It may be helpful to think about intentionally making friends instead of just letting friendship happen.

These thoughts come from a wise old pastor who recently passed away. He shares two key thoughts on what it means to mentor well. His advice is relevant not just for mentoring relationships.

In Paul’s remarkable speech in front of the philosophers in the center of Athens, he makes that claim that “God is not far from any one of us“ (Acts 17:27).

In the very same book where Paul highlights two of TImothy’s key mentors (his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois), it’s also quite obvious that Paul himself was one of Timothy’s mentors. It’s crucial to have more than one mentor.

One of the roles of mentors is to give a fresh perspective with directness and encouragement.

Timothy was mentored by the Apostle Paul. But Paul is smart enough to know that Timothy’s mentoring didn’t start with him. It started with his mother and his grandmother - women of deep faith who trained Timothy up in a way of life that oriented towards God.

Ultimately the book of Revelation paints a picture of the renewal of all things - where Jesus gets his Bride (which is you, amongst others!) and she is beautiful. She’s fully herself - just the way she was meant to be.

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. - Revelation 7:9

The book of Revelation has dragons, beasts, swarms of locusts, and angels wiping out entire nations. It’s like a science fiction book on steroids.

One of the keys to unlocking the book of Revelation is asking the power question.

Have you ever sat down to watch a comedy and it turned out the movie you chose was actually an action flic? There comes a moment when it dawns on you… this is not what I thought it was! That often happens when Christians read the book of Revelation.

Today’s devotional is a little whimsical. Feel the embodied nature of what it means to really live, and let the Spirit speak to you today of joy and blessing.

Jesus points out that there’s a whole lot in your life you didn’t earn. It was just plain given to you.

The grateful soul of the wise person is the true altar of God. - Philo of Alexandria (first century A.D.)

 Give thanks in all circumstances;for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. - 1 Thessalonians 5:18

One of the overarching themes of scripture is that God blesses us in part so that we can turn around and be a blessing to others. Way back at the beginning of the story, that is what God said to Abraham.

In Sunday’s message we talked some about the penal substitutionary atonement theory, which is one view of what happened on the cross (and it is particularly popular with evangelicals). There are other ways of seeing the scripture.

The apostle Paul got real upset with Christians who thought that checking off boxes on the religion scorecard got them something with God.

The whole purpose of God drawing us to Christ is so that for all eternity God could lavish more and more goodness on us.

As 1 John 4:16 says , God is love. Amongst other things, that means that God is the ultimate bless-er. God loves to bless - to pour on us grace stacked on grace.