Coming to the Still Waters

  It was all you can eat snow crab night at Sagebrush and I got invited along for the feast with some old friends and some new ones.  Some were from Louisiana so they knew what they were doing when it came to cracking the crabs.  I also got a bib with my name on it for future use.   We finished up chapter 9 and will take a break over Advent and also our upcoming vacation in January and will then get back to chapter 10.  Matthew told us before the Sermon on the Mount (chapters 5-7) that we have a teaching Jesus, a healing Jesus and a preaching Jesus.  The Sermon on the Mount displayed the teaching Jesus.  Chapters 8 and 9 highlighted the healing Jesus.  So we will be going onto the preaching Jesus next.  It was great that Matthew bookended this passage with stating these three about Jesus again. We find two blind men in this passage that shout out Jesus as the " Son of David ."  They start what will conclude when Jesus comes into Jer...

Mount Baldy (Craig) looking across Shadow Mountain Lake is changing along with the surface of the lake.  When we head to town Stephanie and I always look for the cross left of the summit made by the snow and crevices.  See if you can find it.  It is a " Where's Waldo " moment.  13 degrees this morning so I do believe winter is here. Sometimes the highlight of my morning is not delivering the message from God's Word but the reaction of a person or a couple to the whole of the service.  Sometimes I become numb to what we do every Sunday until I meet someone who is new who has a reaction that I haven't had in a long time.  How I need to see that at times.  Everything was so new and encouraging that it just spilled out of them, not only through their lips but their whole facial expressions.  What I have become so accustomed to and what I work on each week for the following Sunday gathering was a brand new experience for them.   I just love t...

  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....

  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 b...