The Joshua Victor Theory

April 12, 2020 Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Amen! Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Greetings to my Emmanuel Lu- theran Ohana! I wanted to begin with a personal greeting to you all. It was just about a year ago that I came home for a brief visit to my family after Chaplain School, and preached for you on Palm Sunday. The past year has flown by with my deployment in Afghanistan, and now I am nearly home. As I am writing this, now on Easter Sunday evening, I am at Fort Bliss, TX, having completed my quarantine and getting ready to do the last couple of days of out processing tasks. I should be back on Maui before the end of the week! I look forward to seeing you all soon, though I still will have to complete another state ordered quarantine on return to Maui, but that at least will be in my home. This Easter Sunday is unlike any in our recent memory, as for the first time that most (all?) of us can reme...

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The strong theme that runs through all three of our readings today is faith, and we’ll look today especially at Genesis 15 and Hebrews 11 (sometimes called the great faith chapter), to better understand what faith is and isn’t. We’ll see what characteristics attend faith, and also consider those characteristics that are contrary to faith. And, most importantly, find how God supplies and strengthens our faith, as He did for the saints of old. Hebrews 11:1 begins with the beautiful definition, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” These first two qualities of faith—assurance and conviction—quickly show us what the contrasting qualities to faith must be—doubt and uncertainty. That is to say that faith is confident and sure, it is not wavering and doubtful. It is confident and sure because it builds on the rock of our confidence—Jesus’ Chris...