God

Doing Life While Doing Time

The whole thing seemed so futile. They were down three touchdowns with less than a minute to play. The quarterback got the ball and hurled it downfield as far as possible hoping that one wearing his jersey would catch it. But if he did, so what? There was not enough time to make a comeback; why not just “take a knee” and leave it at that? Yet, time and time again this scenario is played out during fall weekends. The reason given… competitors do not stop playing until the clock strikes zero.   Clock management It is interesting to note […]

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God Said Turn Right

I always drive the same route to work. One day while sitting at a red light a few blocks away from the office on a double-booked kind of day, I distinctly heard the Holy Spirit tell me to, “Take a right.” Not one to argue with the Lord, I clicked on my blinker and made the right turn. My curious eyes drank in the new sights on a road I’ve never driven before. My unexpected right turn landed me in an urban community, called Avondale, made up of nine hundred residences that house over 3,000 people – mostly Hispanic and African […]

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The Hardest Thing

Baseball. No need to ponder, dig deep in the confines of my brain or compare notes; hands down… baseball, that’s what I thought. That’s the hardest thing I had ever done, by far. For most, the answer was sort of a letdown, particularly if they were privy to my sordid past. But, for all my colorful endeavors, it came down to the “national pastime.” The hardest thing  Nothing, absolutely nothing, can compare in degree of difficulty to hitting a round ball thrown by an expert hurler standing on a small hill 60 feet six inches from me with my only […]

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Welcome One Another

Robert Jewett succumbed to Covid-19 on December 4th. His students called him Dr. or Prof. Jewett while friends and colleagues just called him Bob, extraordinary Bob. Jewett’s most monumental work was a massive volume titled Romans: A Commentary (2006). This 1140 page tome took him 25 years to research and write. Fortunate for us slow readers, he subsequently published Romans: A Short Commentary in 2013. Prof. Jewett – Bob – teaches us today through his fresh and relevant insights into the Apostle Paul’s most important epistle. Surprisingly, Jewett pinpoints the heart of Romans in chapter 15, verse 7: “Welcome one […]

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THE GREATEST APOLOGETIC – The Deepest Desire of the Human Heart

As we launch out into a brand-new year together, let’s return to our focus on apologetics, which is rooted in the Bible’s command to “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15). The greatest apologetic I believe that the most powerful apologetic in the world speaks to the deepest longing of the human heart: To be fully known and completely loved. This makes the Gospel, the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ, the greatest apologetic […]

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Hope Will Not Disappoint

Do you remember where you were December 31, 2019? If you’re anything like me, you were more than ready for a fresh start. You were ready to crush some new goals, visit new places, spend that heavily-depended-upon paycheck a little more wisely, seal off some disappointments from the previous year and basically get your life together. Or at least a little more together than the year before.    Every New Year’s Eve, I am hopeful. Hopeful for something new. Hopeful for change. Hopeful for progress. And there is indeed progress, but inevitably, every year I ride the wave of unmet […]

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Time To Dance In The Garden

2020 started with a worship service in downtown Miami led by Kanye West and the Sunday Service Choir and ended with me listening to the same choir singing “Emmanuel,” God with us and “That’s How the Good Lord Works.” A nice bookend to a very strange year. I know that many of us will look at 2020 and simply say, “Good riddance,” a nice way of saying goodbye and I hope we never meet again. However, I believe, though painful, many will look back and see God’s presence and handiwork. I am not sure what we all learned (or are […]

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The Glorious Serendipity of the Gospel’s Comic Turn

Read the Passage: Genesis 3:20 Serendipity is a splendid word that captures the essence of the gospel’s movement from suffering to glory (Luke 24:26). Its formal definition is “an unexpected yet pleasant outcome.” It is the familiar “blessing in disguise.” The effect of this unexpected redemption upon our guilty souls is one of deep and profound irony. It astounds us. It amazes us with wonder. When we expect “poetic justice” to be charged against us, we are shocked instead to discover God’s plan for us is “poetic mercy.” The mercy of grace is serendipitous! In the biblical world, where resurrection […]

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Church United Launches Historic New Evangelistic Effort in 2021

2020 sent our friends, neighbors and co-workers searching Google and YouTube looking for answers to some of life’s biggest questions. Alongside hundreds of other local churches from across Palm Beach, Broward and Dade Counties, we believe that now is the time to collaborate together and unify around one of the greatest evangelistic moments of our time. It’s been said that great movements of God are fueled when gospel patrons and gospel proclaimers collaboratively work together to further the Kingdom of God in a region. South Florida has a long history of catalytic movements in the life of the Church – […]

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Jesus, the Light of the World

(Scroll down to leave a comment on how Jesus is the Light of the World to you) A charming technique of master portrait artists is chiaroscuro, the practice of contrasting light and darkness. Gerard van Horthurst’s The Adoration of the Shepherds (1622) offers a beautiful example of this technique. In the painting, the Christ child in the manger is the sole source of light. His little body, like a frail candle in the darkness, scatters the shadows from all who adore him. Like master portrait artists, the Gospel writers frequently appeal to the idea that Christ is the light in […]

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