Unless Christ returns first, we will all face death. Experience teaches us this truth. Death is even more certain than taxes. Our experience on earth, however, cannot tell us what follows death. Here’s where faith comes in, for faith believes to be true what your experience cannot tell you. Beyond death, God reveals little. God […]
Luke 8:9-17: Becoming the Infant
October 23, 2016 by
How can you spot a saint? What makes him different from everyone else? For starters, the word “saint” means “holy person.” So, what do you do? You examine how someone lives, looking for holiness in his life. Find someone who doesn’t cheat, steal, or defile marriage. A saint studies the Bible and may set aside […]
Luke 18:1-8: Persistence in Prayer
October 16, 2016 by
Oh, how discouragement settles in our bones. We quit when details don’t go our way. We leave when life gets uncomfortable. The pain stabs us, our lungs burn, our legs become a lead weight, and we stop running the race. We pray, but when God doesn’t deliver on our terms, we pout and quit talking […]
Ruth 1:1-19a: A Faith Within is a Faith Without
October 9, 2016 by
“In those days, there was no king in Israel. Each did whatever looked right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). So reveals the last verse in the book of Judges, before the book of Ruth begins. Why? Famine struck the land, and the pangs of hunger controlled too many a man. Life became chaotic, and […]
Luke 17:1-10, Acts 2:42-47: Faith
October 2, 2016 by
What is faith? What is its source? How does faith become yours? Do you create it within yourself, or does someone give it to you? How we answer changes the way we worship. Our understanding of faith affects the how we tell others of Jesus and shapes the way we live. Our understanding of faith […]
1 King 17:7-16, Mark 12:38-44, 1 Timothy 6:17-19: Christ’s Stewardship for Us
September 25, 2016 by
The problem with the money in our lives is not the money, but how we handle it. We think, “Now if only we had more money, we could live!” We believe wealth can make us “take hold of the life that is real.” But we leave God out of the picture. We turn gold into […]
1 Timothy 2:1-15: She will be saved through the bearing of a Child
September 18, 2016 by
Scripture contains strange stuff to our ears: “Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet…. She will be saved through childbearing…” To our ears, “submissive” is a hard pill to swallow. In our […]
Hebrews 13:7-17: Spiritual Remembering
August 28, 2016 by
How ironic. The day before I leave to care for my parents because they suffer from Alzheimer’s, the book of Hebrews warns us against a spiritual Alzheimer’s. For the Christian Church is a living reality, also with a memory. The book of Hebrews speaks of this memory, telling those in the Church not to succumb […]
Luke 13:22-30: Are YOU Saved?
August 21, 2016 by
Convinced of being correct, with themselves as judge of right and wrong, Jewish men readied themselves for the fight. Against whom were they fighting? Other Jews. Those from the School of Hillel, such as Saul, who later became the Apostle Paul, argued that every Jew would receive salvation. Not so taught Shammai, the other leading […]
Luke 12.49-53, Hebrews 11:24-12:3: Eternal Peace
August 14, 2016 by
“Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.” We don’t expect such crazy-sounding talk from Jesus, the Prince of Peace, do we? We expect Jesus to bring the family together—but He, instead, says something else. He sets father against son, mother against daughter, and in-law against in-law. […]
