoken by a prophet 600 years earlier.

At this point in Ezekiel’s prophecy, God already had condemned the callous “shepherds,” the Israelite kings who failed to care for their people. He then went on with the metaphor, issuing an internal warning to the flock regarding how its members treated one another.

In short, they were shoving and grasping, the strong taking from the weak. There was no care being taken to ensure those most in need had their share of the basics.

All that shuffling and stomping during the hoarding of resources did a lot of damage, too. Where there is hoarding, there often is spoilage, and what could have benefitted others is wasted.

The message is pretty straightforward: Stop shoving and grasping, thinking only of yourself. Look around. To draw from a story in John 5: Who needs help reaching the pool of Bethesda?

In both the Ezekiel prophecy and in Jesus’ teaching, the concern is for the people on the margins of society, the “least of these,” the ones most damaged by the brokenness of the world. And remember, these images are all presented in “last days” judgment style—in Matthew, the lesson is conveyed by the one who will do the judging!

How we treat people pushed to the margins becomes a very serious litmus test for how effectively we have absorbed the idea that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior. In response to this idea, people have devised a lot of schemes through the centuries regarding what governments should do. Some of those might even be worthwhile strategies.

None of that planning, however, eliminates our responsibility to look around and assess what we need to do as individual Christians. As God says through Ezekiel, “I will judge between one animal of the flock and another.”

Lord, give us eyes to see, ears to hear and a willingness to provide. Amen.

Homebound Simulator

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

Matthew 25:37-40: “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’”

In 2018, as my father’s wife experienced a deeper slide into dementia, I had the opportunity to participate in an “Alzheimer’s simulator,” along with my dad and daughter.

We wore goggles to distort our vision and headphones playing multiple radio tracks to simulate auditory hallucinations. We slipped on rubber gloves filled with birdseed to replicate tactile difficulties, and we also had birdseed in our shoes. We took turns entering a room, where we were given a short list of simple tasks.

My dad went in with my daughter. Pity the poor woman, a stranger, who had to go in with me.

Once she and I were properly attired and inside, the instructor gave us a list of simple tasks to perform. Mine involved finding a t-shirt and a tie and putting them in their proper places, among other activities I would quickly forget. The instructor then turned out the light and closed the door.

My first goal was to obtain some light, so I could at least use my impaired vision a little. I fumbled around the room, trying to approximate where a light switch would be. I found it and flipped it.

“You’re not supposed to turn on the light!” the woman cried.

“She didn’t say we couldn’t turn on the light. A person with Alzheimer’s might try to turn on the light!” I replied. I was surprised at how quickly we raised our voices; of course, we were already hearing voices, so who was saying what quickly got a little confusing.

“You’re not supposed to turn on the light!” she repeated, this time more staccato. She yanked open the door, having found it a lot faster than I had found the light switch. “Are we supposed to turn on the light?” she called out.

The instructor came in. “Don’t turn on the light,” she said, turning it off. I did not find even one item, and I was—let’s see, what’s a really polite word—peeved. I blame my exaggerated response on the stress of the simulator, but I fear I am going to be a really grumpy old man.

When Jesus ties our judgment to how we have cared for the suffering, two of the needy types he mentions, the prisoners and the sick, have something in common. They are physically trapped, unable to go anywhere.

With our movements and interaction restricted during this pandemic, I feel like I am in a simulator again. I will not call it a good experience, but for those of us trying to live the Christian life, it could prove to be an important experience, one that generates new levels of empathy for those who are trapped.

At the Alzheimer’s center, I eventually got to leave the room, take off the goggles, headphones and gloves, and shake the birdseed out of my shoes. Similarly, most of us eventually will resume normal lives, going where we want and doing what we want.

Some will remain bound to a place, however, possibly for the rest of their lives. Having simulated what they face every day, perhaps we will find ourselves more mindful about reaching out to them.

Lord, keep the prisoners and the chronically homebound in our thoughts, and help us use the tools we have available to us to offer them your love and comfort. Amen.

Survival Plans

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

Matthew 24:1-2: Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”

There are a couple of ways to respond to serious threats in the world. There’s always the stereotypical “lone wolf” approach: Stock up on food and ammo (and apparently, toilet paper) and hunker down for a fight. But today, I want us to consider how a healthy church community serves as a key part of any survival plan.

With Covid-19 affecting everyday life so drastically, planning for worst-case scenarios doesn’t seem so kooky right now. We don’t like to think about disasters that very well may never happen in our lifetimes, particularly when we live in a relatively secure environment with easy access to water, food and heat. Serious events do happen, though.

Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about. You’ve volunteered or even been employed to work in the aftermath of a natural disaster, and you’ve seen how quickly modern urban areas like New Orleans and San Francisco can spend days, weeks or even months without basic necessities.

Human-caused disasters can wreak even more long-term havoc. For example, in 1984, Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, was modern and peaceful enough to host the Winter Olympic Games. By 1992, however, the Bosnian War was underway, and the city came under siege for four years. Its residents went from being model citizens of eastern Europe to constant targets of sniper fire as they ran about trying to buy a little bread.

