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The Root: El Dorado, 101 E Locust Street, El Dorado, AR (2026)

06/02/2026

The Morning Good News
June 2, 2026

And just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him.
Hebrews 9:27-28

————

I’m sticking with chapter 9 for a couple of days, so just keep reading it. There is a lot of stuff in there.

There’s a reason forgiveness feels so radical to us. Deep down, many people, maybe most people, carry a belief that they still owe God something. We imagine salvation as a debt slowly repaid through better behavior, better church attendance, moral improvement, or religious effort. Even after coming to Christ, we continue living as though acceptance must still be earned.

But Hebrews confronts that illusion head on. The sacrifice of Jesus was complete. Full. Final. Nothing remains unfinished. When Christ entered the Holy Place once and for all, He secured eternal redemption for His people. Past sins. Present sins. Future sins. Paid in full.

Now, I don’t really know how all the nuts and bolts of that work. But I am not saved by my theological and doctrinal chops. I’m saved because Jesus says so. That’s good enough for me.

And that truth is difficult to accept because grace dismantles human pride. We want partial ownership of our redemption story. We want to contribute something meaningful. Yet the Gospel leaves no room for boasting. Salvation belongs entirely to Christ. And strangely enough, that is where freedom begins.

The psychologist Karl Menninger once suggested that if people truly believed they were forgiven, most would walk out of their mental prisons the very next day. So much fear, shame, anxiety, and striving are rooted in the belief that we remain condemned. But the Gospel says otherwise.

Jesus came for sinners. He came to proclaim freedom to captives and mercy to the weary. He came for wandering people carrying impossible burdens. And His invitation is not “try harder,” but “come to me.” The soul finally rests when it realizes God is not waiting for greater performance before extending love. In Christ, the verdict has already been spoken. Forgiven. Accepted. Free.

And freedom creates space for joy, gratitude, and love to grow where fear once ruled.
Have a great day.

06/01/2026

The Morning Good News
June 1, 2026

With his own blood—not the blood of goats and calves—he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever.
Hebrews 9:12

————

One of the deepest fears in the human heart is the fear that we haven’t done enough. Have I prayed enough? Repented enough? Served enough? Given enough? Beneath so much religion is this quiet anxiety that God is standing at a distance with scales in His hands, measuring our successes against our failures.

The writer of Hebrews pulls us out of that exhausting cycle and points us toward Jesus.

In John 6, the crowds asked Jesus, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” His answer was startlingly simple: “Believe in him whom he has sent.” That sounds easy at first, but trusting someone else to accomplish your salvation is one of the hardest things in the world. Human beings love lists. We love measurable progress. We love accomplishments we can point toward and say, “Look what I have done.”

But Christianity is built upon the accomplishments of Christ, not the accomplishments of mankind.

He is the faithful servant we failed to be. He fulfilled the law we continually break. He carried sin, shame, fear, and striving all the way to the cross. The Gospel announces that your salvation rests upon His finished work, not your unfinished one.

You no longer have to live beneath the crushing weight of self-salvation projects. You’re free to stop performing for God and begin resting in Him. Freedom begins when we finally believe that forgiveness is real. As long as we think acceptance must still be earned, the soul remains restless.

But Christ has already spoken the final word: “It is finished.” And that means that my striving heart, and your striving heart, can finally breathe again.

Have a great day.

05/29/2026

The Morning Good News
May 29, 2026

When God speaks of a “new” covenant, it means he has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and will soon disappear.
Hebrews 8:13

————

I’m going to keep it short this morning. Its Friday. And I just want to move on with the weekend.

Here is what I want you to know as you march into the weekend: you are spending too much energy trying to preserve old wineskins. It’s not just you. We all do it. We cling to systems, identities, and frameworks that once gave us security because they feel familiar and manageable. Our egos prefer predictability over transformation. We would rather polish the old ideas than surrender to the terrifying freedom of the new one. But God is always moving creation toward renewal.

The old covenant was not bad. It carried humanity as far as humanity could go through law, ritual, sacrifice, and external obedience. Yet eventually the old wineskin could no longer contain the fermenting life of grace. The structures that once served a purpose became too small for the expanding mercy of God revealed in Christ.

This is one of the great spiritual struggles: learning when to let go of forms that can no longer carry life. Jesus did not come merely to improve the old system. He came to fulfill it and move humanity into deeper union with God. The new covenant shifts religion from external management to inward transformation. The law is no longer simply written on stone but upon the heart. God is no longer encountered primarily through distance, hierarchy, and fear, but through communion, presence, and love.

