Cheryl Wood

[Introvert Problems @IntrovertProbss]

I hate when people ask me, “Why are you so quiet?” I’m quiet because that’s how I function. I don’t ask others, “Why do you talk so much?” That would be rude

[Brady Shearer @BradyShearer]

Most churches don't have a welcome video on their website. Just a 2-3 minute walkthrough - parking, kids ministry, what the vibe is, what people tend to wear. Narrated by the pastor.

For anyone on the fence about visiting, it's probably the most helpful thing you could give them. And yet, it's usually the last thing churches make.

[Weapon 𝕏 @HellRaz0r1776]

Big weather system coming through.
Here's what we know so far.

[Cheryl Wood @greyhoundfool]

@efino87 Now, Iowa for sure!

[Cheryl Wood @greyhoundfool]

@efino87 We always had a contest to see who could spot them first. It was so exciting to see them!

[Chad Bird @birdchadlouis]

God doesn't send us crosses to make us stronger. Quite the opposite. They weaken and kill us that we live and find strength not in ourselves but in Christ alone.

[Chad Bird @birdchadlouis]

It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.
-Psalm 119:71

Trials that we never wanted, but that came our way, awaken us from slumber to seek the God who has never left our side, but whom we so often, and so foolishly, forget is there.

[Josh Barzon @JoshuaBarzon]

🧵Hymn History: The Story of “In Christ Alone” by @gettymusic - Its the most beloved modern hymn of the 21st century that sparked a revival of gospel-centered hymnody, proving that deep theology can still capture the hearts of a new generation. Here’s its story🧵👇🏼

[Cheryl Wood @greyhoundfool]

@reformedhg In Christ Alone

[Judianna @Judianna]

If you hear Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries and sing “kill the wabbit” - you’re my tribe and I love you.
https://t.co/8OgPR4Wynu

[Chad Bird @birdchadlouis]

Have you noticed how God’s works generally begin by looking like they’ll be embarrassing failures?

Just consider:

1. In the beginning, the earth was tohu vavohu, that is, “welter and waste” (Robert Alter’s translation). How could anything good come from this? That’s like expecting a pile of mud to become the Mona Lisa.

2. Whom does God choose to bear a promised son? A husband and wife old enough to get mail from AARP and collect Social Security. Ninety-year-old women don’t buy maternity dresses.

3. The guy the Lord sends to redeem Israel from Egypt has been on the lam for forty years and marshals an impressive array of excuses as to why God should send somebody else—anybody else!—but him. Moses sounds like a setup for failure.

4. And Jonah? Really? Sending the man who despises Assyria to preach to Assyria is the recipe for a textbook ministry implosion.

To us, all of these look like inevitable failures.

But:
•Where we see an impossibility, God sees a sure thing.
•Where we see midnight, the Lord sees the whisper of dawning light.
•Where we see a cross, the Spirit sees a throne.

The Lord has always done his best work with nothing. The nothing of tohu vavohu. The nothing of barren wombs. The nothing of deeply flawed sinners. The nothing of a blood-splattered, mangled body of flesh hanging dead from a cross.

He who created the world from nothing continues to work in the same way. So show me a person who is supposedly a lost cause, and I will show you a person who is prime material for divine workmanship.

Remember, once, long ago, the disciples of a rabbi from Nazareth, once they saw him publicly executed, thought that all their hopes were dashed.

They were soon to learn that, no, hope was only just beginning.

God’s works generally begin by looking like embarrassing failures, but always end crowned with the glory that comes from the Lord who refuses to work according to our expectations.

[Chad Bird @birdchadlouis]

Today we remember that God washes our feet.

The fingers that crafted the universe scrub scum from between toes.

The hands that painted the cosmos wash feet painted with dirt and sweat.

The One before whom all angels bow gets on his knees to labor as a slave.

We become clean, he becomes filthy.

In doing this, Jesus our God gives us a humble epiphany, a revelation of who he is. He is the God who makes his glory visible in lowliness and servitude.

He is the God who gives
-his cheek to the betraying lips of Judas
-his face to the slapping hand of the high priest
-his countenance to the spit of the Sanhedrin.

He is the God who gives
-his head to the thorns
-his feet to the spikes
-his side to the spear.

He is the God who embraces rejection, shame, torture, and death, to give himself to you.

And here is why: because that’s who God is. He is the God who is love. Therefore he loves you by giving to you. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. What he gives you is nothing less than himself.

God gives, you receive. This is everything.

He not only washes your feet; he washes you clean, body and soul, through the holy bath in his name. He fills the baptismal font with water from his spear-pierced side and kneels there to wash off the dirt and sweat and grime of your evil.

He feeds you himself, his body, his blood. Every natural food we take into our bodies is transformed into our bodies. We don't become corn on the cob or hamburgers. But the supper of our Lord is different. This food transforms you into that which it is. You, the church, are the body of Christ. You are what you eat.

So, come and eat. Come and drink. Come to the lowly God who has joined you in your lowliness that he might exalt you in himself.

On Maundy Thursday, let us recall, with thanksgiving, how fitting it all is:

How fitting that humanity, which plunged into death by eating forbidden fruit, should receive life and immortality by a meal provided by our Savior, the Last Adam.

How fitting that sinners, their unity rent asunder by hatred and violence, should be gathered into one communion by partaking of the one loaf, baked from many scattered grains.

How fitting that we, who are hard pressed and beaten down by evil, should be comforted and uplifted by drinking from the Lord’s cup, filled with the blood of grapes that have been trampled and pressed underfoot.

How divinely and beautifully fitting, on this holy Thursday, that we have our feet lovingly washed by the very God from whom we once ran in terror and shame.

Here is our God, Jesus Christ, who comes not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

[Cheryl Wood @greyhoundfool]

@gunsnrosesgirl3 A swim spa for my garage

[Buitengebieden @buitengebieden]

Belgian Malinois vs Golden Retriever.. 😂

[Nicky Gumbel @nickygumbel]

‘I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.’ – Nelson Mandela

[dale terkhorn @GodDamnItDale]

So does a tornado in carmel have to abide by all the roundabouts or?