Jesus is life. He is the way to communion with God. He is love, light and the cure for our separation from God inherited from Adam and Eve. God’s holy word tells us about God, the death we suffer while separated from Him, and the glorious life available through communion with Him. So, it should come as no surprise that we encounter the tree of life at the beginning and at the end of His holy word.
Read MoreDaniel fasted, prayed and grieved for God’s people for a long time, and at the right time, God sent a messenger to Daniel in response to his prayers. Stay faithful, stay strong, stay in God’s holy word, pray continuously and seize the power of the Holy Spirit that is in you. May you know Him with richness, fullness and clarity, may you step out in the world as His servant shining His light for everyone to see, Amen.
Read MoreAfter the Last Supper, shortly before walking across the Kidron Valley to Gethsemane where guards would arrest Him, Jesus stopped and took time to pray. He prayed for Himself, He prayed for the disciples, and He prayed for us, those who would come to believe through the disciples’ word. It amazes me that Jesus paused to pray for us, particularly when His time on earth was rapidly expiring, and that is one of the significant points to the story. While the content of the prayer is remarkable and worthy of mining the rest of our lives, the fact of the prayer is also extremely significant.
Read MoreIn the passage above God explains what Joshua needs to do to be successful. Then, in the next breath, God repeats the message. In essence He says, do God’s holy word and you will be successful, which means living your best possible life.
Read MoreWe claim association with God through Christ Jesus. We claim to be His people. We claim to engage in relationship with Him, serve Him, worship Him and praise Him, and it is wonderful that He invites and encourages us to do so, but given the busyness of our lives, how often do we really do that? Today, I invite you to join me pausing from the busyness of life to simply breathe Him in, and to allow His indwelling Holy Spirit to calm our frazzled nerves and to give us His holy rest and peace as we remember who He is.
Read MoreSome are spiritually blind but do not realize it. Others know they are blind and as they humbly seek and submit themselves before Jesus Christ, He opens their eyes to see. We each should look deeply within our hearts and assess where we on the continuum.
Read MoreWe are each being refined, molded, purified, transformed for His service, and often the process involves pain. I have heard a quote attributed to John Piper, “A thousand sorrows prepares a man to preach.” We are each called to go and make disciples, to be ready with an explanation for the hope we have in Christ Jesus, to serve as God’s light to the world, to minister. While it is wonderful that God is molding, refining and purifying us for His glorious service, the process is often agonizing.
Read MoreIdeally, we are each consumer and proclaimer of God’s holy word. We breathe Him in as we study His holy word, pray, praise, worship and listen as others proclaim His truth to us. How do you typically respond as you listen while someone proclaims God’s holy word to you? Jesus calls us each to go into the world serving as His witness. As you do, how do you respond to rejection? How do you respond when people engage and desire more? I encourage you to consider your dual role in the context of Paul’s ministry described in the Acts of the Apostles.
Read MoreYears ago, each week at the conclusion of our Bible study, one particular man usually said, “Remember, you are the only Bible most people will ever read.” How might our actions, our daily routines, our life reveal the gospel to others? Ideally, disciples live out God’s holy word and bring it to life (see John 13:35). I imagine for a moment, but honestly the thoughts are too painful to bear, if my life is truly the only Bible another person reads, what might he or she think the good book says?
Read MoreThrough the psalms we see praise, exultation and thanksgiving tied to a heart recognizing God for who He is. A heart recognizing God for who He is praises, thanks and glorifies God! No wonder God, speaking through Paul, urges us to “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Once we see Him as the Author of life, filled with goodness, righteousness, faithfulness, love and light, how could we do anything less?
Read MoreDo you ever wonder, “why am I here?” or “what is my purpose?” The answers begin by considering Jesus. Why did Jesus come to earth as a human? Why did He come on His mission? He came to glorify God. He came to earth so that we might truly know God and so that, with eyes truly opened to “the only true God,” we will glorify Him through our lives. We glorify God when we hear the good news and accept it as true. We glorify God when we study and meditate on His holy word, and pray, and seek Him, and seek to grow our relationship with Him. We glorify God when we praise and worship Him. We glorify God when we receive His healing, freedom and joy. We glorify God when we obey His commands, when we love our neighbors, revealing our discipleship to them, when we allow Jesus to continue His mission through us. Our highest purpose is to glorify God, and when others see His disciples doing good works, demonstrating love in real, tangible ways, expecting nothing in return, they give glory to God. Why does Christ Jesus continue His mission on earth through His disciples? It is all for God’s glory.
