Loving Jesus Style

Scripture: Psalm 103:1–7(ESV) 1  Bless the Lord , O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name! 2  Bless the Lord , O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, 3  who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, 4  who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, 5  who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. 6  The Lord works vindication and justice for all who are oppressed. [1] Meditation:             I once worked for a company that gave all its employees a list of all the benefits they were receiving from the company as part of their employment. They wanted to remind the workers that they were receiving more than just a paycheck every two weeks.             So the psalmist here in psalm 103 reminds us of so...

Luke 4:16–21. 16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. 17 And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,             18        “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,       because he has anointed me       to proclaim good news to the poor.                    He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives       and recovering of sight to the blind,       to set at liberty those who are oppressed,             19        to procl...

Scripture: 16  “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:16-17 ESV) Meditation:             Above we have part of Jesus’ proclamation of the Good News the Gospel as we call it. For many in our world the good news seems like it is neither good nor new. That is the premise of N.T. Wright’s new book “ Simply Good News Why the Gospel is News and What Makes it Good.”             Dr. Wright argues against all the forces in our society that would push the Gospel aside as irrelevant or worse. He challenges the Christian views of the Gospel that would turn it into simply good advice instead of good news. Dr. Wright argues for a life changing perspecti...