I think Jesus would’ve spent a lot of time at Walmart because the people who shop there often need his love the most.

Take you spirituality, your outreach, your ministry, your evangelism to Walmart.  If it doesn’t work there, is it worth doing?

A war on Christmas?

After reading Matthew chapter 2 I doubt King Herod would have wished you a Merry Christmas either.

Remember – your faith doesn’t need validation from a television station, a retail store, a bureaucratic government agency or your kid’s school. Think about it – why on earth would you ever expect the powers-that-be to affirm your allegiance to another Lord?

Sometimes discipleship is about being different.

Read Luke 3.

If John the Baptist were around today, what would he be preaching about? Who would he be preaching to?  Who are the “mountain and hills” he would bring low?  Where are the valleys that would be filled? Whose assumed self-righteousness would he be assaulting?

Do you think John the Baptist would be welcomed in your neighborhood?  In your church?  Would you go out to the wilderness to hear this crazy man on the margins of society tell you your priorities were out of whack?

Advent is a time of preparation, a time to get dressed and ready for the coming of the Kingdom of God.  But readiness in the Kingdom of God doesn’t look like normal life.  Advent readiness is outside of the ordinary, against the status quo. Advent readiness is strange: it resists the rhythms of time and it drives us out into the empty, ugly places where none of our own gods would dare have us be seen.

In order to prepare the way for the Lord in your life you have to turn and confront something outside of your routine.  You have to repent.