The Big Story of God
The Big Story of God: New Creation
Intro I love a good ending! In fact, I’ve been known to be so impatient, I skip way ahead and read the last few pages long before I am done with the book!Matthew discovered this on our honeymoon while I was reading “The Hunger Games.” I want to know the ending is good before I really get invested in the story!The good news about this Big Story of God is that we know the end—AND IT’S THE BEST ENDING!! We have…
The Big Story of God: The Church
Run, Forrest This weekend a new Tom Hanks movie came out, “Bridge of Spies.” I heard it was really good, but I wonder if it’s as good as my favorite Tom Hanks movie, “Forrest Gump.” I love the character he played and how the movie intertwined fiction with historical events so well. One scene in particular, I remember vividly. It was while he was serving in the Army in Vietnam. He’s walking through the jungle when suddenly his platoon is in the…
The Big Story of God: The Savior
Introduction Have you ever been given a task to plan or a project to oversee only to have your best laid plans go horribly awry? In my previous life, when I was in banking, I had the job of overseeing bank operations. One of the tasks I was charged with was new projects. Back in 2005, our small community bank decided it was time to enter the 21st century and that we would pursue document imaging for all of our…
The Big Story of God: The Law
Introduction This entry is part of a series called, “The Big Story of God.” We are looking at the overarching theme or narrative running in the Bible from the start to the very end. In previous entries, we saw a personal God that creates everything and desires his creation (you and me) to know him. We saw that humanity disobeyed him, destroying our relationship with him, and allowing sin to enter the world. Even then, God’s desire for his creation to…
The Big Story of God: Covenant
Pinky Swear I love the Old Testament and today’s topic may be one of the most significant, albeit little known, passages in the Old Testament. Today we are going to read about the covenant God made with Abraham, then known as Abram, 4000 years ago. A covenant is a promise, but it’s a little different than what we think of when we think of promises. Most of us know that promises should never be broken, yet they regularly are. As children, I’m…
The Big Story of God: The Fall
From Good to Fallen Earlier, we began a series called, “The Big Story of God.” We started at the beginning of the story. Our story doesn’t begin with “Once upon a time.” It begins with, “In the beginning God created…” As we started looking at the story, we saw from this passage that the most important take-away from the creation story wasn’t the “how” or the “when” of creation, but the “who” and the “why.” We saw that the “who”…
The Big Story of God: Creation
Once Upon a Time “Once upon a time…” These four words bring back good memories for many of us. Perhaps it is the memory of a mom or dad sitting beside you after they tucked you into bed and began to read you a familiar story before you nodded off to sleep, or possibly it is the memory of you saying these words to your own children. These words were just the beginning, introducing a tale sure to capture the…