Coming to the Still Waters

  It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas inside and outside in Colorado.  It has been fun hunting through the storage closets and finding more treasures to put out in the sanctuary, foyer and fellowship hall.  Hopefully this Advent season will be a memorable one for us as we share it with another part of God's family.  Most of the decorations are up but don't worry we haven't started singing Christmas carols yet.   The hiking has subsided (ugh) so I am getting my exercise pushing snow.  The bike is in for the season too.  Maybe I will take a hike to town and back now and then to keep my hiking legs.   Matthew introduces himself into the life of Christ in the passage this week.  He tells you who and where he was; where and when Jesus came into the picture of his life; and what he is doing now.  This is a classic testimony for all of us.  You share who you were before; when Jesus came into view; and who you are now.  The story could be shared like this for Matthew. I wa

  See all those squiggly black lines and circles?  That is where I have been this past summer and a few places beyond the edges of the map.  It has been such an adventure to follow these trails all through the western part of the Rocky Mountain National Park, the Arapaho National Forest, the Never Summer Range and the Indian Peaks Range.  I'm always pushing myself to see what is around the next bend or over the next rise.  New discoveries seem to enrich my soul and that is true of God's word too.  Just like some of these trails I will hike again next year, God's word has been the book of my life and some passages have been gone over again and again with new discoveries around each bend and over each rise.  This passage was no different.  At the end of the passage, the consensus of the people was that Jesus was still just a man.  He was a man being used by God and could do some pretty phenomenal things but He was still just a man.  They based this on what they saw .  The par