The soul matures when it stops trying to force new wine into old containers. Perhaps part of spiritual growth is allowing God to gently dismantle the systems we once depended on so we can become spacious enough to receive the living Christ Himself.

I hope that begins today.
Have a great weekend.

05/28/2026

The Morning Good News
May 28, 2026

If the first covenant had been faultless,
there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it.
Hebrews 8:7

————

The writer of Hebrews tells us that if the first covenant had been sufficient, there would have been no need for another. The old covenant was good, holy, and given by God, yet it continually exposed humanity’s inability to remain faithful. As God says through Jeremiah, “They did not remain faithful to my covenant.” The problem was never the goodness of God. The problem was the instability of the human heart.

And hey, I know that firsthand. I think most of us know that firsthand. We lie to ourselves way more than anybody else about how good we are. We make promises to God with sincere intentions. We resolve to do better, pray more, sin less, love deeper, stay faithful. Yet over time we discover how fragile our self-reliance really is. The human soul is inconsistent. Our hearts wander. Left to ourselves, we drift toward fear, performance, distraction, and exhaustion.

So God announces something astonishing: “I will make a new covenant.”

Notice the direction of the action in Hebrews 8. God does not say, “They will finally get it right.” He says, “I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts.” The new covenant is not built upon human ability to climb upward toward God. It is built upon God descending toward humanity in grace.

Under the old covenant, the law was written on stone tablets. Under the new covenant, God writes His life within His people. What was external becomes internal. What was obligation becomes transformation.

And then comes the most beautiful promise of all: “I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” The Gospel is not merely about improved behavior. It is about reconciliation. God binding Himself to His people through Christ. The covenant-making God becomes the covenant-keeping God. And because of Jesus, we are no longer standing outside the promise hoping to earn our way in. We are invited to rest inside it.

And that’s Good, Good News.
Have a great day.

05/27/2026

The Morning Good News
May 27, 2026

The law appointed high priests who were limited by human weakness. But after the law was given, God appointed his Son with an oath, and his Son has been made the perfect High Priest forever.
Hebrews 7:28

————

Okay, back to serious stuff. Grow up, they said. This is a house of learned Doctors, they said. Okay, fine.

I grew up with the idea that faith was all about slaying giants, walking through fire, and taming lions. Real men, with real faith, were brave and fearless warriors with a conviction that never wavered. But then I started reading the whole bible, not just the coloring books, and I realized something: the Bible is full of failures. It doesn’t tiptoe around the idea of weakness. Scripture never romanticizes humanity, no matter what I was led to believe in Sunday School.

The priests themselves, those entrusted with representing the people before God, carried within themselves the same human frailty as everyone else. They were finite, anxious, inconsistent, and mortal. Our religion often tempts us to hide that reality behind polished appearances and spiritual performance, but the Gospel continually exposes it as a fruitless pursuit of vanity and self-aggrandizement. We are weak.

Albert Einstein said that no problem can be solved with the same consciousness that created it. The writer of Hebrews already knew that. The old priesthood could never fully heal humanity because it was built upon humanity itself. It’s like watering a flood. Every priest eventually died. Every system eventually crumbled under the weight of human limitation. The law could reveal our separation, but it could never generate our union. It could diagnose the sickness, but it could never heal.

So, God appointed His Son as High Priest. Not temporarily. Not conditionally. Forever. And this priesthood is rooted not in human striving, but in divine life. Jesus does not mediate between God and humanity as a distant religious clergyman. He joins Himself completely to the human condition and carries it through the fires of Hell into the life of God. In Christ, humanity is brought home.

We do not climb our way into worthiness. That may be true at your job, or in the home you grew up in, but it’s not the way of the Kingdom. The movement of the Gospel is always descent before ascent. God enters the weakness of humanity voluntarily and moves toward us in tenderness rather than condemnation. And in doing so, He reveals Himself as a Father who runs to the broken. We aren’t the heroes of this story. But we are the weak and welcomed guests. And that’s good enough for me.

Have a great day.

05/26/2026

The Morning Good News
May 26, 2026

From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Matthew 4:17

————

I learned a couple of valuable lessons over the weekend.

