inspiration

THOUGHTS FROM THE 21 DAYS PT. 1

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

In January our church held its annual congregational fast. For 21 days we prayed together, fasted together and meditated on 1 John together. Here are my thoughts from those times of devotion in 1 John.

DAY 1 -That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 1 JOHN 1:1

Your faith is built on the historical, physical reality of Jesus, not an illusion.

Jesus is not my subjective reality. He is not someone I made up in my mind like some imaginary friend. He is a historical figure. History attests to his life. History attests to His expanding influence and history attests to the millions of miraculous life transformations in His name. He is reality. His promise is sure. We can be sure what He said will come to pass.

Photo by Vie Studio on Pexels.com

INFINITY LOOP

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

I have been feeling like a return to creative writing projects is at hand in 2026. I’ve felt it before, but have not had the resolve or the organization to carry out said projects. I feel it is important just now to make a return to creative writing. I have to admit, I don;t really know why…I just know it is time.

Here is a project I have been working on since Sunday’s sermon, on the Importance of Corporate Prayer, preached b y Jonathan Bauver.

YOU CAN LISTEN TO THE SERMON HERE

INFINTIY LOOP

The Code is broken.

The program repeating to its origin point.

We are all lines of code injected into the glitching game

Born to sin, repent and repeat.

Even Heaven is stuck in its perpetual “Holy! Holy! Holy!”

Leaving us with “Woe is me! I am flying to pieces here!”

And “How long oh Lord?”.

The White Hat Hacker came and wrote a new line,

“0’s and 1’s”…”X’s and O’s”…

“It is finished!” He said,

But the infinity loop,

STILL…STILL…STILL

HOLY…HOLY…HOLY

SIN…REPENT…REPEAT.

Here we wait for the seventh seal to be torn.

Then the unreachable code will be breached and

The loop will terminate.

“It is finished!” will “Behold I make all things new!”

“HOLY! HOLY! HOLY!” will be swallowed in that unprecedented half hour silence of Heaven that marks what is next.

Finally, sin… repent…repeat will be dressed in robes of white and never hunger or thirst again.

At last, infinity will receive eternity.

THINKING THROUGH THE THIRD PATHWAY PT. 3

/ joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

I have been meditating on the ideas of “standing with” people and what that means, and about who the “Underserved” are. You can see those thoughts HERE. and HERE.

As I meditate on this whole statement on the underserved (posted in the picture above), I see it relates directly to the Third Pathway.

God has had our church practicing a piece of The Third Pathway for the last five years. The Third Pathway has a lot to do with Doing Life Together. As a church, we are called to do life together.

In our culture, it has become too easy to think of our work as mostly fund raising or giving to an agency that does the work of doing life together for us. We often think if we have given money then we have done our job. But giving is not doing life with people. In fact, when giving is agency directed it can become a blockade to doing life together, especially when we say something like “I give money to the church so I don’t have to go to church. I have done my job.”

Philanthropy can become an opiate to assuage guilt, when it keeps us from being in relationship with people. As I am thinking through this I am beginning to see that many of the ills of our society today stem from a black and white thinking that comes from assumptions about “those people”. That style of thinking is best addressed by being in connection in community with “those people”. It is the third pathway.

We must give of our time talent and treasure, but never confuse giving with relationship.

Photo by Ann H on Pexels.com

PREPARING FOR SPRING

/ joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment
Photo by Nana V on Pexels.com

It’s mid February. I am just getting ready to make cookies for the Library Valentine’s cookie sale. Winter is still releasing its fury over our part of the world, but we are all mindful that its power is coming to an end. Spring is around the corner.

So it’s time to start planning the Spring garden work.

Photo by Engin Sezer on Pexels.com

I usually make great plans, but I am not very good about intentionally carrying them out. This year it will be all about the execution. Things are going to begin to shift here at The Vicarage as we come into the Spring.

ARE YOU IN PLANNING FOR THE SPRING AND SUMMER…OR…MAYBE WHERE YOU ARE YOUR PLANNING FOR THE FALL OR WINTER?