Have you ever wondered what was beyond the borders of Eden? We know that part of the first couple’s punishment was to be banished from the garden, and that the man would spend his days toiling in ground that had a curse on it, battling thorns and thistles, sweating to grow his crops. But were the thorns and thistles a result of the curse or was it just part of the life outside the garden?

Nothing is easy. Life is complicated. Why? Because we made it that way by choosing to live contrary to the way we were created to live. It was true then, and it is true now.

What we have in front of us is a text - a page with words on it. We believe the words are inspired by God. We have to begin by paying attention to what’s on the page and dealing with that first.

So join us in our quest to be faithful stewards and students of the Word! Join us in a quest to carve away the baloney, and dig down using the spades God has blessed us with to uncover the Truth of His word.

Because God loves us, we love God. Because God loves others, we love others. God set the standard way back on Mt. Sinai and demonstrated exactly what that looks like on Mt. Calvary.

Reading and praying the psalms invite us to do the same. If you’ve noticed, I begin most of the prayers I pray with those very words from Exodus 34 - that’s the God we serve! I’d encourage you to memorize them and use them in your prayers as well. When life is going well, use them to celebrate God’s faithfulness. When life isn’t going so well, use them to remind God (and remind yourself) Who God said God would be, and let this be an anchor to your soul in the bad times. And look for other times the psalms quote these words – you might be surprised just how often you see them.

So as you read this week, pay attention to the “you” in the psalms. What does the psalm say about who “you” is or what “you” has done or hasn’t done - or needs to do! Then pause to think about who this “you” is, has been and will be in your own life.

God is always with us. No matter what we face, God is by our side. God doesn’t send us through the valley of the shadow of death with a cheery promise to meet us on the other side! No, God promises to walk with us all the way - “for thou art with me.” The central message of the psalm is the same as the central phrase and the central words, giving us the assurance that no matter what we face in life, we do not face it alone.

If life is going well, and your psalm is a psalm that says “life is good,” then use it to praise God! If life isn’t going so well, and your psalm says “life is awful,” then use your psalm to tell God your troubles. If God has brought you safely through a tough time, and your psalm is one of those that says “life was awful, but look what God has done,” then use it to thank God.

Can you think of other Christian responses to the challenges around us? Can you think of other ways our controlling narrative that Jesus Christ is Lord can shape the way we live in an increasingly lost and out-of-control world?

Join us this month as we explore the five essential Christian practices and see how they move us onward in our transformation.

However tarnished we may be, God never gives up on us. Paul writes in Ephesians 4:22-24, “You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

As you go through your week at home or work or church, talking or texting or calling one another, baking, painting, sewing, overseeing others in your job, or being a parent, remember you do these things because you’re created in the image of God. These activities we so easily take for granted are ways God has stamped his image on us. When we think of life this way, it deepens our understanding of what it means to “give to God what belongs to God.” It is to recognize that our whole lives–every bit of them–belong to God.

Jesus proclaims that God’s kingdom is breaking into this world and transforming it, and that transformation entails turning this upside down world rightside up. The inbreaking kingdom casts the Light of God into every corner of our lives, causing us to reassess and reevaluate everything we thought we knew. Everything has changed because in Jesus, God has torn open the heavens and come down.

Loving God . . . loving others. It’s really quite revolutionary when you think about it.