In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk — better yet, run! — on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. […]

Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense God’s grace.

My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about

O Lord, be gracious to us; we wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble.

Then they were on the road. They preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different; right and left they sent the demons packing; they brought wellness to the sick, anointing their bodies, healing their spirits.

I pray to God — my life a prayer — and wait for what God will say and do.My life is on the line before God, my Lord, waiting and watching till morning, waiting and watching till morning.

How wonderful, how beautiful, when brothers and sisters get along!It’s like costly anointing oil flowing down head and beard,Flowing down Aaron’s beard, flowing down the collar of his priestly robes.It’s like the dew on Mount Hermon flowing down the slopes of Zion.Yes, that’s where God commands the blessing, ordains eternal life.

How can we picture God’s realm? What kind of story can we use? It’s like an acorn. When it lands on the ground it is quite small as seeds go, yet once it is planted it grows into a huge oak tree with thick branches. Eagles nest in it.

So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without God’s unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish

Then Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made to serve us; we weren’t made to serve the Sabbath. The Son of Humanity is no yes-person to the Sabbath. He’s in charge!”