Our lives are filled with millions of moment by moment decisions which really boil down to only two choices repeated over and over again. Which will you choose?

When the way forward is shrouded in fog and mist and the road ahead is unclear and uncertain. Remember, there is a way through to the other side.

Friends, this Christmas season, as we rightly contemplate the vulnerability and humility of Jesus as a baby, let us also remember that the baby grew up, and that this Jesus never saw Himself as above or beyond the regular rites of passage and seasons of development that it takes to become an adult, and that He went through it all in obedience and humility. 

Friends, I know that some of you have tears right now that you wish you didn’t have to shed. But … don’t waste them. It is my experience that most often it is those who have to look through the most tears who get the clearest view of ultimate reality, of empty tombs, of gardeners who are kings, of angelic beings journeying with us on our rocky road home.

So, the question - which I had to answer for myself - and that I am asking you to consider now is … how much time, and energy, and emotion, and resource are you spending in pursuit of things that the world tells you are admirable but that God says are monstrous? Do we believe Him when He says that life is not made up of the abundance of our possessions, and that it is impossible to love both God and money? Or are we content to rationalize His commands away down into something that we can accommodate in our own current lives without causing too much disruption? Maybe the things that you strive towards are actually things that take you away from the life of flourishing that Christ has for you!

Beloved friends, fellow sojourners … if you are sick with sin, then please run to the great physician and confess to Him your great need.  We will never be a community without sin, but let’s live with the freedom of people who have no need for secrets.

While we wait, life can be so brutal.While we wait, life can be so beautiful.And the one doesn’t cancel out or nullify the other.

Friends, in Christ, we are not defined by our worst moments. 

I am such a weak hypocrite most days. And yet, I am Ross … beloved Son of God, justified brother of Christ, a messenger of the gospel of the Kingdom. It is almost too much to contemplate. 

Here’s the good news of an incarnated God. He is with you in the midst of all of it. In school runs, board meetings, meet the teacher nights, football schedules, takeout drive throughs, morning coffee runs, stressful budget meetings, mounting laundry, stacking homework, complex schedules … all of it. There isn’t an element of your life that is somehow too earthy, too human, too flesh and bone for the God who showed the world who He is by manifesting in the midst of very real lives.

What do you think about when you think you are going to die? I had opportunity to find out this last week.