Matthew 2:1-12

The hard part of faith isn’t scrounging up grace — the hard part is recognizing grace when it’s right in front of our faces. The hard part is recognizing and accepting and receiving grace when it’s moonwalking across our lives.

Ephesians 4:1-6

We this child go into the care of the Spirit, who will guide him, teach him, bring him to unexpected places, and bring him back to the unique image that God has placed within him.

Luke 12:32-40

Christ will not come again as a militaristic punisher. Christ will come again as a guest from a wedding banquet — Christ will come from a place of abiding joy and unmeasurable love.

Acts 2:1-21

The Spirit pours out flames upon each of us, not for the sake of growing our finances, or for the sake of larger membership, but for the sake of our neighbors. We’re not a cargo freighter at sea; we’re a dinghy on a lake, and when we open our sail, can easily catch the wind of the Spirit.

Acts 11:1-18

Peter saw everything he was taught to avoid, and everything he was taught to reject, coming down in a sheet. He was being called by God to support and love Samaritans and eunuchs and Romans and foreigner gentiles. He was being asked to transgress the boundaries he formed and the lines in the sand he drew.

Luke 1:46-55 & Matthew 2:1-12

The magi are all the wrong people, looking in all the wrong places. And yet, these wrong people, in the wrong places, were woven into the story of redemption, the people God chose to meet at the front door of life. We see time and time again that is “who” and “where” God fashions the sacred into the world.

Mark 7:24-30 and Mark 8:27-30

What if—in trying to hold onto the Jesus we’ve known—we’re missing the very Jesus who is trying to bring wholeness into our lives? God wants to unravel every one of our expectations about who Jesus is and weave together something unimaginably realer, and unimaginably better.