Pastor Eve Mercie

Proverbs 12:22 says the Lord detests lying lips but delights in trustworthy people. The word detests is not casual. It places dishonesty in the same moral category as things God finds repulsive at a fundamental level. And the delight is personal. God responds to honest people with something that resembles pleasure. Most people consider themselves … Read more

The mothers of the Bible were not selected for their qualifications. Hagar was a slave. Rahab was a prostitute. Ruth was a foreigner from a nation Israel had reason to distrust. Bathsheba entered the story as a victim of royal abuse. Mary was a teenager in a small town who had never been with a … Read more

Jesus told his followers to look at the birds of the air. Not study them. Not analyze their behavior. Look at them. Notice something. They do not sow. They do not reap. They do not gather into barns. And yet your heavenly Father feeds them. The observation is simple enough for a child to understand … Read more

The Bible does not use the word resilience. It uses something heavier: endurance. The Greek word is hupomone, and it appears across the New Testament with a consistency that reveals how central the concept is to the life of faith. It does not mean bouncing back quickly. It means remaining under the weight without collapsing, … Read more

Psalm 127:3 does not call children a responsibility first. It calls them a heritage from the Lord and a reward. The word heritage carries the weight of an inheritance. Something received, not manufactured. Something given from above, not produced by effort alone. The child who enters a family arrives as a grant from God, carrying … Read more

Jesus was patient with sinners. He was not patient with hypocrites. The tax collectors and prostitutes received invitations to dinner. The Pharisees received seven consecutive woes in Matthew 23, the longest sustained verbal confrontation recorded in the Gospels. The difference was not the severity of the sin. Tax collectors were collaborators with Rome, and prostitutes … Read more

The world measures a good man by what he has accomplished, what he earns, how he is perceived, and what he has built. Scripture measures him by what he does when no one is watching, how he treats people who cannot benefit him, whether his private life matches his public reputation, and what comes out … Read more

1 Corinthians 14:33 says God is not a God of confusion but of peace. Paul wrote that to a church where the worship services had become chaotic, with people speaking over each other, no one interpreting, and the meetings producing more disorder than edification. His correction was not a preference for quiet services. It was … Read more

Isaiah 49:16 says I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Engraved, not written. Writing fades. Engraving is permanent. The image is of a God who has marked himself with your identity in a place he cannot look at without seeing you. The palms of his hands are where you live, which means … Read more

Frustration is the emotion that shows up when the gap between what you expected and what actually happened becomes too wide to ignore. The project that should have worked did not. The person who should have understood you did not. The prayer that should have been answered by now has not been. The effort you … Read more