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...