Gary Walter

John 3:1-18 As I grow older I am aware of God's Amazing Grace more and more in my life. I am so totally undeserving of the Grace of God and yet he continues to pour it out and make it available to me. When you realize that God's grace is poured out in spite of you it truly is amazing. A time to see God's Amazing Grace all around us.

Mark 2:1-12 Jesus is the only place to take someone who is need of healing. Many people try to take people all sorts of places for their help. When someone has problems in their lives everyone has an opinion, but the place to go is to the only one who can really do anything about the problem.

Matthew 5:1-12 The promise of today's passage is that this grim and often grotesque reality is not the final chapter of human history--there is going to be an unexpected twist in the tale with a turn toward love and peace and justice. God is writing a surprise ending to this story, and he invites each of us to play a part by doing what we can to live by the values of Christ's kingdom.

Micah 6:3-8 When we do what is right and show mercy, this is the relationship that God wants us to have with each other. To walk humbly with God is the relationship that he wants to have with us.

2 Corinthians 6:1-13

1 Samuel 16:7; 1 Chronicles 28:9; Proverbs 4:23; Luke 6:43-45

Luke 6:17-26 God sent Jesus to die on the cross not to "make a difference in the world," but to make a different world; not to make adjustments and accommodations in the existing order, but to throw out the existing order and replace it with another; not merely (to borrow Bonhoeffer's phrase) to bind the wounds created by the crushing wheel, but to destroy the crushing wheel itself; not to change the diet, but to change the lifestyle.

Luke 4:1-13 Although some situations may seem to challenge our commitment to God's authority in tiny, even inconsequential ways, for Jesus there was no such thing as being "kind of" obedient to God. We are either "for God or against God." If even our shaky human intuition can accurately inform us when we should ". . . go there" and ". . . don't go there" in many situations, how much more should we trust the Word of God and the witness of Christ to reliably guide us at all times and in all situations!

1 Peter 2:1-10 How tempting it is to abandon spiritual principles for a momentary desire, only to find ourselves dying on the way down. "Because it's there" is never enough of a reason to live. "Because He lives" is always the reason to live. As we approach the season of Pentecost, let us remember that it is not we who go for the gusto, but that in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Gusto comes after us and possesses us.