I Love You "This Much"

2 Corinthians 11:27 - I have labored and toiled and often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and often gone without food; I have been cold and naked.

Does this come to your mind when you do something for the church or your fellow brothers and sisters in the church? or when you do ministry? who can say what the apostle Paul says? Yes, we are not establishing a nascent religion. We are maintaining and working through what the original apostles and disciples laid out through the holy spirit. We do labor, we do toil, and we do lose some sleep. Maybe we eat bad food - like pizza, pizza, and pastries and lots of coffee - but I doubt any of us go hungry or parched like Paul. This is in no way diminishing our labor. We need to spend time with God to remind us how much He loves us. He is the reason we do what we do, in any vocation, and the ultimate expression of His love for us, through Jesus's sacrifice and resurrection, is powerful. Have a lovely weekend. See you soon.

Sexy and Greedy?

It only took a few days into this new blog to talk about 2 things sure to catch people's attention. I was prepared to write about something else on this cold wintry morning but on my way from the subway, I passed by two ads that made me "think". Both advertised warmer climates - and of course featured bikini-clad women. Proper context. So it goes that sex, like money, are wonderful things given to us by God the Father and anything God has created is certainly not unclean. What society and the sin of Man (and woman) has done is to make it "dirty" in its use and message. Sex is not a thing to "consume" and certainly not meant to be taken casually and neither is money. Both in the proper context - sex in a marriage and money being handled carefully in stewardship - is what God intended for us. As believers, in community, these are things we can talk about and work through the Biblical approaches for both. We know these are 2 important topics that we cannot and should not ignore.

Ephesians 5:3 But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because they are improper for God's holy people.