MAC KIRK

“I wish to know about overcoming the world.” I John 5:1-5 A better title of this may be, “ I wish to overcome the world.” A Christian should want to do that. Now an unbeliever may see the goodness and light that is in God and desire that as well, but he will have some desire especially In this time of Epiphany when we have celebrated the birth of Jesus & the coming of the wise men ( magi) to the manger.” I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Isaiah 49:6b An unbeliever is looking to see is this something I want? An unbeliever is certainly struggling with the ways of the world and seeing that these do not satisfy eternally. I remember what someone said to me when I was at seminary when I was saying I was struggling with a certain course and what I was doing to work on it, “ And how is that working for you?” We may say this to our fellow men, “ And how is that life style and belief system working for you?” We kno...

--- Epiphany Matthew 2:1-12; Isaiah 60:1-6; Eph. 3:1-12 Wisdom-how do we get it? What do we do with it? This sounds like the five w’s does it not? We would say wisdom comes from God. He is the who. The wise men or magi as they are called came from the east , perhaps Persia or Mesopotamia. They had to make a journey to find wisdom. We would say getting wisdom is not so easy either. It starts with spiritual knowledge . “ The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Prov. 1:7 Ecclesiastes reminds us that “ much study is a weariness of the flesh.” 12:12 The conclusion of the whole matter is “ Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” How do we get it? I Corinithians tells us that “ in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God..” 1:21 People have their own ideas of what happiness and success looks like. But the ways of the world are not wise according to the Apostle. “ it pleased God by t...

This is going to be a topical study taking off from the wise men and the star for this Sunday....more to follow on this one. So wisdom is? Fill in the blank coming.

Jan 1. Holy Name of Jesus Numbers 6:22-27 Galatians 4:4-7 or Philippians 2:5-11 Luke 2:15-21 Psalm 8 Names are important, and titles as well. They have meaning and significance. Luke records that the child born to Mary would be called, “Jesus” which means literally savior (1:31). Of course during Advent and Christmas Eve we heard the reading from Isaiah 7 . “ the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” Vs 14 ---literally “ God with us.” Today we read from Luke 2 paying special attention to vs. 21, “ on the 8th day , when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived.” Genesis 17 says this was an obligation of covenantal that is believing families, “ every male among you shall be circumcised.” 17:10 We remember from last week’s meditation that Jesus was born in a manger for there was no room in the house /inn. His mother put swaddling clothes around him and she did this ...