Coming to the Still Waters

A 12 mile hike last week with Stephanie up to Little Yellowstone Canyon in the Rocky Mountain National Park .  It might be our last together until we don the snowshoes.  Stephanie lets me take her places she wouldn't usually go like this next picture to sheer drop offs looking down into the canyon at the Colorado River .  She told me, "No grandkids up here with Grandpa, no kids either!" The snow is flying in the air today in Grand Lake, Colorado .  We have seen it on the mountain tops but now it has made it down to 8400 ft.  We also have made it through the third sermon on Matthew 19:1-12 and 1 Corinthians 7 .  I am always thankful to give as clear as an answer from God's word because it is a missing element in our world and even some of our churches today.  We so many times disregard what God has said.  It is mimicking what Jesus did by asking to the religious leaders of the day, "Have you not read" and taking them back to the beginning to fin...

All I can think of when I see this picture is Mr. Magoo!  It was a very windy day on the Blue Ridge Trail at 11,300 ft.  No elk to be seen but I'm not complaining.  You think you are the only one around and then you meet a fellow hiker coming down from Cascade Mountain.  A dusting of snow on the ground and the roofs this morning and a chill in the air has swept over Grand Lake.  Time to put the snow shovel back on the deck for what is to come. Part 2 of this passage allowed me to focus in on the one exception that Jesus gives and also the one requirement held over from the Old Testament to the New Testament.  The one exception that is permitted but not commanded is that of marital unfaithfulness to the one-ness relationship created by God when He created them male and female and the man leaves his father and mother to cleave or join to his wife and they become one flesh.  The one requirement that is carried over from the Old to the New is to marry with...

One of the Haynach Lakes about 11 miles from the Tonahutu Creek Trailhead and a rise of almost 3,000 feet in elevation.  You can see a little snow on Nakai Peak behind me.  An emerald colored lake with trout jumping and picas chirping to one another.  And when you look the other way you see this.... More snow on Snowdrift peak overlooking another Haynach Lake.  It was a breathtaking view and I was so glad to get this 22 mile hike in last week.  I wish I had more time to spend there but the days are getting shorter and snow was starting to come down on me.  This was a place I had not been before in the park. This Sunday's passage of Matthew 19:1-12 I have been to before.  I have also spend a lot of time there.  I included it in my sermon in July of 2024 at Stillwater Community Chapel in Colorado when handling Matthew 5:31-32.  I preached its parallel passage, Mark 10:1-12, in 2016 at Oglesby Union Church in Illinois.  I preached this pass...

  A beautifully restored barn in the Kawuneeche Valley of the Rocky Mountain National Park.  It probably took a lot of work to bring it back to life.  Restoring something take that.  Repairs, replacing and reinforcing are also usually part of the process.  So it is with the restoring of relationships.  I see a lot of that in the lessons taught by Jesus to His disciples in Matthew 18.  Just finishing the chapter this Sunday, here are some of my highlights from the chapter. The disciples are disputing and questioning Jesus about who is the greatest (the GOAT) in the kingdom of heaven and Jesus redirects their thinking and vision not to the prideful but the humble.   Jesus declares that sin needs to be taken seriously.  Repair needs to happen when we sin and heaven forbid when we entice others to sin.  Sin is not to be patched over or ignored but replaced with repentance and forgiveness. Jesus also declares that we are not to despise t...

Starting off with some pictures of the season.  The first is a trip up Trail Ridge Road before it closes.  Longs Peak in the background and this was taken at the Forest Canyon Overlook.  The second is a barn on the Bowen Gulch Trail.  I hope to snowshoe to it to take was winter shot in the future.  The third and fourth are a 9 mile hike up the Colorado River Trail with Stephanie and 5 other ladies from the church.  The last is what I see on my walk from our living quarters to the church at this time of the year. This Sunday we covered the Matthew 18:15-20 passage. Listen below if you weren't able to be with us or again to let the Scriptures sink in a little deeper. The steps of church discipline are blurted out as something we know. Our goal was to see it in relationship to Jesus' search and rescue for one of His sheep who have strayed and especially a " little one who believes in Him " (a new believer), one who is not to be despised for " messing up " or ...

Yes, still doing this.  I was invited to pray at a suicide prevention awareness walk in Winter Park last Saturday.  I even had some police backup!  Actually the officer who spoke before the prayer was excellent in sharing his faith and how it effects his duties as a public servant.  Much prayer and more prayer is needed for our communities as we care for those around us who might be hurting.  I prayed for us to create those spaces and support groups to feed our emotional, mental, physical and spiritual tanks.   We moved into a new chapter of our study of the Gospel of Matthew.  This was sermon #65 and chapter 18 is also the 4th of 5 discourses (major teachings) of Jesus that we find in this book.  In chapter 18 Jesus will teach His disciples where to put their eyes; how to respond to violations to His words; and the extent of our love for others.   The object lesson was inviting a little child (probably toddler age) into the midst o...

