In this special episode of Your Week with St. Luke’s, Pastor Jad launches the Lenten series called Crossroads with a reflection on Matthew 4:1–11, where Jesus faces temptation in the wilderness. Framed as “Love 101: Resisting False Power,” the episode explores how Jesus, freshly named God’s beloved Son at his baptism, is tested not in his identity but in what that identity means. Drawing connections to Israel’s wilderness story, Pastor Jad unpacks three temptations: self-sufficiency, spectacle, and compromise, and shows how each invites Jesus to misuse power for self-protection, self-validation, or control. Instead, Jesus chooses trust, faithful dependence, and wholehearted allegiance to God. Listeners are invited to see Lent not as punishment but as formation, a season to notice where we grasp for control and to practice small, intentional acts of trust that reflect the way of love.

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In this episode of Your Week with St. Luke’s, Pastor Jad invites listeners to step thoughtfully into the season of Lent by exploring the meaning and history of Ash Wednesday. Tracing Lent’s roots to the early church as a season of communal preparation, repentance, and renewal, he explains the biblical symbolism of ashes as signs of mortality and truth-telling before God. Reflecting on Matthew 6, Pastor Jad unpacks Jesus’ teaching on almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, highlighting the difference between public faith and performative faith and challenging us to examine our motives and “audience.” Rather than focusing on outward ritual, this episode reframes Lent as an invitation to reorder our desires, prepare our hearts, and walk honestly toward the cross and the hope of resurrection.

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In this episode of Your Week with St. Luke’s, all four pastors come together to explore what it truly means to lead our lives as disciples of Jesus in everyday, ordinary life. Rooted in 2 Peter 1 (from The Message), the conversation reflects on discipleship as transformation rather than perfection; faith that moves from belief into embodied practice through God’s grace. Using rich Wesleyan imagery like stepping into the “river of grace,” the pastors discuss prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace, emphasizing growth over time, authenticity over polish, and participation over passivity. They wrestle honestly with failure, formation, and the public square, showing how God’s story shapes real decisions, leadership, justice, and love in the world. This episode invites listeners to stop tiptoeing, lean into grace, and lead lives formed by Jesus... together.

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