Do you take God seriously? Do you trust God to fulfill his promises? If you do….then be jubilant! Be exuberant! Our God is an awesome God! Why do we then drag along without joy? We forget to remember the good deeds God has done in our lives. We forget to praise God and worship him. But if we do not worship we are “swept into a vast restlessness, epidemic in the world, with no steady direction and no sustaining purpose“,…
Are you so busy that you don’t have time to fit God in your life? We tend to get so crazy-buzy sometimes that it feels that we barely have time to breath. It might feel an added burden to find time for God. But guess what? There’s no way you can ever fit God in your life. God is way too big for that. God can never fit in your life. If we want to experience God, we need to…
This is a wonderful time of year in Finland. Our summers are not that hot but we really do have light in abundance. You’ve probably heard of the Midnight sun when the sun remains visible at the local midnight. Those of us who love light have a hard time understanding why some people don’t share our enthusiasm for light. There are people who prefer darkness. Like Jesus said 2000 years ago: “This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into…
Do you choose your own comfort over following Christ? What’s your excuse to not to surrender everything to God? Tough questions. But these were the questions that the Holy Spirit asked me while reading these verses from Luke: On the road someone asked if he could go along. “I’ll go with you, wherever,” he said. Jesus was curt: “Are you ready to rough it? We’re not staying in the best inns, you know.” Jesus said to another, “Follow me.” He said,…
We all know the the story of Jonah. We chuckle, we might find Jonah even endearing. We might marvel how God caught this runaway and especially how Jonah moved from being prayerless to praise-filled in the belly of the whale. Jonah experienced first-hand God’s mercy right then and there, probably for the first time in his life. Jonah knew God, we might even say that he had a relationship with God. But yet he was a stranger to grace. Suddenly…
One of the biggest reasons why people keep from truly following Christ is the belief that then life would be boring and, at least, all the fun would be cancelled. People are not ready to bury their dreams. It might seem that is what God wants us to do. But when you dig a bit deeper you find out that God wants to give us life and more life. God wants to bring our dreams into his service. That doesn’t…
You’ve probably heard the story of a little boy sitting in a church and asking his mom who were the people in the stained glass windows. She told him that they were saints. And after awhile the boy responded “Oh, I know who the saints are. They’re the ones that let the light in.” Exactly. The saints are the ones that let the Light in. Just like Jesus told us: “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be…
Blaise Pascal’s famous quote “Not only do we not know God except through Jesus Christ; We do not even know ourselves except through Jesus Christ” gives us a lot to ponder. It states that Christ is the only way to God. But that’s not so surprising. It is one of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity. But the second part -that states that we can’t even know ourselves without Christ- can sound a bit odd for many. How could our identity…
This week we’ve been searching for God’s will. We can be certain that God wants to be found and he will personally teach us how to live in his will. Jesus said, “Don’t bicker among yourselves over me. You’re not in charge here. The Father who sent me is in charge. He draws people to me—that’s the only way you’ll ever come. Only then do I do my work, putting people together, setting them on their feet, ready for the…
This week we’ve been pondering on what it means to “Live well, Live wisely, live humbly” (James 3:13, MSG) as we search for God’s will for our lives. Today we concentrate on how ‘living wisely’ can help us on our quest for God’s will. What could living wisely be? Maybe it’s recognizing what in life has eternal value and embracing it with everything we’ve got. Don’t love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world,…
