Friday, July 3, 2020Not Enough Years ago a guy named Christian Smith did a survey of young adults where he discovered and named an understanding of God that threatens true faith. He called it “moralistic therapeutic deism”. He pointed out that moralistic therapeutic deism is not just a problem in how young adults understand God, […]

Thursday, July 2, 2020Threat “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.” Joshua 1:7 When God brought the children of Israel into the land that had […]

Monday, June 29, 2020People of the Land In some of the first passages in the Bible that we read about sabbath, the idea of sabbath is connected to land.  Sabbath was set up by God as a day for those who worked the land to find rest (Exodus 21 and Deuteronomy 15).  Sabbath was a […]

Friday, June 26, 2020Prayer of Confession ​O Father in Heaven,Who knit together my hands and feet to serve you and my soul to seek after you,With sorrow and remorse in my heart I stand before you,Repenting of my faults and failures this week. Too long, O Father, have I tried your patience. Too often have I […]

Thursday, June 25, 2020Freedom When God’s people were rescued from slavery in Egypt, God was saying to the world, “These are my people.” The children of Israel were not chosen to be God’s people because there was something special about them. In fact, they were chosen because there wasn’t anything special about them. They were […]

Wednesday, June 24, 2020Set Apart My sister used to live in Zeeland, Michigan. One of the first things she noticed when she started living there was that people do not mow their lawns on Sundays in Zeeland. One Sunday afternoon, when her husband was mowing the lawn, he noticed that he was getting mean looks […]

June 23, 2020Inside Out According to John Calvin, the guy that Calvin University was named for and whose teachings are at the foundation of how the Christian Reformed Church understands God, sabbath is a gift that God gave people to rest from doing bad stuff. Sounds weird, huh? Here’s how he explains it. Our resting […]

June 22, 2020Tradition One of the surprising things we find as we look back through church history is that, for thousands of years, there was no clear link between the Christian practice of Sunday and the Jewish practice of sabbath that we read about in the fourth commandment. The connection between the two was made […]

Friday, June 19Detour Summer is road construction season in west Michigan. The freezing and thawing that happens throughout the winter makes the roads a mess in the spring. As a result, each summer roads are closed and the routes we usually travel are detoured for road repairs. Jeff Manion describes one of those detouring experiences.  […]

Thursday, June 18Ripple Effects In the fall of 2008, the financial market in the United States crashed. It was a huge hit to the American economy, and led to many people losing their jobs, their houses, and their retirement funds. God was still there with people, but with the tangible ways that they felt God’s presence […]