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Today is Ascension, and we will celebrate Jesus' ascension into heaven this Sunday, May 28. The church has celebrated the ascension since the early centuries, and we see the importance given to the ascension in the early creeds of the church. The Apostles' Creed says: I believe in Jesus Christ...was crucified, died and was buried;he descended into hell.The third day he ...

In our current sermon series, we are allowing different psalms from the Bible to show us how to give voice to the various petitions of the Lord's Prayer. The fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer is "forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Psalm 32 helps us to pray this petition with depth and authenticity. In his book on the Lord's Prayer, Terry L. Johnson remind...

Jesus taught us, in the fourth petition of the Lord's Prayer, to ask the Father for "our daily bread." "Daily bread," of course, is a metaphor for everything we need from the Lord. This includes requests for spiritual growth and piety, but we should never be embarrassed to ask God for physical blessings, as well. In Prayerbook of the Bible, a book on praying the psalms, D...

The second and third petitions of the Lord's Prayer are "Thy kingdom come" and "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." What does it mean to pray for the coming of God's Kingdom? We are essentially praying three things: that the Father would send the kingdom of glory (that Jesus would return); that he would crush the kingdom of darkness (putting an end to the lies ...

In our current sermon series, we are learning to pray the psalms through the lens of the Lord's Prayer. The first petition of the Lord's Prayer is "hallowed be Thy name." Psalm 147 is a great psalm for helping us to pray this petition to God. According to the Heidelberg Catechism, when we pray for the hallowing of God's name we are saying: "Help us to truly know you, to h...

In teaching his followers to pray, Jesus instructed us to approach God as "our Father who art in heaven." This shows us that, as we come to God through Christ, we are to approach God in two ways. First, we are to approach God with a sense of confidence. We address God not at our Master, our King, our Ruler, or our Employer. He is our Father. In other words, since we have ...

In the six weeks between Easter Sunday and Pentecost we will be looking at the prayer Jesus taught his disciples often called the "Lord's Prayer" or the "Our Father." The Lord's Prayer is generally seen as a template to use to shape our daily praying. It is seen as a template because, though most Christian traditions recite this prayer in worship, there is never any recor...

At the ACC after-school tutoring program a few weeks ago Pastor David casually mentioned to me that he and Sobeyda were going to be hosting a refugee family from El Salvador. My heart jumped with excitement...what an opportunity for ACC to show the love of God! I also was encouraged by their willingness to share their living space with strangers, knowing they give so much ...

Ushered in by Palm Sunday this past Sunday, we are in the middle of what Christians call Holy Week, the week in which we celebrate Christ's Last Supper and final words to his disciples, his humiliation, crucifixion and death, and finally his resurrection on Easter Sunday. We are quickly approaching the Triduum Sacrum, the three days in which all eternity hangs in the bal...

The service this week is shaped around Palm Sunday, as well as looking forward into Holy Week and Christ's passion. In the celebration of Palm Sunday, we see two truths about Jesus' ministry--that the hosannas exclaimed by the crowds were indeed true acclamations of his kingship and redemption of his people--were they to remain silent, even the stones would have cried out;...