  Look at the color that greets us on our deck!  Stephanie sure has a green thumb.  I'm just the waterer and also diligent to keep spraying to keep the critters away.  It is also the sign here that colder weather is on the way.  There is snow on the tops of the mountains again and there was also frost on the roofs.  Summer people are headed to warmer temps and we settle in not just for the colder climate but also for the time the core has to zero in on each other.  What will come of our colder months together in light of the further developments of being a better established biblical church?  I am praying that we will develop a pathway to go from investigating SCC to investing in the ministry here, from being infrequent in attendance to being a frequent flyer with us, from just attending to one assigned to a ministry, and from the pew to being a player.  How are we assisting in this process and what does this person look like in practical ter...

  This is a picture of my in-laws, Harry and Asenath.  They have been on a long journey together.  77 years of marriage and still going.  How did this happen?  Well one reason was getting married young and another was drawing a line in the sand to hold true to the vows said 77 years ago at a church altar before God and many witnesses.   The line in the sand can be a good thing especially if it drives us to be urgent about the important things of life.  Jesus brings His disciples back to the line in the sand that God's plan involves His coming first to save and then His coming again to judge.  The church resides into between those two comings of Christ.  What do we need to be urgent about? In our passage we have parents urgently pleading for their children before Jesus.  Sometimes this is because of something negative happening to the child but we also see other times when parents are bring their children to Jesus in a positive setti...

  The Never Summer Mountain Range is behind me.  It is always amazing to me how people will respond more quickly to a picture than to the text.  I updated our Facebook cover photo and profile picture and people are responded left and right to it.  I do not get as much response when I print text to the same group of people.  I think this bears true with the response to video presentations of the Bible over just the written text of the Bible.  But since we don't have actual video footage of Jesus (sorry Chosen) I feel it is important to not just rely on someone's artistic presentation of the text but to read it for ourselves.  The question would be, "Am I reading more than I am watching when it comes to God's words?" I have purposely not used much video in my preaching opportunities because video will steal the show, no pun intended, to the actual passage we are looking at.  I think we need to train ourselves again to rely on what we are reading rat...

A friend of mine took the step of baptism last Saturday afternoon.  He followed what he read of his Savior in the Scriptures and made a public testimony and demonstration of dying in Christ so we might live for Him.  This played right into the passage this Sunday as we looked at Jesus' terms and conditions of what it means to follow Him. I encourage you to listen to the video below of the whole service from Sunday when we cover the passage Matthew 16:21-28. Jesus has just told His disciples of the road map going forward. They will be traveling to Jerusalem; Jesus will suffer many things from the hands of the religious leaders; He will be killed; and He will rise again on the 3rd day. Jesus will share this road map with His disciples many times before getting to Jerusalem and add more details along the way. This plan is not accepted by Peter and we assume the other disciples as well. Peter objects to the One he just called,  "The (only) Christ, the (only) Son, of the ...

  The Ptarmigan Towers towering over Lake Nanita on the Lake Nanita trail off of the North Inlet Trail in the RMNP.  To think I was thinking of climbing up there by just looking at a map!  It looks so easy on the map but when I got to the saddle I realized that reality was much different.  I had read in books about others coming from the other way, another trail, but this seemed so much shorter.  Now I know why they wrote of another route.  Here is another shot of just the first tower. The original languages of our passage help us to see reality.  Without them we can go down a different road that leads away from Christ alone and unto interpretations that elevate a man over the God-man, Jesus Christ.  I was never really good at applying the rules of the English language.  Some of them didn't make sense.  I actually did better understanding the rules of the Spanish language.  So when we dive into the Greek language the use of genders ...

  Another trip up to the summit of Mount Ida but this time with Stephanie.  12,889 ft with a 5 mile hike up the last 2500 ft from the Milner Pass trailhead.  For a moment we had the summit to ourselves except for the picas and the marmots!  We are embracing where God has put us.  This is only a small part of us living where we do.  The larger part is the work of the gospel through the local church.  Today I finished with a group of men the weekly study of the whole of the Bible we started in April of 2024.  Today Stephanie will gather with a group of women who are going through the book of Hebrews.  We are walking through the life of Jesus through the book of Matthew on Sundays that we started in March of 2024 and have reached chapter 16.  We are walking daily alongside of our church family as we and they experience the challenges of this life and in hope of the next with Jesus face to face.  Hopefully our physical endeavors are an ...

  The goal was to make it all the way up the East Inlet trail to complete the whole trail system.  I would start at 8300 ft where the East Inlet dumps into Grand Lake to 10 miles up to where it feeds 5th Lake at 10,900 ft.  I would start at 6 am and get back to the van at 4:15 pm.  6 lakes in total that would be involved in this trek, Grand, Lone Pine, Verna, Spirit, 4th, and 5th.  The trip included seeing many deer and fish and also an unexpected visitor at the final destination.  You would expect not to see anyone this deep up a trail but after about 30 minutes of alone time at 5th Lake, another hiker came over the rise to the edge of the lake.  Solitude is great but sharing the event with another has great value too.  It proved again that we live in a small world as we connected with someone we both knew. The passage this Sunday magnified the point that it is not what is external that defiles you but what is internal.  It is not the unwash...