Book: Luke

Today is not ultimately about Thomas, it is about all of us. Thomas is the one who reminds us that the eyes of faith are far superior to the eyes of sight. The trials we face today are many. The doubts that we have are many. But Jesus comes to meet us in the middle of it all. May we always possess the eyes of faith to view our trials through the lens of the Resurrection.

God spoke the universe into existence. God created all we can and cannot see. This same Divinity broke into time and space, born of a Pure Virgin, to save all of humanity. But we in our folly refuse to accept this glorious truth while at the same time believing we will make science fiction a reality. This contradiction must not be so for the professing Christian.

The mystery of the Incarnation – literally “taking on flesh”, that Christ Jesus, fully human yet fully divine, was born of a pure Virgin – that mystery reminds us that the God of the universe is real, and He loves us so much that he chose to be born among us, that he may sympathize with our weaknesses and perfectly redeem all the pain and suffering we face in life.

There is only one Kingdom that will last forever! And that Kingdom is the only place we can take refuge. Until Christ comes again, earthly kingdoms will rise and fall. Christians will face persecution, but our hope is in the one who reigns forever.

You can give all the money in the world to the Church and still not be right with God! True stewardship consists of giving God the best of our time and talents, as well as our treasure. Most importantly, right stewardship starts with the condition of the heart. And if we are spiritually fatigued, then our stewardship is going to be limited. We can’t give our best to God if we are running on spiritual fumes!

Do you ever grow tired of hearing the noise of the world around you? Our world has been saturated with evil since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. For the Christian, it is easy to be discouraged by the many voices that speak out against the Gospel. Even greater is the temptation to give in to them. Here, the Rev. Galloway shares God’s reminder for us to be still, and trust in Christ.

Can you really be a Christian when you don’t pray every day? A recent Pew survey indicates that roughly half of all professing Christians do not pray every day. Without daily prayer, we cannot be truly happy. And when we pray, we should pray like the tax collector, begging for God’s mercy. We need to be people of real prayer.

It is said that our issue as Christians is not that we ask God for too much, but that we ask God for far too little. The same is true of our frequency in asking. Our problem is not that we come to God too much, but that we hardly come to him in prayer at all. Listen as the Rector encourages us to be persistent in prayer.

Here’s the great preoccupation of Americans: We do everything in our lives to avoid mortality. Are we not all going to die, however? We can’t avoid mortality, but we can enjoy eternal life in the presence of God, like the Samaritan and like Ruth, if we simply put our trust in Jesus Christ to save us.