Christmas is not a day for Santa to bring gifts to well-behaved kids. It’s a day when we celebrate the birth of Jesus. Actually, the birth of Jesus has such a huge impact on our lives that we celebrate it for 12 days. So, Happy Second Day of Christmas, all! Jesus is better than Santa in so many ways. For the starters, Christmas without Christ is just a big mess. Not something we want to celebrate for days for sure. But…
Are you ready for Christmas? Or are you secretly hoping for an extra week? Thankfully, Christmas does not depend on our mindset or feelings or how perfectly prepared we are. The journey to Christmas joy starts slowly and it is more than okay to come as you are. No preparations needed. Just come and meet Jesus. You can walk to the stable at your own pace. There are no requirements. You can come empty-handed and heavy-hearted. Yet you don’t ever…
Today it has been exactly 500 years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg church. He did not know his actions would change history but they did. Luther just wanted to remind people of what faith was all about and what it was not. He wanted to get people back to the basics: we are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Luther nailed it. There’s still nothing else that saves us. The power…
A few days ago, I was reading an older translation of the Finnish Bible and encountered something beautiful in the last verse of Psalm 5. It declares ‘You will cover them with grace like a shield’. My heart rejoiced to know that we are covered by the shield of grace. How wonderful is that? We are safe under the shield of grace! I was so thrilled about the shield of grace that I immediately wanted to share it with you….
Do you want to be happy? I think we all do. Too often people think that God would not want them to be happy. Like God’s goal would be to make you unhappy. That doesn’t ring true, does it? Quite the opposite is true in fact. God wants you to be happy with him. You grant him blessings forever; you make him happy with the joy of your presence. (Psalm 21:6, CEB) With the words of Charles Spurgeon “Man was…
When you’re exhausted you don’t want to be pushed and told to try even harder. Especially when we are down we need grace. Jesus is calling to him all who are weary. He will not urge us to try harder, instead, he gives us rest. And when we have rested, he will empower us with his grace to do what we can’t do on our own. I see Christianity as grace and that’s why it’s difficult for me to understand…
We all love blessings, right? The more the better, I think. A blessing is a favor of God and a life full of blessings is the best kind of life, isn’t it? But don’t fool yourself. God’s blessings are most often not materialistic and temporal but spiritual and eternal. Somehow, that diminishes the ranks of people who want them. We’d like to have a new car and money enough to control our destiny. But that’s not how it works. Spiritual…
Today I am in awe of God once again. I just realized God does not rely on me. What a relief! He knows me and my abilities…and how much I am lacking. Instead, God relies on grace. And so should I do too. Too often we try to rely on ourselves on everything, even when there’s no way we could ever deliver. We get stressed out and all the joy disappears from our life. It’s especially sad if we rely on ourselves…
Do you have a lot of “shoulds” in your life? You should this and that and every other thing. The first step of letting go of shoulds is to change your vocabulary. Replace all the “shoulds” with “it’d be great if”. It’d be great if all things worked out. But if not it’s not the end of the world. This is all great and has helped me to put less pressure on me but I have even better news for…
Resurrection makes all the difference, folks. Without the resurrection, we’d be without hope. Life would be just life, no hope for broken hearted. No hope for sick and unhappy. And, certainly, no hope for sinners. Blessedly, God knew better. He knew we needed him even when we did not know we needed him. Hence, he sent Jesus to die for us. Jesus came to friend us, teach us, and save us. Because Jesus died on the cross and was resurrected,…
