1. If the season of Lent is a journey, Holy Week is the destination.
  2. Today I would like to share The Legend of the Dogwood, inspired by the words of Stoney Cooper.
  3. The needs of the people remain the same, but now the people are you and me. We still sin, and that sin causes so many challenges in our lives.
  4. It’s scary to share my struggle and to show that I have cracks because once I’ve shown my cards, I open myself up for judgment.
  5. What we discover in O’Connor’s stories and Martin Luther’s theology is that God’s grace is elusive because the human heart is resistant to it.
  6. We can’t predict the harvest. We can only sow.
  7. This is the message of Lent. We are not called to sacrifice for Jesus in order to earn our salvation. Rather, we are called to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.
  8. To believe God is love and thus loves you is a miracle wrought by the Holy Spirit.
  9. His love for you is so deep that in his mercy, while you were yet a sinner, God sent his only begotten Son to die for you.
  10. “So loved,” then isn’t about how much but instead simply how.
  11. Love is pointing to Jesus who said, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
  12. Christ our Word, as with a two-edged sword, burst the devil's belly.