Author: Dave Dishman (Page 359 of 459)

Yesterday my wife’s text feed started rattling with friends and family checking in to see if we were safe. Thus we discovered the horrific shooting at a Boulder grocery store.

It’s not our regular store, although we have friends who live close and shop there. This event brings to mind the Columbine shooting and the Aurora theatre massacre, which also involved calls to make sure our family was ok.

I read this quote from Paul Tripp this morning, “We live in a broken world that doesn’t function the way the Creator intended.”

Join us in praying for the people of Boulder, the families of the slain, and traumatized shoppers and employees.

Pray for mercy, as we make our way through a world adrift.

The crew following Jesus numbered more than his his twelve disciples. It also included several women, who Luke identified as cured of evil spirits and diseases (a physician, Luke took special notice of such details).

Mary Magdalene walked with Jesus, along with Joanna, Susanna, and many others. These women brought influence – Joanna’s husband managed King Herod’s household – and money. The women helped support the missionary group out of their own pocketbooks.

From the very beginning, dedicated women developed and spread the Christian faith. Thank you to Luke for reminding me of a few of their names, which I can now match with their tremendous legacy.

Luke 8:1-3 in week twelve of reading the Bible cover to cover

Turn the other cheek.

If that’s not enough, the soliloquy in Luke 6 forges on to lash the reader with torrents of anti-comfortable messages:

Woe to you who are rich (I’m rich in comparison to the rest of the world); Woe to you who are well fed now (that’s me); Lend to your enemies without expecting to get anything back (you know you won’t); Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful, coupled with this unbelievable news – Because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

Are any teachings of Jesus harder to swallow, let along practice?

No way these divine attributes naturally bubble up within me. I need help.

As I ponder, I realize that I’m one most in need of the Lord’s mercy. Possibly, with his mercy, I might find the strength to turn my cheek and respond mercifully toward others.

Week eleven of reading the Bible cover to cover

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