Deep-End Discipleship

“Therefore, I say to you, don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink, or about your body, what you’ll wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds in the sky. They don’t sow seed or harvest grain or gather crops into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth much more than they are? Who among you by worrying can add a single moment to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? Notice how the lilies in the field grow. They don’t wear themselves out with work, and they don’t spin cloth. But I say to you that even Solomon in all of his splendor wasn’t dressed like one of these. If God dresses grass in the field so beautifully, even though it’s alive today and tomorrow it’s thrown into the furnace, won’t God do much more for you, you people of weak faith?” Matthew 6:25-30 It's May! That means finals, stress, looking forward to summer, and an extra dose of stress about everything we still have to ...

“This is what I’m saying, brothers and sisters: The time has drawn short. From now on, those who have wives should be like people who don’t have them. Those who are sad should be like people who aren’t crying. Those who are happy should be like people who aren’t happy. Those who buy something should be like people who don’t have possessions. Those who use the world should be like people who aren’t preoccupied with it, because this world in its present form is passing away.” - 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 CEB - Amidst all the apostle Paul has to say in the Bible, this is not always one of the favorite verses. It doesn’t sound comfortable to have to suddenly act like something you’re not. You might paraphrase what the apostle says as such, “So you were happy – don’t worry about that anymore. So you were sad – stop crying now. So you are really concerned about the people in your life who care to you – don’t focus too much on them.” This is hard for us to hear as a message of Good New...