And of course, we will never forget Sept. 11, 2001.

I’m not trying to make us feel more scared. It’s just a reality that the brokenness of the world can intrude anywhere, and people can be left struggling in the wake of such events. We’re talking about a truth that has been constant throughout human history.

Jesus was very open about what a hard place the world can be, and near the end of the Gospel of Matthew, in chapter 24, he is quoted as speaking in apocalyptic tones.

“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars,” Jesus said. “See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.” (Matthew 24:6-8)

Hearing Jesus’ words as a child must have affected me. Since I was a boy, I have enjoyed reading books and magazines on survival skills. I suppose there’s something comforting in at least thinking you might know how to start a fire and make water clean enough to drink under difficult circumstances.

I ran across an interesting magazine, “Living Ready,” a few years ago. Within was one of the best survival articles I’ve ever read, mostly because the author went in a different direction than what you usually find in such a magazine.

In the article, Dr. Kyle Ver Steeg contrasted the stereotype of the lone survivalist in the “Army Guy” costume vs. the reality of how people actually survive difficult situations. He drew heavily on his experience working in Haiti shortly after the massive earthquake that struck there in 2010.

To prepare for a long-term survival situation, “I am of the opinion that the single most important thing you can do is to build a network of trustworthy, capable and likeable people,” Ver Steeg writes. “I would add that you should also work on becoming a part of your community and to develop skills that will be useful to your particular group.”

Later, he makes this particularly pertinent point: “If you are a churchgoing person you already have such a network in place. Think about it for a second. Churches already have leaders and a community of like-minded people with varied skills. They are used to working together to accomplish goals. Many churches already do mission work in desolate areas of the world. These people have knowledge and experience that some of the most survival-minded people do not.”

It makes sense, doesn’t it? In a crisis, relying on the relationships and shared skills we’ve been developing for years in church should be a natural response. Most churches contain all sorts of people useful in an emergency: medical professionals, soldiers, scientists, engineers, food-handling experts, logistical experts—that’s just a quick start to a very long list. And in the midst of all that, we have Scripture as our guide and the Holy Spirit to sustain us.

As terrible as Covid-19 is, perhaps there’s an opportunity here. By the time we get through all of this, we may have a better understanding of just how valuable our community of Christians is, and perhaps we will be better equipped to work in this sin-broken world.

Lord, may we sense how we are part of something bigger than ourselves when we gather as a church. Amen.

Seven Churches: Death and Life

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

Revelation 3:1-13

As bad as it was to hear the warnings for Pergamum and Thyatira, I find Christ’s pronouncement regarding the Christians at Sardis more chilling. “You are dead” has a tone of finality to it.

The city of Sardis was commercially and militarily important, and was famous for its elaborate nearby necropolis, a “city of the dead” cemetery built on hills within view of Sardis proper. No doubt the image of the necropolis floated in the church members’ minds as they heard their letter read aloud.

As I was meditating on this letter, I thought of Jesus’ pronouncement against the Jewish leaders of his day:

What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Matthew 23:27-28

What a terrible thing for a church or an individual: to have the appearance of religion—perhaps even a great history of ministry—but for it all to collapse into spiritual death. As a modern analogy, I think of beautiful buildings I have seen, stained glass and spires intact, but no Spirit-driven Christians left inside to do the work of the kingdom.

Of course, Jesus remains at the heart of these events. With Jesus, death does not have to be an end, and he indicated as much as he spoke to the church at Sardis. There was a tiny remnant clinging to the faith, and they had the potential to trigger new life in the church.

Now my mind goes to Mark 5:41. To the lifeless little girl, Jesus said, “Talitha koum.” Little girl, get up!

Church, wake up! Church, rise up!

And as we arise, as we awaken, being like the church at Philadelphia becomes our goal. Nothing could rattle their faith. Literally. The place was so earthquake prone that people after A.D. 17 preferred to live in the rural spaces around the city, away from where walls might collapse.

The Philadelphia Christians had little in the way of worldly strength, but they remained faithful, so much so that Christ promised their door to eternal life would always be open. Like the church at Smyrna, the difficult circumstances of their world translated into a rich life with Christ, a relationship destined for eternity.

Lord, renew our lives as children of God; renew our churches as places filled with your Holy Spirit. Amen.

Seven Churches: False Teachings

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

Revelation 2:12-29

As we continue our exploration of the seven letters to the churches in Revelation, let’s deal with the churches at Pergamum and Thyatira together.

In appearance, they were significantly different cities. Pergamum officially was the provincial capital of the Roman Empire, described in other sources as a wealthy and beautiful city. Thyatira lay about 45 miles to the east, and while not considered a great city, it was very commercial, undergirded by a network of trade guilds.

The churches within these cities had the same basic problem. False teaching had made its way inside.

Paganism surrounding the churches exacerbated their situations. Pergamum was a city known for pagan temples set aside for the worship of the Roman emperor and other supposed deities. Several of these temples offered sex with temple priestesses as part of their rituals. No wonder John the Revelator referred to Pergamum as the “city where Satan has his throne.”

