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Posts from April 2022

Good Gifts

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?”  Luke 11:13 (NASB) We live in a fallen and broken world.  While we can be good parents, we can never be perfect parents.  We will all have areas where we make mistakes in our lives.  But we can still do good things for our children.  We show them that we…

You Are Sons

Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”  Galatians 4:6 (NASB) We tend to think prayer is something very structured.  We can sometimes feel that if we don’t pray in a certain way, God won’t hear our prayers.  But that is not how God looks at us.  According to Ephesians 1:5, God decided in advance to adopt us into His family.  It wasn’t a surprise to God that we…

Gathered

“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” Matthew 18:20 (NKJV) While we can pray on our own, we can also pray with others.  When we get together with other believers, God is with us.  Whenever God is on the scene, He brings His power and authority with Him.  The Bible tells us there is power in the prayer of agreement (Matthew 18:19).  As we agree in prayer with…

When You Pray

“When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.  But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.…

Teach Us to Pray

 It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.”  Luke 11:1 (NASB) We can all pray and talk to God, but we may not be comfortable, confident or understand how to pray when we become believers.  We can ask God to teach us to pray.  He sent the Holy Spirit to assist us.  As we…

Cross

3 He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. 4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! 5 But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He…

Eternity

29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29 (NIV) 14 Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. 15 Only in this way could he set free all who have lived…

The Manger

21 And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21 (NLT) One night a young woman and her betrothed fiancé, after traveling a long way for a census, found themselves without a suitable place to stay.  Desperate and in labor, they made a place in a stable.  That night the Son of God, born of a virgin, was laid in a manger, a feeding trough for…

The Price of Sin

11 For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life. Leviticus 17:11 (NIV) 22 In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Hebrews 9:22 (NIV) Shortly after Adam and Eve sinned, blood was shed for the covering of their mistakes.  Later in…

The Garden

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God… Romans 3:23 (NIV) When we think of the Garden of Eden, so many quick thoughts come to mind: Old Testament, In the beginning, God, perfect creation, made in the image of God, all reflecting the glory of God. By Genesis chapter 3, we see God’s masterpiece-man and woman-falling short of His glory as they follow the serpent into sin. So soon after creation, God had a plan to…

Different People

12 The next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A large crowd of Passover visitors 13 took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. They shouted, “Praise God! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hail to the King of Israel!” 14 Jesus found a young donkey and rode on it, fulfilling the prophecy that said: 15 “Don’t be afraid, people of Jerusalem.  Look, your King is coming, riding…

See Jesus

19 So, the Pharisees said to one another, “See, this is getting us nowhere. Look how the whole world has gone after him!” 20 Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” John 12:19-21 (NIV) There were those in the crowd who were believers. We saw it at the beginning of this passage…

Hope

17 Many in the crowd had seen Jesus call Lazarus from the tomb, raising him from the dead, and they were telling others about it. 18 That was the reason so many went out to meet him—because they had heard about this miraculous sign. John 12:12-18 (NLT) There were people in the crowd who didn’t necessarily come to see Jesus. There was news about how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, so people wanted to come and see Lazarus. There were people in…

Prophecy

Jesus found a young donkey and rode on it, fulfilling the prophecy that said: 15 “Don’t be afraid, people of Jerusalem.  Look, your King is coming, riding on a donkey’s colt.” 16 His disciples didn’t understand at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy. But after Jesus entered into his glory, they remembered what had happened and realized that these things had been written about him.  John 12:15-17 As we talked about yesterday, people would lay palm branches before a…

Many Different People

12 The next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A large crowd of Passover visitors 13 took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. They shouted, “Praise God! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hail to the King of Israel!” 14 John 12:12-14 (NLT) There were a lot of people in Jerusalem at the time of Passover. There were many different reactions to the news that Jesus…

Something They Are Not

If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. Galatians 6:3 (NIV) Each one of us has sin in our lives.  We have the opportunity to be forgiven by a loving God.  As we continue to grow closer to God, we become more like Him.  But there are times we can forget the past that we came from.  We can get focused on where we are in our lives and forget how far we have come…

Lift a Finger

They (hypocrites) crush people with unbearable religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden.  Matthew 23:4 (NLT) New Testament religious leaders knew God’s law.  They knew everything that people were supposed to do and the things they were not supposed to do.  But it wasn’t enough to remind people of the laws passed down from Moses, but they would add more to make it even harder for people to be able to follow them all.  Instead of…

Clean the Inside

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. Matthew 23:25-26 (NIV) Jesus pointed out to the Pharisees that they spent a lot of time taking care of the outside of their lives.  They focused on what people saw externally.  But…

Important Aspects

Hypocrites! For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens, but you ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. Matthew 23:23 (NLT) Some New Testament religious leaders were careful to follow the laws of the time. They were busy keeping the letter of the law. They made sure to do everything just right. But they did not always pay attention to the intent of the law, such as mercy and faith.…

Someone Will Notice

“But they do their deeds to be noticed by men…  Matthew 23:5 In New Testament, the church leaders of the day would consistently follow the law they learned.  They made sure they attended services regularly.  They ate the proper foods and tithed the proper amount.  While some did it out of a right heart before God, others wanted the approval of the other people around them. We can be the same way in current times.  We can do the right…

Display Your Power

You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples! Psalm 77:14 (NIV) We serve a God that created the heavens and the earth.  He spoke the universe into existence.  He created all the trees we see, the flowers we smell, and the people we meet every day.  Every baby born, every sunrise and sunset, every storm cloud are the handiwork of God.  We are surrounded by miracles every day.  Humankind rebelled against God and chose…