Category Archives: Minister’s Minute

Home. This simple word elicits different emotions and memories for people, both good and bad.

For me, it was being secure, safe and knowing that despite my faults I was always welcomed and loved.

After high school, I left my home in Florida and lived in various parts of the world.

While constantly moving can be quite challenging, I always managed to make myself part of the community and make friends. Although I found my niche in each of these places, it was never quite the same feeling of going back to Florida, walking through that doorway and saying, “I’m home and I’ve brought my laundry!”

In this world of turmoil, bickering and sin, it can be hard to feel secure and loved. People break promises and misuse our trust all the time, and try as we might to make a home here for ourselves we often feel like we never quite belong.

John 14:2-3 talks about the rooms in God’s home that are prepared for those who belong to the Father through His Son Jesus Christ.

We are given a room not in God’s guest house or someplace out back, but in His very home, and when we finally step through those front doors He will greet us with open arms and say to us, “Welcome home my child,” and taking our bag of sinful laundry, He’ll make them clean like only a parent can.

Pastor Steven Naylor

Published in Delta Optomist

Beeeep! It’s the inevitable sound I seem to hear when leaving a store with a security gate.

Knowing I had not stolen anything, I turn around and, with annoyance, show my receipt to the employee near the gate. He looks over the receipt, then the contents of my bag, then me, and then back to my receipt, before he finally says have a good day.

It might seem a bit funny to write about something like this during Easter, but I find it nicely sums up both Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

Every time we sin, whether it is by speeding, gossiping or insert sin here, we begin to rack up a debt we can never pay off, a debt that will forever separate us from God.

Good Friday was the day our debt was paid in full, and it was paid by the very Son of God, Jesus Christ. It was in Jesus’ death upon the cross that we no longer need fear death and separation from God.

Easter Sunday was when we were given our receipt, and it was in the resurrection of Jesus that we were given proof that we are forgiven of our sins.

So the next time the security device beeps at us, instead of being annoyed, I pray we are reminded of what our Saviour did for us on that Good Friday and Easter. Blessings and Happy Easter!

Pastor Steven Naylor

Printed in Delta Optomist