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Anyone who has ever made a large ticket purchase, whatever that amount was compared to their relative income, may know what buyer's remorse feels like. It's a sudden sinking feeling that wells up within you of whatever item that was purchased might one day be too much to handle financially during the life of the loan.

We all need a change of mind and heart, to think and act differently to bear spiritual fruit throughout our life. Consider confession, repentance, and baptism as ways to open up to godly change. They are outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual turning toward God that are renewed and deepened every day. They represent a determined act of human will toward oneness with God.

Advent is meant to be a time of looking closely at ourselves, being aware of our behavior, and focusing on living our lives according to the model that the returning Christ set for us during his first incarnation. It's also to root out any non-Christ-like behavior in our lives.

Often, we become so bound to our life on Earth that I believe we may miss some of the blessed teachings that Jesus has for us because we focus so heavily on our earthly existence. We all have spent years being taught and teaching others about the way things are in the natural world through our experience, using science, learning new phenomena about the cosmos, and continuing to uncover the complexities of human personality and human relationships.

In what way should we live out our faith? In our Bible  reading for this week from 2 Timothy 3:14 - 4:5, we're returning to the teachings of Paul in his second letter to Timothy. We may have read this gut wrenching scene as Paul writes from prison for the last time, or have seen it portrayed in a play, a film or on TV but for many of us it is not our favorite part of the Bible to try and model in our daily lives.

Miraculous healings are spectacular and are wonderful for those who have received them. But have you thought about what happened to the people that were healed through a miracle in the Bible?

In college when I moved into an apartment for the first time, one of the things I was most excited about was having a kitchen. What I quickly learned was that cooking was much easier for me than baking. With cooking, you could ad lib, play with ingredients, make replacements easily, but with baking, every time I tried to play or experiment, it completely flopped.

This week's Bible reading from the gospel Luke 16:1-13, also called the Parable of the Unjust Manager, could be easily misunderstood but depending on its' interpretation, can be a rich spiritual resource. A resource especially when we are dealing with the problems that occur when we are not caring for, as best we can, the gifts that God gave to us and depended on us to be good stewards of them.

Why do some people become wayward, reckless, and irresponsible? And, why do others react to them in ways that are indifferent? What is your reaction to people who have strayed into self-destructive behavior? We sometimes refer to them as contrary, messy, hardheaded, hardhearted, egotistical, cheating, unpredictable, "sometimey," and disloyal. But, there are other types of wayward people.

When you attend social gatherings or events do you like the ones where you're filled with excitement because you're standing or sitting beside VIPs like politicians, celebrities, professional athletes, film and music stars? Or do you prefer the ones where your excitement comes from relaxing and having fun talking with people who are not concerned with who wields the most political influence or whoever is the most famous celebrity that everyone wants to be close to?