Easter – The Promise of New Life – Luke 24:1-12

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Easter – The Promise of New Life – Luke 24:1-12

Butterflies have become my favorite symbol of our faith in the miraculous, a symbol of our hope for beautiful transformation, the necessity of having to patiently wait for the transformation to develop, AND the necessity of living into our potential and our limits.

Our celebration of Easter begs the questions, “What’s YOUR story of transformation? Where are you IN your story of transformation?”
As we dig into and wrestle with these questions, we will often find God creating new life within us. And like the butterfly, we begin to realize that we are not who we once were – individually or as a community of faith. We have become new creations with new abilities so that we can embrace the new opportunities God puts before us.

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Curating Our Faith – Luke 9:23-25, 28-36 and John 21:24-25

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Curating Our Faith – Luke 9:23-25, 28-36 and John 21:24-25

Think about how you are curating your faith and your lives. Looking back, what have you embraced and rejected? Is it time for some spring cleaning and redecorating? Is it time to enhance your curated collection of treasured beliefs, behaviors, and people so that you can love God, love yourself, and love others more than ever before? If we curate our faith and our lives with intentionality, we can shape our lives, our homes, and our communities to look, sound, and feel more like the world God desires. And that will be Good News, Great News, for the people around us!

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Virtue #3: Flourishing Churches Love the Local – Nehemiah 2, 4, and 6

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Virtue #3: Flourishing Churches Love the Local – Nehemiah 2, 4, and 6

Our buildings and our relationships with God, with ourselves, and with each other require regular maintenance. While the ancient Israelites needed to build walls to ensure their safety, today we need to continue the Methodist tradition of social justice work that tears down walls of prejudice and phobias that lead to fear, exclusion, and oppression.

If we look at the success of our own HOPE Food Pantry as well as how that success has led to new connections, new relationships, and new opportunities, I think you can all agree, “Only one possible conclusion can be drawn... God has been working beside us all along.” God continues miraculously working beside us as we share with others what it means to be part of the Kingdom of God, part of the family we love, the family we call our church.

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John 15 – Vine & Branches

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John 15 – Vine & Branches

Twice in today’s reading Jesus says very clearly, “Love each other like I have loved you.” That’s the core, the essential message of Jesus’ life and ministry. And how did He love his followers? He embraced them as they were, He built relationships with them, and He nurtured them so they could become more of who God created them to be: mature people able to love others more than they could image was possible.

Opening ourselves to new growth is how the Kingdom of God naturally expands within us and through us. This is one way we continually become new creations through our faith. This is how we, and our community, are transformed from who and what we are into the potential God has placed within each of us. May we all embrace and celebrate our pruning.

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John 8 – Dignity Instead of Shame

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John 8 – Dignity Instead of Shame

Without naming the crime, Jesus acknowledges the woman’s transgression and immediately offers her God’s love, grace, mercy, and compassion. When I read verses that talk about God judging us, I think about this brief exchange between Jesus and the woman. Today’s story is a powerful reminder of God’s ceaseless, tireless efforts to deliver us out of shame and into dignity, out of despair and into renewal, out of judgement and into blessing. Surely this is how the redemptive Kingdom of God operates. Surely this is the theology, the philosophy... the way of living into which God invites us.

The only question for us today is how can each of us offer the people we meet God’s love, grace, mercy, and compassion? IF each of us sincerely makes an effort to share those aspects of God’s nature with others, we will become better and better at loving God, loving ourselves, and loving others.

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John 4:1-30, 39-42 – The Woman at the Well: A Community Transformed

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John 4:1-30, 39-42 – The Woman at the Well: A Community Transformed

By shining the light of our faith, we too can offer people the hope and courage they need to face the challenges in their lives.
Know that God’s light is and always has been inside you.
Know that the world needs to hear and see God’s light through you.
Know that everyone can share God’s love in some way, shape, or form.
Every person has a role to play in growing the Kingdom of God.

If you and I genuinely want to be a light of God’s love to others, then we must work to achieve what we want to become. Jesus went out of His way, into potentially hostile territory, just so He could shine some light into people’s lives. Can you and I today go out of our ways and out of our comfort zones to share the Good News of God’s love with others? I think we can. And I think people need and want us to do so.

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John 3:1-17 – Born Again, into a New Life

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John 3:1-17 – Born Again, into a New Life

Share the following with God in prayer this week:

  1. Lord, what do I need to let go of so that you can lift me to higher places. (Imagine dropping weights from a hot air balloon so you can take off. Your journey can’t continue if you don’t let go of what’s holding you back.)

  2. God of new life, delivery me into a new relationship with you.

  3. God of peace, like baby Jesus in the manger, wrap me in Your love so that I have no reason to feel alone or afraid.

I sincerely believe that if you seek a deeper relationship with God, like a good mid-wife, God will guide you and nudge you into new births and new spiritual growth. With God working in us and around us, all of us can be “born again,” born and reborn into the Kingdom of God where we can live, love, and serve bigger and better than ever before.

