Silly bear

Our Daily Bread
As recently as this morning, my roommate and I were teasing each other.  I teased him about taking him out for his birthday tonight and said other silly, funny things.  He gave his usual response "Silly bear".  I gave my usual response back "We have already established that"!  hehehe

I feel like I have the same conversation with God at times.  God doesn't tease me like my roommate does, but he does remind me how silly I am at times (in his loving way).  I pray that my sins and shortcomings won't be displayed on some jumbo-tron, like the one in the Arena District in Columbus.  Whew...  I am bad enough about showing my sins and shortcomings in the way I act!  Yikes!  Lord help me!

We can find mercy and forgiveness from our Heavenly Father.  He can also help us forgive ourselves.  If we ask and sincerely believe, the Holy Spirit will give us strength to resist temptation.  We are not perfect, however, we can give ourselves to God as much as we humanly can!  Praise God!

Lord, thank you for your love and mercy.  Please help us accept and live this love and mercy!

Teaching Tuesday
Luke
We read the chapter in our book about Luke this week.  IMHO, the text book is very well written.  I read the chapter in what seemed like ten minutes.  "Is that it?" I thought to myself!  I reviewed some of the study materials from the web site that accompanies the book.  That was interesting.  The exercises and review questions helped me focus on the important points from the gospel.

The text book says some of the same things that I wrote about last week, but obviously added a lot more.  Luke is probably the most well-written book in the Bible.  He "cleans up" a lot of the rough sentences and grammar in the Markan sources.  He seems to have had access to the Q source or other sources since he writes about things that aren't in the other gospels.

Luke focuses on who Jesus is and how he is relevant to the our lives today.  This approach was meaningful to the folks of his time and to us today.  He acknowledges that Jesus may not be coming back any day soon like the writings of Paul.  He writes about the stories of Christ that help us live in faith every day.  Praise God!

Read the Gospel of Luke sometime.  Write down your favorite stories and parables.  Notice which ones are unique to Luke!

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May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit - Romans 15:13