Pastor Tim reflects on the power of snow and how it impacts us — and what that tells us about God.
Pastor Tim talks about extravagant gifts and what the Bible says about the truly extravagant gift we receive at Christmas because of the very first Christmas.
When you prepare a small dinner and twenty guests arrive unannounced, you wish you’d known what was coming—yet knowing what to prepare isn’t the only kind of readiness that matters. Luke 1 tells of a righteous priest who knew exactly what God expected of him, yet when God himself appeared with news he’d prayed decades to hear, he found himself unprepared to simply listen.
We’ve all wanted to write that resignation letter—to let the world know the hurt isn’t our fault. Joseph faces that exact urge in Matthew 1, betrayed and confused after he finds out Mary, the woman he is betrothed to, is pregnant — forced to choose between saying his peace and keeping it.
Pastor Tim spent time in Busiek State Forest to better think about the time between the Newborn servant coming into the world and when we, His followers, will get to experience His triumph.
Plans go awry all the time, and in the moment it feels terrible whether the fault is human weakness or God himself saying no to what we wanted. That’s exactly where Mary finds herself in Luke 1 when Gabriel’s greeting turns her ordinary day—and her entire future—upside down.
Pastor Tim thinks about how God brought light into existence, we turn from the light, but Christmas is the story of God bringing that light back to us.
Maybe you’ve had a Christmas where the lights and the music were all there, but it felt like you were watching from the other side of a piece of glass—present for the season, yet not really in it. Isaiah 53 describes a Savior understands how we feel on that other side of the glass and came to break it.
Pastor Tim thinks about how we look to the wrong things in life and how Christmas calls us to a corrective.