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John 2:1-12 – Transfiguring the Common into the Amazing

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John 2:1-12 – Transfiguring the Common into the Amazing

Our lives are not just about us and what makes us happy or not, comfortable or not. God offers us opportunities to bless others, to solve other people’s problems as a continuation of how God blesses us and solves our life problems.

When God calls us into action, even if we don’t feel like it, even if we don’t understand why... we need to respond with obedience.

Wherever you are in life, no matter what you have or have not done, God can take you as you are – raw and unfiltered – and make you pure, healthy, and spectacular, NOT for your own benefit or glory, but so that you may be an abundant blessing to others.

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Psalm 4 – Passionate Prayers, Peaceful Sleep

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Psalm 4 – Passionate Prayers, Peaceful Sleep

We can and should be God’s compassionate, loving, caring presence to everyone – especially those in need. We can be shoulders to cry on. We can offer the psalmist’s advice to not let anger drive any of us to sin, but rather let God work on our anger and worries overnight. We can remind ourselves and each other that the greatest joys come from our relationships with God and each other, not from our accumulations of material goods and wealth.

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John 20:19-31 and Acts 4:32-35 – Rev. Blake Busick – Awaken to Life

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John 20:19-31 and Acts 4:32-35 – Rev. Blake Busick – Awaken to Life

You are made in the image of God, and you are completely and eternally loved, and therefore have great value and worth. And God is a God of of perfect love and eternal joy that overcomes evil and shatters our illusions. These are the realities to base our life on. And it changes everything when we do that.
The only weapons that really defeat evil, injustice and oppression, in whatever forms they present themselves are love, and joy. That’s what Jesus showed us in His death and resurrection, in His crucifixion, and in His rising from the grave is that those are God’s weapons to defeat evil: love and joy.
And so, this season I invite you to join me and Thomas to awaken, awaken to Jesus, awaken to love, awaken to joy.

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Mark 16:1-8 – Jesus has Risen! What’s Next?

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Mark 16:1-8 – Jesus has Risen! What’s Next?

The Good News of Easter is that the rolled stone and the empty tomb tells us that God is at work in our lives doing what we cannot do. God is actively working for us and with us to create new possibilities beyond our imaginations. Rather than worry about possible problems, we can look to our future with joy and hope.
Today, how will we – individually and as a church – respond to the empty tomb, to the risen Jesus? As we strive to follow God’s lead and expand the Kingdom of God within ourselves and throughout our communities, we must ask, what’s next?

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Seedlings in the Kingdom of God – Mark 4:24-41

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Seedlings in the Kingdom of God – Mark 4:24-41

Whether it’s within you, in your home, your office, your classroom, or anywhere else, know that each one of you is an important part of God’s active and ongoing creation. We all have our own roles to play in God’s garden. We can take great relief knowing that – by design – we do not have total control and success does not depend on any one of us. Thank God! And we can take great joy knowing that God is working alongside us as we, together, help the Kingdom of God grow in magnificent ways that bless us and the people in our community.

It may be cold today, but spring is coming, and I hope that you, like me, are looking forward to seeing what God grows around us.

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Reaching Out for Healing – Mark 3:1-6, 31-35

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Reaching Out for Healing – Mark 3:1-6, 31-35

God offers us love, acceptance and healing with no strings attached. All we have to do is respond to the Holy Spirit’s invitations.
When we ask God to lead us, we need to actively listen for God to respond to our prayers. And when God asks us to do something, we need to have faith that God can act in mighty ways through the most routine actions.

Where else is God calling us to step forward and hold out our hands?
Where else is God leading us – individually and as a faith community?
Are we listening? Are we looking? Are we ready and willing to say, “Yes Lord, if You lead us, we’ll follow. We may be a bit nervous, so be patient with us.

As we follow God’s lead, we can take GREAT comfort in Jesus’ final words from today’s reading: “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

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Childlike, not Childish – Matthew 18:1-14

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Childlike, not Childish – Matthew 18:1-14

If all of us, individually and as a community of faith, could be a little more childlike, offering ourselves as ambassadors of God to the people around us, offering all we have, all we can, without restraint, without shame, and without worry for our own futures…
If we could exhibit those childlike traits, we would all make major strides toward creating the Kingdom of God in our midst.

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Face to Face with God – Genesis 32:22-32

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Face to Face with God – Genesis 32:22-32

Look for God’s nature. Look in the likely and unlikely places and people.
Look with anticipation and with a receptive heart.
Look with a desire to engage with the Divine Presence.
It’s human nature to find what we’re looking for. Every single one of us, has the opportunity to encounter God’s presence face-to-face, essence-to-essence, in our families, in our friends, and in the people of Susanville and beyond.
When we look at people – including ourselves – anticipating the possibility of seeing God’s presence through them, we are more likely to see God’s presence in them – and in us.

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