Psalm 121 calls us to not look towards creation for comfort or help but rather — and always — to the Creator who guards us and keeps us from evil.

It is in our utter dissatisfaction, disenfranchisement, and dismay with the world’s narrative of events that we ultimately take up the path of a ‘long obedience in the same direction’ towards Jesus!

God’s response to human pride and power is to install his “son” on Zion. This points beyond Israel’s king to Jesus, God’s true Son.

“Prayers are tools.” But there’s one important clarification: “Prayers are not tools for doing or getting [as we’re used to in our Western culture], but for being and becoming."

Jesus says that the wise person not only listens to his words [in ‘The Sermon’], but obeys them. When they do, their ‘house’ is built on the rock and survives the storm.

Jesus warns that there are prophets who may say all the right things and even perform mighty works, but their lives do not produce fruit. That is, they do not do the will of God.

Jesus specifically addresses two kinds of paths. One that leads to life — The other, destruction. Jesus himself is the gate that leads to life — But how do we enter it?

What does this Greater Righteousness in the Golden Rule look like? And is there a way that we could ‘do unto others what we would want done to us’ that doesn’t exalt Christ?

For many of us, the reason we judge others harshly and wrongly is because we really don’t understand the graciousness and generosity of God the Father.