Posts by Michele Crater

June 2, 2021 DAILY READING Psalm 100 Matthew 20:17-28 This week’s sermon text: James 3:1-12 FIELD NOTES Today’s scripture reminds us of the remarkable love of a mother. These two sons of Zebedee, for whatever reason, don’t ask Jesus for a place of prominence. But their mother will! She begs Jesus for her sons to…

June 1, 2021 DAILY READING Psalm 100 Hebrews 13:20-21 This week’s sermon text: James 3:1-12 FIELD NOTES Today’s scripture passage is a benediction, a closing statement of God’s grace for believers. But in this powerful closing statement of Hebrews, we also receive a succinct formula for God’s salvation of all people. The formula starts with…

May 31, 2021 DAILY READING Psalm 100 1 Peter 5:1-5 This week’s sermon text: James 3:1-12 FIELD NOTES When most people think about the world’s great leaders, they imagine figures that can command people’s attention, that demand respect from others, that are brilliant orators, or that can bend other people’s will to their own, even…

May 28, 2021 DAILY READING Matthew 5:1-12 [Psalm 33:12-22] FIELD NOTES From The Voice translation: “And He began to teach them. Jesus: Blessed are the spiritually poor—the kingdom of heaven is theirs.     Blessed are those who mourn—they will be comforted.     Blessed are the meek and gentle—they will inherit the earth.     Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for…

May 28, 2021 DAILY READING Romans 8:14-17 [Psalm 33:12-22] FIELD NOTES I think of some of my favorite books and movies– how many are underdog stories? The Lord of the Rings is about how the smallest, most inconsequential beings in all of Middle-Earth are ultimately what it needs to defeat evil. In Hoosiers, a troubled…

May 27, 2021 DAILY READING Acts 2:1-11 [Psalm 33:12-22] FIELD NOTES In high school, I went on a mission trip with an organization to the Florida panhandle.  We helped fix up a home in a very poor fishing village just outside of Pensacola.  One night, the mission organization invited all of the groups to attend a very…

May 26, 2021 DAILY READING John 3:31-36Psalm 99 FIELD NOTES When speaking of Jesus in his time, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis has this to say: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t…

May 25, 2021 DAILY READING 1 Peter 4:7-11Psalm 99 FIELD NOTES Recently, I heard a story of a woman who could have appeared on the television show Hoarders.  The woman at the center of the story could not move around her house, for it was full of trash, animal waste, and even her own waste.  She had a…

May 24, 2021 DAILY READING 1 Peter 4:1-6Psalm 99 FIELD NOTES From The Voice translation: “Since the Anointed suffered in the flesh, prepare yourselves to do the same—anyone who has suffered in the flesh for the Lord is no longer in the grip of sin— so that you may live the rest of your life…