Peace Seymour Weekly Messages

Broken relationships are constantly a part of life. There's no escaping them. There are conflicts, fractures, divisions, in all aspects of life. They're unavoidable on this side of eternity, because of our sinful condition. Jesus shows us what true love looks like, by loving us even though we are unlovable. We then, with the love we have been given, are called to love others. It's through this love that relationships are able to ha...

When we disagree with someone or are in conflict with them, we tend to distance ourselves from them. We tend to try to get away from the situation, ignore it, and move on to something else. We don't want to engage in the situation because it's difficult, hard, and we may get hurt. We keep more distance than necessary between those we are in conflict with. While in some relationships we do need to keep some distance, we ought to try...

Forgiveness is a dying art. We don't often want to forgive others. We make up excuses why we shouldn't have to forgive, or why we are justified in our withholding forgiveness. We wait for our emotions to be in the right place. We withhold forgiveness so that we can have leverage over another person. We are still too angry with them and cannot forgive them. Forgiveness is a choice. It's actually a command from Jesus. We are called t...

As broken, fractured people, accountability is something we often try to shirk. We don't want to be held accountable for our sin and for our actions. We want to simply move on, remember that we have forgiveness in Jesus, and go on to the next thing. We need to confess our sin, but often we do not do it, because we don't like to admit our faults, face our mistakes, and bear the consequences. When we confess our sins, we do not make ...

Fairy tales are just that, they are make believe stories. We may say that they aren't real, they typically have a lesson to be learned, and they are supposed to change or inform us about how we live in the real world. The magic only goes as far as the last page of the story. Wistful child-like wishes for dragons, knights, evil villains being defeated, and happily ever afters don't really exist. That's often how we think about fairy...

We all carry difficulties of many kinds. All of us have pains that we simply have to learn to deal with. We have misfortunes, sufferings, and all kinds of problems in this world. Even when we have roses in our lives, we always remember our thorns. As good as life is, there are bad things that happen to us. When all we see is our problems in front of us, we can't ever foresee the end of those problems, and that is when God removes t...

The Gospel can't be preached, unless we acknowledge what the Gospel is an answer to. The problem we have in this world, is that we suffer. We live tragic lives. We have problems that we can't fix. In order to truly understand the Gospel, we have to truly suffer. We have to see our troubles, our mistakes, our sins for what they really are. To hear the Gospel, we must be brought to the end of ourselves. Before the good news of the Go...

Jesus died. His death signifies the rejection of God. The turning away from God's good intentions and desires for us to be our own gods. As a result our flesh and our lives are temporary. We have pain, we experience death. We see the pain in the lives of those before us, like Job, and in our own life. Jesus lives! God has raised Jesus from the dead, that even as we die, we would rise with him! More than that, our pain will be taken...

Death is a part of life and a part of this world; though this is not how it should be. God never wanted us or anyone to die. He wanted us to live and be with him for all time. But our sin ruined that reality God made for us. We rejected and rebelled against God in our sin. Jesus himself was rejected, and we as humanity killed him. God uses Jesus' death, in order to save us. Jesus joins us in death. This is a tragedy, and the ultima...

There is much to be afraid of and fear in this world. We fear the storms and waves of this world. We know that while we have trust in Jesus, there is no promise that we will not suffer in this world. There is pain, suffering, and things that can happen to us that we fear. We often rely on ourselves to save us, but our own bravery or ability is not what saves us. In fact it is not enough to save us from the storms and waves of life....

We are guilty of sin. We feel the burden of our wrongdoing and choices in life. We have to bear the consequences of our actions that include our actions that have hurt us, hurt others, and the punishment for those actions. We feel not only guilt, but also shame over who we are and what we have done. We feel unlovable, ashamed, and we know we are guilty. Though we are guilty, Jesus removes our guilt. He forgives and removes our sin....

There are many hurts and sicknesses we deal with in this world. There is acute, surprising, unforeseen hurts and injuries that we encounter. There are also chronic diseases, nagging hurts that won't go away, and life changing events we don't know how to come back from. Life is difficult, it's rough on us, the world is broken and people and things can hurt us. Jesus heals all our hurts. Jesus came not only to save us, but to heal al...

It's easy to become lost in this world. Whether we intentionally stray from God, seeking to run from him, or we find ourselves slowly drifting and tempted from him, we all can feel lost. When the things we hope give us purpose and freedom are taken from us, that is when we are lost. We seek other things to rescue us, strengthen us, give us freedom, give us what we desire, but these all fall flat at some point. Jesus was sent to see...

In our world, there is much brokenness. Much is damaged, destroyed, hurt, and killed. Things that can go wrong, often do go wrong. We have worries, fears, and worst case scenarios that often become realized. When they do, we wonder, what next? What are we to do? How do we recover? What's our next step? What now? We do not need to fear what will come next. We know that our God has come, that Jesus has come, to restore all that is br...

We can often feel as though we are alone. We are broken people, unlovable, outside the love and affections of others, our friends, family, and even God's love. We despair that we are on our own, attempting to make it through life without the love, support, and help of others. Yet in the church, in God's family, we are never alone. Rather we are invited to the table, that is, to God's table. We are adopted and made a member of God's...

Our lives are full of pain. We can easily become bitter about this. Where is God? Why won't he act? What did I do to deserve this? Why am I being punished? We feel a sense of injustice, just as Job did. We feel abandoned by God even. As if he has left us and is nowhere to be found. We do deserve suffering in this world, because we have brought sin into it. Yet, we know that God does not punish us for our sins, but forgives us when ...

We often think that faith is a personal, static thing. Once we get confirmed, we can coast in our church life and community for the rest of our lives. We know all the stuff we need to, we've 'arrived' or 'graduated' church, and now we simply punch our 'church card' once a week (or month, or year). Yet, we are called to grow not only in faith and knowledge of God and his word, but in our practice and love for one another, but few am...

We often desire to prove and argue our faith with others. This can be a great practice and skill as people learn about our faith. Yet in our world and culture today, people cannot be argued into faith. Many have tried and failed to use 'traditional apologetics' to prove that Jesus lived, died, rose again, and is coming back soon. Still, many disbelieve, make excuses to not believe, and they simply reject Jesus' word. Trusting that ...

Style, practice, and form of worship often is given too much emphasis in our world today. We church shop, have preferences, and pick apart good and salutary worship, both in a 'contemporary' and 'traditional' style. Rather than seek what is best for the community and for those in worship, we argue, debate, and resent those who practice the faith a certain way. All things are lawful for us as people of faith. Yet, not all things are...