Benaiah Barango
April 15, 2026
In
He walks away.
At the feet of Jesus Christ, Peter realizes something: the miracle was never the destination. It was an invitation.
How often do we treat God’s blessings as endpoints instead of doorways?
That breakthrough, that promotion, that opportunity — it wasn’t given to pull you away from God, but to draw you deeper into His purpose.
Years later, Peter would say "We have left everything to follow you" And Jesus responds with a promise: that no one who leaves things for His sake will go without, but will receive far more in return
Peter could have stayed, building a life around that moment, returning again and again for another miracle. But instead, Jesus revealed something greater — a calling that redefined his priorities.
And Peter followed.
Some blessings are not meant to be held onto, but to be surrendered.
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Why not skip genealogies, measurements and all the other parts that seem... boring? Yes, you might have come across the passage that tells us that every verse is intentionally written by inspiration from God 2 Timothy 3:16 But if we're honest with ourselves, we still struggle with reading these parts of the Bible. So what then? Something that might help is thinking about a personal relationship you care about. Like your spouse, a very close friend, or your child. Imagine that person is talking in great detail about their job, and you can't seem to grasp what they're talking about or muster interest even. You end up making an implicit decision. You could tell them you find it boring and ask them to skip over that part when they're talking to you. Which could very well be an excusable thing to do, for the record. But if you're intentional about building/strengthening that relationship, you'll make an effort to understand. You'll ask questions. Or, at the very least, you'll be a listening ear. Because if it's important to them, it's “important” to you.
September 11, 2026
I still remember finding out that not all fruit juices are made from fruit. Somewhere along the way, we worked out how to mimic the taste of mango juice without planting a seed or squeezing a single mango. The result tastes the same, minus all the stress of growing the thing. And it's only noticeable to someone who has tasted the real thing. That trick didn't stay in the drinks aisle. It's crept into almost every corner of life. Including our faith. We already know what the end product of a Christian life looks like. Galatians 5 lays it out Galatians 5:22-23 So we reverse-engineered it. We learned how to sound loving. How to look joyful. How to seem at peace. We picked up the language, showed up to the right rooms, carried all the familiar markers. We got good at playing church. The flavour without the fruit. And what's the harm? From the outside, nothing. It looks remarkably like the real thing. But Paul never told us to produce the fruit of the Spirit. He said it grows, when we walk by the Spirit. One is imitation. The other is transformation. There's a difference. You can fake patience for a while. You can learn the vocabulary of love. You can build a whole life that looks like Jesus from a distance. But pressure reveals what's actually growing underneath (see Matthew 7:24-27). And when following him finally costs you something, flavour has nothing to give. The goal was never to get better at looking like Jesus. It was to become like him. And that's the one thing you can't manufacture. It grows, or it doesn't. Flavour without the fruit leads nowhere. So why build a life around it?
August 2, 2026
Some of the hardest parts of following Jesus aren't always questions of right and wrong. Sometimes it's trying to figure out how to respond when someone believes something different than you do. How do I stay faithful to what I believe without becoming cold? How do I care for someone without feeling like I'm compromising? How do I speak truth without losing compassion? When we read through the Gospels, we notice a recurring theme: Jesus was constantly moved by compassion. A leper who was culturally ostracized from his community Mark 1:41 A rich young ruler who was wrestling with whether he was actually willing to follow Him. Mark 10:21 And His answer to someone trying to find the edge of who's worth loving? Jesus answers with a story where the hero is the person his audience would have least expected to count. There's no qualifier in the answer. Just: go and do likewise Luke 10:33 Jesus wasn't soft on sin. Look at what He actually told that rich young ruler: sell everything, give it to the poor, then come follow Him. That's about as direct as it gets. But notice the order. He looked at him and loved him first. The hard truth didn't replace the compassion. It came out of it. He wasn't looking for opportunities to win arguments or prove people wrong. He saw people. He understood where they were coming from. Even when He challenged people, it came from love. That doesn't mean love means agreeing with everything. And it doesn't mean avoiding hard conversations. But maybe love should be our starting point. Maybe before responding, we try to understand. Before correcting, we remember there's a person in front of us. Before deciding what's true, we ask ourselves whether we're reflecting Christ in how we carry that truth. Before asking who qualifies for our love, we remember Jesus never gave us a list. If Jesus so often started with compassion, maybe we should too. The greatest of these is love. When in doubt, choose love.
June 16, 2026
