Authors /
John Ortberg
John Ortberg is senior pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California.
Mary's carol: Luke 1:39-45 (46-55)
The greatest Christmas carol in history was not written by Irving Berlin or Nat King Cole. The greatest carol is not “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” or “White Christmas” or even “Silent Night.” The greatest carol was composed 2,000 years ago by a pregnant teenage girl who was visiting her cousin Elizabeth.
The freedom of the debtors: Colossians 3:12-17
A study done a few years ago showed that a sign of a person’s incompetence is his or her inability to perceive incompetence. Nowhere does this inability to have an objective, accurate, reality-based view of our performance show itself more than in the spiritual realm. When it comes to moral character, purity of heart or duplicity in actions, how many of us have given serious thought to how our lives would be graded in the eyes of a holy, just, righteous, truth-telling God?
Hunger for joy: All will be well
All will be well,
And all will be well,...
True grit: Mark 7:24-37; James 2:1-10 (Matthew 15:21-28)
When I was in first grade, teachers assigned students to reading groups based on how well they could read. They would name all the groups after birds so that everyone would feel equal, but you could always tell how well you were doing by what bird your group was named after. There were the Eagles, the Robins and the Pigeons. The Pigeons were not reading War and Peace
.
Pharisees are us (Mark 7:1-8, 21-23)
Jesus is not accusing the Pharisees of an early form of Pelagianism.
Roll call: Ephesians 6:10-20; John 6:56-69
Jesus called the Twelve together and put the question to them with unsettling directness: Do you also wish to go away? I wonder sometimes how I would have responded to the question. Because at times the truth is I do wish to go away.
Don't be ridiculous: Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58
Thou shalt not be ridiculous. Paul says, "See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil." When Paul wrote that wonderful sentence he probably was sitting in an upper room in Athens. It was late at night, quiet, and all the fools were asleep.
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