A Famine Not of Bread

Click here to listen to this sermon. “ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” (Luke 11:13). Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! A few years ago, I painted my twin two-year-old granddaughters’ fingernails. My wife, Aimee, couldn’t believe it. “You never did that for your girls,” she said. “That’s right,” I answered. “They never asked me. Madyn and Briyr did.” “Papa, will you paint fingernails,’ they asked, emphasizing their request by wiggling their little fingers. So, I told them, “Yes, I will, as soon as I finish feeding Boden.” They squealed in glee and then asked me a couple of more times as they were waiting for me to get to it. But it did get me to wonder: Why didn’t my girls ask me to paint their fingernails? I suspect it was because they thought I would say no. I might have said no on so many other occasions, they just assum...

Click here to listen to this sermon. “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness” ( Galatians 6:1). Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ ! It’s a question asked by at least one of my children in the last few years, and by untold multitudes over the last two millennia: “If Christians can treat other Christians this way, why do I want to be a Christian?” A serious question… a serious problem… for if the actions of us, who call ourselves Christians, lead others to fall away from the faith, are we not guilty of causing these little ones to sin? Would we not be better off cast into the sea with a millstone necklace? So why do we do it? More to the point, what do we do about it if it happens, when we sin against a fellow Christian or when a fellow Christian sins against us? St. Paul says: “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a...