Pastor Gene's Blog (Page 11)

Pastor Gene's Blog (Page 11)

The Well

God Gives, but Not to Everyone

“For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away” (Matthew 25:29). Near the very end of His earthly ministry, Jesus told a story, a parable. It was about a Master who was about to go on a journey and three servants He left behind. Before He left, He entrusted each of the servants…

The Season Has Changed. (And So Have I.)

I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it” (1 Corinthians 3:2). Mary and I love art! So, recently we took in an exhibition in Boston at the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum called, Fra Angelico: Heaven on Earth. Fra Angelico was a truly breath-taking painter of the early renaissance. He was a very devout man. It’s said that whenever he attempted…

John’s Two Longings

Of the four Gospels, John’s stands alone in many ways. His focus is more upon what Jesus said than what He did. We almost get the sense that the aged apostle is ‘filling in the gaps’ left by the earlier three Gospels. After all, he’s writing some sixty years after Jesus’ resurrection. He’s had a lot of time to consider all that he witnessed and what it meant. He’d lived…

A Memorable Meal

There are certain things we just never forget. When I was a very young boy, my brother Mike and I were playing with a garden hose that had been coiled aside my grandfather’s – my Pépère Giguere’s – house on Hope St. in Woonsocket. He saw us playing with the water and yelled at us. I was, well, startled and terrified. I remember it vividly. He wore a plaid shirt and…

Another Fire

“When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast” (John…

Breakfast with Jesus

“Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5 Jesus said to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” They answered him, “No.” 6 He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish. 7 That…

Sojourns in Solitude: Leaving the Desert, Trembling

In Matthew 14, Jesus performed one of His most astonishing miracles: He fed a multitude of 5,000+ bewildered people with a few fish and few loaves of bread. God had moved and moved powerfully. He’d manifested His omnipotent control over the natural in a supernatural display of divine capability. It…

Sojourns in Solitude: Prayer and the Festal Shout

A wonderful passage in Peter’s second epistle reminds us that God’s “divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” – life to the full (John 10:10b). Peter’s words are a beautiful…

Sojourns in Solitude: The Sound of a Gentle Blowing

Jesus often retreated to a quiet place alone to talk with His Father. As His disciples, we need to do the same. The desert is the best place to evaluate our walk with Him – and to consider our wins and losses. It’s a place for reflection. When the disciples returned from their brief missionary…

Sojourns in Solitude: The Disciples’ Schoolhouse

We need the desert. A quiet place, a retreat. We need a place where we can meet our heavenly Father without distraction. A place to practice silence in the Lord’s presence. A place to listen, as well as to talk. Job said, “Teach me, and I will be silent; and show me how I have erred” (Job 6:24).…

You Are a Gift From God

One of the greatest longings in life is to have a purpose, a reason for living.   This is true for every human being, saved or unsaved.  Read what Marianna Pogosyan, Ph.D. writes, “Belonging can also contribute to a meaningful life, since being a part of a group connotes being a part of something larger, something that expands beyond the boundaries of our own self, thus…

Together, We Reflect the Glory of God

We forget, don’t we? Life has a way of doing that to us. The old cliché that ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ may or may not be true, but, there’s no doubt that familiarity breeds forgetfulness. We can easily forget how much we need and love those closest to us. The relationship we have with our parents and other older family members is a good example of this. We have a…

Prayer – Life’s Anchor

I have to say, I, like many of you, struggled with prayer.  First, you wonder, why should I pray, God knows everything.  Second, you might say, He never seems to answer my prayers so what’s the sense.  Third, I can never stay focused.  I am always distracted.  Fourth, I feel weird when I pray.  We can go on and on with reasons or excuses not to pray.  It seems strange…

The Three Elements of Faith

They committed themselves to the Apostle’s teaching.  When I think of this I think of Romans when Paul wrote, “Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God”.  We as believers are to, “Live by faith” as it says in Hebrews.   However, the concept of faith can be misleading.  Most people, when you talk about faith, think it means a wishful thought, a hope of some…

“Fun, Fun, Fun on Der Autobahn”

You might know the song Autobahn from the band Kraftwerk. It’s a quick little 23 -minute (!) toe-tapper in which they sing in German, “We’re driving, driving, driving on the Autobahn” over and over again to a wash of electronic music. It’s a krautrock classic. To my American ear, it always sounded like they’re singing, “Fun, fun, fun on the Autobahn,” which made for a…

What Do We Remember

As we read 1 Cor 11:23-26 we notice what our Lord said, “Do this in remembrance of Me.” What is it we are to remember?   Could it be the incarnation?  That God took upon flesh?  That He inhabited a body like ours, frail weak and destined for the grave?  Or could it be that He came from glory into this, comparatively speaking, pigpen of a place called earth.  An earth,…

Worship & Sacrifice

It’s impossible to ‘sanitize’ what God asked Abraham to do that day. “He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you’” (Genesis 22:5). Abraham knew what this meant. After all, this was not his first offering. There were the material items…