Living Above the Sun Ministries

"The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed." -Psalm 34, 147; Isaiah 61, 53 ESV So, it turns out even the things that are to be most durable, can shatter. Tonight, a corelle dish that calls itself 'break-resistant,' shattered all over the floor of my kitchen. I tried not to cry, it had been a long time since I had dropped something and broke it. This was a treasured, sentimental bowl, and my heart was crushed. But what if this is right where God intends to meet us? Not on a high mountai...

"This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there’s not a trace of darkness in him. If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth—we’re not living what we claim. But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin. If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. If we claim that we’ve never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God." - 1 John 1:5-10, The Message This past week in the Carolinas we endured s...

"Listen, dear friends, to God’s truth, bend your ears to what I tell you. I’m chewing on the morsel of a proverb; I’ll let you in on the sweet old truths, Stories we heard from our fathers, counsel we learned at our mother’s knee. We’re not keeping this to ourselves, we’re passing it along to the next generation—God’s fame and fortune, the marvelous things he has done." -Psalm 78:1-4, The Message Some of Jesus' most remembered words is a sermon known as, The Beatitudes. In it Jesus echos many Psalms, and Hebrew text. We know that to understand scripture it usually is tied and referenced with another scripture. This is a rule of hermeneutics, letting the scripture interpret the scripture. John revealed to us in his gospel that Jesus is the Word, and the Word quoted Himself. Jesus used the word, "blessed" in this Sermon on the Mount. We like the idea of being and receiving blessing from God. A blessing in the Greek seems to communicate a receiving of G...