Dear Friends: The account of Jesus healing the paralyzed man at the pool of Bethesda in John 5:2-15 has always intrigued me. John tells the story in an uncharacteristically spare fashion as the prelude to describing some of the most incredible claims of Jesus to divinity. The story stands on its own with the kind […]
Kent Hansen
A Word of Grace – June 20, 2011
Dear Friends: It is Father’s Day and I am feeling, well . . . fatherly. My son Andrew, all smiling, six feet of him came in last night and hugged me and said “I am glad that you’re my dad.” I replied, “I’m glad that you’re my son. I’m proud of you and the man […]
A Word of Grace – June 13, 2011
Dear Friends: Is there one of us who doesn’t face some gulf that we can’t span? Some flood that overwhelms us? Some distance greater than our weak faith can seem to close? The lament of David in Psalm 69:1-3 expresses what this can feel like– Save me, O God; for the waters have come up […]
A Word of Grace – June 6, 2011
Dear Friends: When most people think of “idols” the have in mind literal statues–or the next pop star anointed by Simon Cowell. Yet while traditional idol worship still occurs in many places of the world, internal idol worship, within the heart, is universal. In Ezekiel 14:3, God says of the elders of Israel, “These men […]
A Word of Grace – May 31, 2011
Dear Friends: We are merely human beings– just like you! We have come to bring you the Good News. Acts 14:15, NLT “I am only human.” Is there anyone of us who hasn’t said this a thousand times? It is our most profound confession of inadequacy and limitation. It admits that we lack something necessary […]