Love God, love neighbor, make disciples. doug@pastordougolson.com
When Mary heard what God had called her to do, she said “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). No objections, no requests to find someone else, just a couple of questions. Of all the call stories we hear from scripture, Mary is …
In Luke 3:8 John the Baptist admonishes us to “bear fruit worthy of repentance.” That’s a fancy way of telling us we have to make a change in our lives if we want to be saved. Yes, God loves us as we are, if He didn’t why would He reach out to us at all? …
“The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness ‘prepare ye the way of the Lord!’ Make straight in the desert a highway for our God!” Isaiah 40:3 I don’t really remember ever reading these words from the prophet Isaiah until my senior year in high school when I did the opening tenor solos for …
How do you get ready for an important project or activity? Usually there is planning and research, followed by decisions and a timeline. A lot of time and effort go into preparing for a large scale or long term endeavor. Now I ask you, is there anything more large scale than salvation or long term …
Do you remember a time when you wanted to mend a relationship, to reconnect with someone so that things could return to normal again? How difficult it is to fix things like that! Wouldn’t it be nice to have an instruction manual to tell us how to make that happen? The good news is that …
With all the problems we face in our world today, helping those in need sometimes seems an insurmountable task. There are natural disasters, people out of work and homeless – what does God expect us to do? As always, God expects us to do very best we can with the gifts He gives us. Our …
How could we possibly understand the mind of God? He is so far above us, we have no way of comprehending! Thankfully, God has reached out to us through scripture to teach us His way. Without this wonderful gift, we would wander lost, unable to fully appreciate His love for us. Paul writes in his …
Luke 13:18–19 (LEB): Therefore he said, “What is the kingdom of God like, and to what shall I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his own garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the sky nested in its branches.” Jesus uses …
As the dominant life form on earth, we tend to have a pretty high opinion of ourselves and our acomplishments. Part of this is in line with God’s plan – Genesis 1:28 tells us God said “have dominion over every living thing that moves upon the earth”. Unfortunately, we have taken that to extremes, often …
In Luke 18, Jesus tells of two men praying at the temple – one a Pharisee and one a tax collector. The lesson shows us that only by humbling ourselves can we be made right with God. It sounds so simple, but we find it so hard! Why do we have such difficulty admitting we’ve …