The first is this: you cannot buy a Cardinals hat at Wrigley Field. Actually, you can’t find any good hats at Wrigley Field. They are all blue, or light blue, or white with blue. No red hats anywhere. Not a single bird on a bat. But, know this! Even the most horrendously adorned headwear is better than none when the UV index is pushing double digits. So, even though I was seated in shame, I was thankful for that stupid blue hat. It will hang on my wall as a reminder to always be prepared. Sometimes our salvation is found in the same place as our shame.

The second lesson is this: not all deep-dish pizzas are created equal, but all are created incredible. They have different crusts. The sauces are of varying sweetness and viscosity. The thicknesses are unique. The layers are arranged a bit differently. But, I could eat it every day. In fact, I did eat it every day. Today, right now, I give a slight nod to Lou’s, simply for the crust. But if you ask me tomorrow my answer will be different. The world needs them all. They all serve their purpose. The sum is greater than any of the parts. All deep-dish pizza is good deep-dish pizza and worthy to be praised.

Third, and most importantly, is this: there are no bad days in the bleachers at Wrigley Field. I watched the Cubs lose three games in a row, much to my delight. One game was a three hit shut-out. And, y’all, I don’t think it mattered one bit to the 5,000 people in the bleachers. They were there to spend the day in the sunshine building memories with their friends. It was one gigantic party that had a baseball game in the background. I have never experienced anything like that and may never again this side of heaven. Yes, okay, the alcohol may have helped to lighten the mood, but I genuinely think it was only a slight enhancement to a mood that was already hilariously intoxicating. Imagine what this world could be like if we could all just ignore the silly games being played in the background and focus on celebrating in the sun with our friends.

So, take those lessons for what they are worth. Maybe there’s some Kingdom stuff there if you look hard enough. I’ll get back to Hebrews tomorrow.

Peace and love.

05/21/2026

The Morning Good News
May 21, 2026

Yes, the old requirement about the priesthood was set aside because it was weak and useless. For the law never made anything perfect. But now we have confidence in a better hope, through which we draw near to God.
Hebrews 7:18-19

————

The writer of Hebrews makes a startling claim: if the priesthood has changed, then the entire system built around that priesthood must change as well. Under the old covenant, the priesthood came through Levi and Aaron. It was tied to ancestry, ritual, and law. But Jesus did not come from Levi. He came from Judah, a tribe Moses never associated with priests. That alone signals something massive is happening in redemptive history.

Hebrews says Jesus became a priest “by the power of a life that cannot be destroyed.” His priesthood is not grounded in genealogy or human qualification, but in resurrection life. The old system, while good and necessary for its time, could never heal the human heart. “The law never made anything perfect,” Hebrews says. It could reveal sin, restrain sin, and point toward holiness, but it could not finally liberate humanity from the power of sin and death.

But now, through Christ, “we have confidence in a better hope, through which we draw near to God.”

Many people still live as though their relationship with God depends upon their own ability to perform, maintain, or perfect themselves. We instinctively drift toward self-salvation projects. We try to earn peace through morality, discipline, knowledge, reputation, or religious activity. Yet Hebrews reminds us that Jesus Himself is the foundation of our confidence. He is both the maker and keeper of the covenant.

Our hope rests in the unchanging faithfulness of God. Christ is our eternal High Priest, forever alive, forever interceding, forever sufficient. And because His life cannot be destroyed, neither can the hope anchored in Him.

Alright, I am taking a long weekend. But I will have more to say on Tuesday.
I pray your holiday is full of joy, love, peace, and grateful memories.
~aw

05/20/2026

The Morning Good News
May 20.2026

Consider then how great this Melchizedek was. Even Abraham, the great patriarch of Israel, recognized this by giving him a tenth of what he had taken in battle.
Hebrews 7:4

————

Well, here we go again. Abraham had just returned from battle when he encountered a mysterious figure named Melchizedek. Genesis and Hebrews tell us he was both a king and a priest, “king of righteousness” and “king of peace.” Before Israel had a priesthood, before the Law was given, Melchizedek stood as a picture of something greater still to come.

Hebrews says there is no recorded beginning or ending to his priesthood, and in that way he resembles the Son of God. The writer is not saying Melchizedek was Jesus, but that his life points us toward Jesus. He becomes a shadow of the true and eternal Priest-King.

What is striking is Abraham’s response. Abraham, the great patriarch, the man of promise, humbles himself before Melchizedek and gives him a tenth of everything. Even Abraham recognized there was a greater priesthood at work. The message of Hebrews is clear: Jesus is our greater Melchizedek.

