Engaging with God

Week One – Hope Hope means we know something good and wonderful is coming but it is not here yet. Long before Jesus came, the Hebrew prophets told the people he was coming.  They had to wait and wait.  But God was faithful and kept his promise. Monday Jeremiah 33:14-16 14  'The days are coming,' declares the  Lord , 'when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah. 15  'In those days and at that time     I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David's line;     he will do what is just and right in the land. 16  In those days Judah will be saved     and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called:     The  Lord  Our Righteous Savior.' (NIV) The prophet Jeremiah lived and worked about 600 years before Jesus was born.  During his life, he saw the Babylonians capture Jerusalem and take its leadership into exile, destroying the nation.  Yet, in those darkest times, he spoke these words of hope and promis...

Dear PBPC Friends, Here is the first week of our PBPC Advent Devotional, written by Ginnie. You can print this out if you'd like a hard copy in your hands; I will also be emailing them to you daily. Blessings as you begin this season of Advent, Pastor Chris  Intro "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."  Those words are so familiar that we sometimes forget their depth and majesty.  The eternal and pre-eternal, the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Creator and Lord of the cosmos chose to self-limit in order to fit into a human body like us and live among us, joining our social bubble so that we could become family with him.   That's an amazing mystery.  We are humbled, and grateful, and moved to worship.  We celebrate it especially at Christmas.  But centuries ago, the church realized that this was such a great mystery that, in fact, people needed preparation to enter into it fully.  So, the church set aside the four weeks before Christma...

expressing our gratitude to God seems inherently and appropriately Christian. And I believe it is important for us as Christ-followers to be people of gratitude ,

Life itself has its source in God, and He has shared it with us . The fact that we are in this moment thinking, feeling, hearing, reading, interacting – whatever it is that you're doing, you're doing it because God has given you life.

If we take the time to slow down and listen and reflect, we can begin to be aware that God is working in the midst of the details and experiences of our lives. We can begin to see the ways that God loves us.

In Jesus we not only see what God is like in a way we can understand, we also can see the way to live our own lives. And Jesus' continuing promise to be with us through the Holy Spirit means that we can live each day with Jesus as our friend .

As cliché as it sounds, every day becomes Thanksgiving, because we learn to recognize the gifts of God all around us throughout our day, and the appropriate response is gratitude.

I like to give my friend a hard time about it; but I can't help but think of this rigged up blue sheet as symbolic of the walls , barriers, and separations that we put up, both literally but especially metaphorically, to separate us from those we dislike or disagree with.

At face value, Peter has received a revelation from God that the old Jewish dietary laws are no longer applicable; what was considered unclean to eat has now been declared clean

Over time, understandably, a huge wall of separation existed between Jews and the Gentiles around them. This separation helped to maintain the distinctive Jewish identity, but for many Jews it also became a wall of hostility – the Gentiles were viewed with contempt for not being part of the Chosen People, 

The issue of clean and unclean foods is trivial compared to the issue of clean and unclean people. Peter is suddenly realizing that the kingdom of God is a whole lot bigger than he had imagined and that the gospel message is a lot more powerful.

If the whole Bible leads to Jesus, then it also leads to the salvation of the Gentiles .

God in Jesus Christ has broken down the dividing wall between Himself and us, and he is breaking down the dividing wall between us and one another. 

The goal of tearing down the walls that exist between us is that we love one another , as God has loved us. 

we are reconciliation people – the people who should be all about breaking down the walls. This is the work of God in the world , and this is the work of God in each of our lives.

the bigger, deeper, and more profound change happens on the heart level. This is where real conversion takes place.

The Pharisees believed that God had withdrawn His blessing from Israel because of their sins, and that when they became sufficiently righteous again , God would bless them again by expelling the Roman occupiers from their land and giving them their nation back.

The vision of light blinded his vision, and the revelation of truth struck his mind numb. He had three days in which to let this truth settle into his heart and his mind, and when his sight was miraculously restored and the scales finally fell away from his eyes, he knew that the God he thought he was serving and this Jesus that he was fighting against were actually one and the same – that is, this Jesus was the promised Messiah, and was God in human flesh.

It would be the saddest thing for someone to spend years – or their whole life – in the church and never have a conversion experience , never give their heart to Jesus.

What the world and each person in it needs is a spiritual rebirth, a come-to-Jesus moment . "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself" (1 Cor. 15)."

Today Christ is giving each of us the opportunity to give our lives to Him, to be converted anew to the love and the lordship of Jesus .

Here are the themes we have covered

the goal of following Jesus is to love God and to love people with the same kind of agape love that Jesus has shown towards us

God is first and foremost love. God is also righteous and just - but first is love. Jesus helps us to have a true view of God , and a true view of ourselves as loved children of God.

he was filled with compassion, he acted not out of his own ambition but out of humility , putting others' needs ahead of his own  

For Next Time Read Philippians 2:1-13 . How is Jesus the supreme example of agape love? What does it mean for you to "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus"? How does discipleship look different when the goal is love? Blessings, Chris

Paul makes the connection between love and eternity . Paul closes by saying that "these three remain, faith, hope and love; but the greatest is love."

God's purpose for us is that we love God and love one another. This description of love is the love that we are to have for other people - not just our husbands or wives. This love is to be most evident in the body of Christ, the church.

Hey everyone, We had such great discussion and sharing last week that we only got part-way through our main scripture passage! We'll pick up where we left off in 1 Corinthians 13 , focusing on vs. 4-13. Please read it again, and come prepared to discuss: How does this vision of love inspire you? How does it challenge you? How does this passage guide our understanding of discipleship, the Christian life, and the kingdom of God? Blessings, Chris

Apparently there has developed a hierarchy of gifts in the Corinthian church, with some gifts being considered more spiritual and important than others. Paul points out that the gifts which edify other people are the most important, and then goes to describe " a still more excellent way " - the way of love that should be the motivation for all that we do.