Read MoreJesus came to earth on a multifaceted mission and He continues His mission on earth today through His body made up of His followers empowered by the Holy Spirit. What is His mission?
God employed prophets to proclaim the coming Messiah and to explain His function. Speaking through Isaiah, God paints a trinitarian image. In the first verse we see the Holy Spirit, God the Father and Christ Jesus, and God explains Christ Jesus brings good news to the oppressed, heals the brokenhearted, proclaims release of people held in captivity, and fills those who mourn with joy. Jesus left heaven and came to earth on a multifaceted mission. He delivers good news. He heals. He frees. He brings joy.
Read MoreGod is sovereign. He has all authority and power in heaven and on earth. He created all things, He creates order from chaos, and all His creation is subject to His control. As you survey the chaos and live through your pain and suffering, please know that God – Father, Christ Jesus and Holy Spirit – is sovereign, is love, is good and is in control.
What torment are you suffering? What service is God preparing you to accomplish? How is He molding, transforming, strengthening, growing you. Use your situation to find God with new eyes, seek Him completely, and ask Him to enlighten your spirit allowing you to see the path forward in Him, through Him, serving Him in ways you may not have ever imagined. How might God reveal His glory through you?
Read MoreThis morning I watch the sky change colors as the sun creeps up toward the horizon, thinking about this crazy year and the difficulties many face, praying for those who grieve, and suddenly my mind shifts to God’s blessings. I am suddenly in awe of the fact that God blesses us at all. I mean, who am I? I am nobody, yet God - the holy, divine, Creator of the universe, the One with power and authority beyond our imagination – God chooses to dwell within us beginning the moment we first receive Christ Jesus as our Lord, and with His indwelling comes His love and power and fullness and life. We gain Him. We gain the all-powerful sovereign One. Isn’t that incredibly awesome?
Read MoreToday I ask you to join me pondering difficult questions. Who is Jesus to you? If you believe He is the Messiah, the Son of God, is that a mere intellectual concept, like any other abstract fact derived from a textbook? Have you truly received Him as your Lord? Have you surrendered your life to Him, allowing His holy, transformative grace to fully invade your soul? Where are you along the path from salvation to sanctification? One indication of the accurate answer is revealed through worship. What does your worship feel like?
Read MoreWe should each ask ourselves, what distracts me from God’s holy word? What whispers cause me to doubt God and His promises and provision? Jesus urges us to trust God and His promises and His love and His provision. If we yield to distractions or messages creating doubt, faith and trust fade to worry, and we enter the counterintuitive state of living in abundance yet worrying about whether God will provide. The cure to this counterintuitive condition is living by God’s holy word – by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. Live in His holy word. Commune with Him. Allow Him to live in you. Allow Him to move from concept to soul-filling reality.
Read More“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” It is a present tense, personal declaration. He leads me to pastures and streams filled with abundant blessing, and He restores my life. Yes, He restores my life, and your life, and the life of each person who accepts His awesome gift of life. This is an awesome promise and an awesome claim, but how can we possibly claim this promise while surrounded by calamity and chaos, and experiencing pain and suffering?
Read More“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” It is a present tense, personal declaration. He leads me to pastures and streams filled with abundant blessing, and He restores my life. Yes, He restores my life, and your life, and the life of each person who accepts His awesome gift of life. This is an awesome promise and an awesome claim, but how can we possibly claim this promise while surrounded by calamity and chaos, and experiencing pain and suffering?
Read MoreGod’s holy word is beautiful, cohesive and consistent. God is love and He celebrates loving relationships to the extent of including love poems in His holy word. Love is not a task to be reluctantly endured or painfully checked off a to-do list. We should desire and celebrate the love that is only available in and through Christ Jesus with the passion depicted in the poems.
Read MoreThrough it all, through his loss of loved ones, loss of wealth, loss of livelihood, loss of health, loss of social standing, and through his friends’ tormenting him with poor theology, Job gains eyes to see God, he encounters God, and he is forever changed. Job says, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.” In the beginning he faithfully worshiped God, but through suffering he genuinely sought God. As he truly searched for God, he genuinely encountered God, he communed with God, he saw God, and through it all he was forever changed. He was spiritually transformed. From an eternal perspective, Job discovered true prosperity.
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