Pastoral Messages (Page 6)

Today is the very last day of 2023. And while there’s nothing really but a societally imposed difference between today, the last day of 2023, and tomorrow, the first day of 2024, it’s still a useful marker for us. It’s a time when people reflect about the year that has passed and start thinking about new year’s resolutions, how they want to live differently in the year…

The birth of Jesus is momentous and changed the course of world history. More importantly, Jesus offers eternal life to whosoever believes in him. Due to him, countless lives have been transformed and spiritually uplifted. One evening, as I reflected on the birth of Jesus, the following thoughts came to my mind: In view of the above, how then should we respond to Jesus?…

I love country songs, partly because they often tell a story. Brad Paisley’s country song He Didn’t Have to Be tells the story of a single mother who is hoping for a remarriage but potential suitors are put off by the fact that she has a little son. The little boy cannot do anything but watch helplessly as each hope for happiness gets dashed by suitor after suitor.…

Humans are hard. That’s not a typo or a grammatical error, by the way. Being human is hard, being around humans is also hard, relating to humans is hard. This is true everywhere. But when faith and discipleship come into this equation, many times it means humans are harder. There’s just more at stake when faith and discipleship are involved, it seems. Each of us is…

You remember the story? Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall around the city—a big project for his team of Jewish exiles! We read from vv. 1-4 that Nehemiah was troubled when he received report that the Jewish people in Judah were in distress, and the wall of Jerusalem was broken…