Doing God's work, one step at a time

From the time Jesus was born until he reached the age of 30, not a single word was spoken of his childhood, except for the story we read and looked at last week. What happened to the first 30 years of his life? Were they not important? What happened? Well, we know that shortly after Jesus was born, Herod issued the decree, which prompted God to tell Joseph to take Jesus and Mary westward to Egypt for safety. They did come back, but by the time we see Jesus again, he has aged to 30, Joseph is nowhere to be found, and he is appearing before John the Baptist in order to be baptized. Today, we are going to look at the circumstances and event of Jesus baptism. Before we go further, let’s read Matthew 3:13-17. 13 Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14 But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15 Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. ...

We just finished looking at the birth of Christ over Christmas and the gifts God gives us through Christ, including renewal. Since we were already on that track, I figured that the logical choice would be to study the life of the gift of God. Easter is late this year, April 24th to be exact, and over the next 14 weeks, we are going to take a look at The Life of Christ. Of course, it will need adjusting due to candidates, but either way, I will write the sermons, post them on my website and have a sound recording of them to send out via my weekly emailing even if there is a candidate that week. It is naturally impossible to cover the entire Life of Christ in 14 weeks. What we are going to do each week is study each aspect of his life. This week, the title of the sermon is “The Boy in the Temple”. As if you could not imagine, we are going to look at the Passover where Jesus was in the temple. Unfortunately, we do not have very much information on Jesus’ childhood. There are stories in ot...

'Twas the week after Christmas, and all through my room, nothing would fit me, not even fruit of the loom. The cookies I'd nibble, the eggnog I'd taste, all the holiday parties had gone to my waist. When I got on the scales, there arose such a number! When I walked to the store (less a walk than a lumber). I'd remember the marvelous meals I'd prepared; The gravies and sauces and beef nicely rared. The wine and the rum balls, the bread and the cheese and the way I'd never said, "No thank you, please." As I dressed myself in my old cardinal’s shirt and prepared once again to battle the dirt. I said to myself, as I only can, "You can't spend a winter dressed like a fan!" So away with the last of the sour cream dip, get rid of the fruit cake, every cracker and chip. Every last bit of food that I like must be banished, until all the additional ounces have vanished. I won't have a cookie, not even a lick. I'll want only to chew on a lon...