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You can tell a lot about someone by the things and people they surround themselves with. On the one hand, this is because where we choose to put time and effort is a reflection of what we value. On the other hand, it is also because we are shaped by our environments: we become like what we are surrounded by. This statement is true spiritually. If we surround ourselves with heavenly influences, we will become heavenly. If we surround ourselves with hellish influences, we will become hellish. Where and how we spend our time is not just a matter of personal preference. It is a matter of choosing who we will become.

There is a lot of movement in the story of the morning of the Lord’s resurrection. The words go or going are used 7 times in the last chapter of Matthew. Women go to the tomb, they are told to go and tell the disciples to go to another place. When the disciples go to that place, the Lord tells them to go out to all nations and make disciples, baptise, and teach. What movement does the Lord want from us? It’s easy to celebrate Easter, eat a few too many chocolates, and go back to normal life without anything having changed. Where does the Lord want us to go this Easter and how do we get up and do it.

This Sunday we celebrate Jesus riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. When He rode in some people recognised Him as the Messiah, other people didn’t know who He was, and other people strongly rejected the idea that He was the Messiah. We hope that we would have been among those who saw Him as the Messiah but, a few chapters later, the Lord warns people not to be fooled by people pretending to be the Messiah. Can we tell the difference between the Lord and people pretending to be the Lord?

In the western world we tend to value individuality above almost anything else. The freedom of the individual is sacrosanct. The Lord also values individual freedom. Without the freedom to make personal choices we would not be able to choose heaven over hell. Yet that does not mean that all freedom is equal: one kind of individual freedom leads to hellish anarchy while the other leads to heavenly order. If we want to follow the Lord, we need to spend time distinguishing between the one and the other.

Doing good things is relatively easy. But what about when you’ve done your good deed for the day only to be assaulted by the nagging feeling that maybe, just maybe, your motive for doing it was a selfish one? Changing our motives is hard because unlike actions, motives cannot be changed directly. We cannot just choose to be motivated by good will at the drop of a hat. Luckily, the Lord lays out a process that we can go through, and if we follow it, over time, our motives will become more and more pure.

Every year we celebrate the founding of Kainon School with a special worship service. This is a great way to celebrate Kainon, because its real foundation is the Lord Himself. This year, in keeping with the school theme of “Prayer from the Heart” we will look at how prayer gives us a foundation that can carry us through even the most difficult of times.

The phrase “the writing is on the wall” comes from the story that we’re going to be exploring on Sunday. During a wild and profane party, the new king of Babylon, Belshazzar, sees a hand write a mysterious message on the wall. And the meaning of the message, as explained by Daniel, is that Belshazzar has been evaluated, found to be deficient, and so will have the kingdom taken from him. In our process of working to have love triumph over our ego, we will have times when the writing is on the wall for some aspect of our lives. Are we willing to have that part of us die?

When a person hits rock bottom, there can be a lot of shame. This is especially true if it seemed for a long time that he had everything together, only to have it all come crashing down. But shame is not where a person has to end. Every failure is an opportunity to learn and grow. When we take that opportunity, the greatest lesson we learn is that of embracing humility and rising out of shame.