Reflection and Renewal: We Have Value By Virtue of Existing (based on Philippians 3:4-10)

Loving God, you have called us to "take up our crosses and follow." In the agony of crucifixion, we see the lengths you were willing to go to.

Sometimes we pay lip service to "following" and we believe it in theory but we find ourselves hesitant to actually "follow" in practice because we want to be in the lead, because we want to be “winners” in our competitive culture. And sometimes in our sincere, well-intentioned effort to follow, we get  sidetracked into performance-mode, into striving to prove our value and worth.

Remind us that we don't have to seek our worth in status, prestige, achievement, or possessions. Remind us that we don't need to try to prove that we deserve your love or strive to earn it. Help us to remember that you created everything and called it "good," and therefore you see us all as inherently precious and valuable just by virtue of existing!

Thank you for being a God of infinite love; whose mercy never runs out and whose grace is bottomless. Out of our gratitude for that grace, lead us to your work of renewing and redeeming your world, to truly find our lives by losing the prideful ambition of our egos.

Amen

Root Of Violence = The Illusion Of Separation - Father Richard Rohr

Jesus Message Of Loving Enemy, Nonviolence Eludes Western Church - Father Richard Rohr

Interfaith Coalition: No Principled Basis For Trump's Travel Ban - Religion News

A coalition of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and Jews say Trump's travel ban is “anathema” to their shared belief in religious tolerance.

They say the order “selectively targeted” six Muslim-majority nations cited in State Department reports on terrorism but excluded at least two Christian-majority nations — Venezuela and the Philippines — that meet the same criteria applied to the Muslim countries.

While not contending that those two countries should be included in the ban, the coalition argues that the order violates the Constitution’s establishment clause, which calls for the government to not favor one religion over another.

The full article is available here

A Prayer For The Anniversary Of 09/11 - Sojourner's

"May we never forget
that on that day
those who jumped in to help others
did not focus on nationality,
wealth, education, sexuality.
They focused on need."

The full article is available here

The Opposite Faith Isn't Doubt - Father Richard Rohr

Who Is Jesus To Me? Mother Teresa

Call to Worship: God Welcomes Everyone (based on Galatians 3:28)

God welcomes everyone with open arms. No one stands outside of God's circle of mercy and love. And so for this endless, limitless grace, we come to give thanks.

Through the power of your spirit, God; open our eyes to see your handiwork all around us, open our minds to be receptive to your wisdom, and open our hearts to give you praise.

Fear and the Nashville Statement - Christian Reformed Church Network

We need to be welcoming and affirm God’s love for those who have been marginalized rather than capitulating to fear.

The recent "Nashville Statement" by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood purports to provide clarity about the inclusion of LGBT Christians in the church.

The authors claim to speak with grace and love, but their words ring hollow as they promote conversion therapy, complimentarianism, and patriarchy.

Going further, they even state that Christians who do not agree with their position are not true Christians.

That kind of statement seems to stem from a position of fear. It is profoundly damaging to our Christian witness, and theologically wrong in it's elevation of human sexuality to an issue of salvation.

We need to be welcoming and affirm God’s love for those who have been marginalized rather than capitulating to fear.

The full article is available here

God Didn't Command Genocide In Old Testament - Brian Zahnd in Religion News

The Bible is not the perfect revelation of God; Jesus is.

Even a casual reader of the Bible notices that between the alleged divine endorsement of genocide in the conquest of Canaan and Jesus’s call for love of enemies in his Sermon on the Mount, something has clearly changed.

What has changed is not God but the degree to which humanity has attained an understanding of the true nature of God.

The Bible is not the perfect revelation of God; Jesus is. What the Bible does is point us to Jesus, just like John the Baptist did.

The Old Testament tells the story of Israel coming to know the living God, but the story doesn’t stop until we arrive at Jesus!

It isn’t Joshua the son of Nun who gives us the full revelation of God but Yeshua of Nazareth.

It’s not the warrior-poet David who gives us the full revelation of God but the greater Son of David, Jesus Christ. We understand Joshua and David as men of their time, but we understand Jesus Christ as “the exact imprint of God’s very being.”

Once we realize that Jesus is the perfect icon of the living God, we are forever prohibited from using the Old Testament to justify the use of violence. Using Scripture as a divine license for the implementation of violence is a dangerous practice that must be abandoned by we who walk in the light of Christ.

The full article is available here