In Thyatira, the trade guilds each had a particular patron deity, and their festivals also emphasized sexual revelry. In both cities, there also would have been the consumption of food sacrificed to idols, which implied participation in unholy worship.

These were tough places for Christians to try to live out their basic commitments to marriage as described by Jesus and the apostles. Most people around them would have questioned the Christians’ unwillingness to participate in premarital and extramarital sex.

I have no doubt that at some point, more than one person said to the Christians, “Hey, everybody is doing it!” In our sex-saturated culture, we should certainly understand the struggle, assuming we take our own commitments to Christ seriously.

It’s also not hard to see how dynamic, alluring liars could begin to deceive these churches, convincing their members it was okay to hang out at the temples, fully enjoy the festivities and still be in good standing with Christ. As in any era, it was a message some church members were itching to hear.

In Pergamum, the lies seem to have been carried into the church by organized heretical sects, while in Thyatira, Christ’s condemnation fell upon one false prophet in particular, a woman referred to as “Jezebel” in an Old Testament allusion.

Regardless of who led these Christians toward sin, the solution was simple, these letters said. Repent—stop doing what Jesus and his apostles taught is wrong. And then cling to doing what is right, knowing you will receive your eternal reward!

As old-fashioned as the formula may sound, it remains the best advice for today.

Lord, thank you for the well-established Scripture we now have to clearly instruct us about your will in all things. Where we have been wrong as individuals and churches, may we repent, and may we follow your teachings closely as we proceed. Amen.

Troubled Church

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

1 Corinthians 6:1-11 serves as an excellent reminder of how far churches can drift from their reason for existing.

It is a very old problem, reminding us of the lament in Ecclesiastes 1:9-11. “History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. Sometimes people say, ‘Here is something new!’ But actually it is old, nothing is ever truly new.”

The young church in Corinth was troubled, although probably no more troubled than large portions of the American church are today, constantly struggling with the secular pressures around them. Gordon Fee, in his 1987 commentary “The First Epistle to the Corinthians,” wrote that the Corinth of Paul’s day “was at once the New York, Los Angeles and Las Vegas of the ancient world.”

Paul was blunt about how the Christians in Corinth kept jumping with both feet back into the world, rather than living as people bound together in Christian discipleship. They sued each other when they had disputes—Paul said it would be better for them to accept injustice than to provide such a poor witness about the church to nonbelievers.

Paul also left a list of sins, many of them sexual in nature, that were creeping into the church from the world.

Paul was making a straightforward point. The church should be different. We should be distinguishable from what is going on around us. Once we blend into the part of our culture that does not acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, our ability to act as witnesses to Christ’s redeeming, life-change work in the world vanishes.

We should not cut ourselves off from the world—Jesus’ mandate for the church at the end of Matthew makes that clear. But the holy nature of the church, which is dependent on the holy nature of the individuals within, has to be maintained.

We are the primary way the Holy Spirit is at work to move the world toward a complete relationship with God. We are to permeate the world, not vice versa.

As church members, it’s good to always be asking, “How different are we from the world? Do we stand together in holy ways, changing our own lives and then the people around us?”

Lord knows, we need more people willing to treat the church as their primary, life-altering community, studying God’s word together, worshiping together, and holding one another accountable in loving ways. Do that as a church, and others will notice.

Lord, where we are weak, give us a renewed vision of what it means to be a church. Amen.

Healing and Belief

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By Chuck Griffin
LifeTalk Editor

Matthew 8:1-13

Like yesterday, I hope you’re clicking the Scripture link and taking time to absorb some powerful stories about faith and healing. Also like yesterday, our verses reference leprosy and a soldier who desires something from God.

Today we are in the New Testament, and Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, provides the healing, a foreshadowing of the healing he later would offer all the world on the cross.

Two key points from the story of the leper who comes seeking healing:

First, the man, an outcast from society because of his disease, phrases his request with a particular nuance: “If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.” The leper makes clear his understanding that he is subject to the will of God, seen at work in Jesus, whom we understand to be God in flesh. The leper’s hope is that God has a loving, restorative character—that he is the kind of God who wants to overcome sickness in the world, which is part of the brokenness of creation caused by human sin.

Jesus’ response brings us to the second point. Not only is he willing to grant healing, he touches the leper in doing so. This technically should have rendered Jesus unclean. It is a powerful gesture, one reminding us of just how personally God engaged with humanity to make eternal healing possible. The cross later would bring far greater shame and humiliation than this ritual uncleanliness.

The second story, the one about the soldier who seeks healing for a beloved servant, reminds us of the immediate power of straightforward faith. In short, the officer, drawing on his military background, makes an assertion.  Just say the word, and it will happen, Jesus. Even our savior is astonished.

In other places in the gospels, Jesus talks about the power of having the tiniest bit of faith. We can, however, be gifted early in life with an unusually confident faith—or over time, we can grow into such confidence as we live our lives with God more and more.

Such faith seems to bring astonishing results. What an incentive to walk daily with God!

Lord, meet us in the faith we have, and through the presence of your Holy Spirit, grow us in our faith so we may better join in the work of your present and growing kingdom. Amen.