Book: Philippians

Anyone can believe IN God, certainly a god of our own creation – we really enjoy doing that. What we fail at is BELIEVING God, that is, putting our faith in Jesus Christ to save us from our sins, and not trusting our own works. When we trust in Christ, His righteousness is imputed to us by faith. Listen as the Rector discusses God’s covenant with Abraham, and how God’s faithfulness requires that we not only believe in Him, but believe and trust Him fully.

We rejoice because the Lord is near to us. We do not serve some faraway God who sits up in an ivory tower, nor do we serve some “divine clockmaker” who wound up the gears of space and time and then stepped back to watch without any involvement. We are instead blessed by a Lord who knows each and every one of us intimately, who took on our very flesh to dwell among us, and who promised to come again one day and redeem all of creation.

There is the expectation that those to whom we are accountable will eventually visit us, and we should want to have our very best prepared to make a good impression. The same is true of our preparation for the coming Day of the Lord.

Christ’s Passion, His final hours before the Cross, form the climax of all human history. An honest reading of the Passion narrative shows us the incredible weight of Jesus’ great sacrifice. Our challenge, then, is this: Do we live as if this is true?