Here is a news flash: earthly systems fade. Human leaders rise and fall. Even the Levitical priests died and were replaced. But Jesus remains forever. His priesthood is permanent because His life is eternal. He is the King of righteousness who makes sinners righteous. He is the King of peace who reconciles us to God. And unlike temporary priests who could only symbolize cleansing, Jesus fully saves those who come to God through Him.

That means our hope is not in religious performance, spiritual pedigree, or our ability to hold ourselves together. Our hope rests in a living Savior who continually intercedes for us.

Today, remember this: you are not trying to reach a distant God through fragile human effort. You are welcomed by a perfect High Priest who knows your weakness, carries your burdens, and never stops praying for you.

Jesus is still King.
Jesus is still Priest.
And Jesus still saves completely.

Have a great day

05/19/2026

The Morning Good News
May 19, 2026

Now when people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question that oath is binding. God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie.
Hebrews 6:16-18

————

If you read this entire section of Scripture, you will engage with one of the most beautiful moments in the entire Bible. The author of Hebrews is taking us back to Genesis 15 and God’s covenant with Abraham. Abraham had heard the promises of God. He had been told that he would become a great nation, that his descendants would multiply, that all nations would be blessed through him. But eventually Abraham asks the same question that every one of us asks at some point: “How can I know?” And that question is part of being human. Can God really be trusted? Will He remain faithful? Will grace hold when life falls apart? Will God keep His word when I fail to keep mine?

In the ancient world, covenants were often sealed through a ceremony where both parties walked together between divided animal pieces. I know that sounds gross, and I’m super pumped that we don’t do covenants like that anymore. But back then, it was a way of saying, “If I break this covenant, may what happened to these animals happen to me.”

But in Genesis 15, something astonishing happens. God puts Abraham to sleep. And then God walks through the pieces alone, representing both the promise giver and the promise keeper.

The covenant with Abraham was never dependent upon Abraham’s ability to hold up his side of the agreement. God swore by Himself because there was no one greater to swear by. The promise to Abraham rested entirely upon the character and faithfulness of God.

That is why Hebrews points back to this story. Our hope is anchored in the fact that the covenant-making God is also the covenant-keeping God. And this reaches its fulfillment in Jesus. Christ becomes the true and better covenant keeper. The God who made the demands also fulfilled the demands. The God who established righteousness also accomplished righteousness on our behalf.

Which means your salvation is not hanging by the fragile thread of your consistency. If it were, none of us would survive. Our confidence rests in the finished work of Christ, who has already entered the Holy of Holies on our behalf and ripped down the veil that we had hung to keep us separate.

That is Good, Good News.

Have a great day.

05/18/2026

The Morning Good News
May 18, 2026

Dear friends, even though we are talking this way, we really don’t believe it applies to you. We are confident that you are meant for better things, things that come with salvation.
Hebrews 6:9

————

The writer of Hebrews has just finished giving one of the strongest warnings in the New Testament. Then suddenly, the tone shifts: “Dear friends, even though we are talking this way, we really don’t believe it applies to you. We are confident that you are meant for better things, things that come with salvation.”

Here is the key phrase in this verse: “things that come with salvation.” What are those things? Fruit. Love. Service. Endurance. Hope. Joy. A life slowly, but surely, transformed by grace.

The Christian life is not merely about agreeing with doctrines or collecting theological information. I mean, I am a theological ju**ie. I love a good debate about doctrine. But, salvation produces movement in other areas of our life too, not just intellectual. The Spirit creates a growing love for God and for people. And the writer of Hebrews points specifically to the way these believers cared for one another. Their love became visible through service.

Scripture returns to this theme over and over again. Jesus says the world will recognize His disciples by their love. John says that those who refuse to love their brother do not truly know God. Genuine faith is more than inward transformation. It always begins pushing outward toward others.

Spiritual maturity is often far quieter and slower than we expect it to be. We tend to look for dramatic moments, massive breakthroughs, or visible spiritual achievements. But Hebrews points us toward something much more ordinary and much more profound: steadfast love, patient endurance, continued faithfulness, caring for others when nobody notices, continuing to hope when life becomes heavy, continuing to serve when there is no applause attached to it. Grace forms people over time. The Gospel slowly reshapes our instincts, our desires, our reactions, and even the way we see the people around us. Fruit does not appear overnight. Roots must go deep before branches can stretch wide. And where the Spirit of Christ is truly at work, love will eventually begin showing up in tangible ways.

Have a great day.

The Root: El Dorado

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