Meditate On God’s Word by Reading a Passage Over and Over I advocate reading the Bible every day. To make the most out of it requires a plan, such as reading through the Bible in the year. I do this often, but sometimes I want to slow down and focus on a specific text. It’s […]
Living Water Flows from God’s Temple and Is for Our Benefit In the Old Testament, the people perceived that God lived in the temple. They saw this as his residence on earth. To connect with him meant they had to go to the temple. As Ezekiel winds down his lengthy prophecy, the man in his […]
Consider What Jesus Says Just Before He Ascends into Heaven Jesus’s first recorded words in the Bible are when he’s twelve years old and disappears. His parents eventually find him in the temple. His perplexing answer explains he belongs in his Father’s house (Luke 2:49). With these as his first words, now let’s look at […]
Discover What the Bible Says about the End of Time Some Christians give a lot of attention to the end times. Others choose to ignore it. Interestingly, the phrase end times doesn’t appear in the Bible, at least not in the NIV. Though four subheadings, added later, do carry this phrase. The End Times These […]
John Teaches about The Holy Spirit One of the things I enjoy when studying the Bible is to investigate words and phrases that are repeated throughout its pages. The phrase “Spirit of Truth” is one such example that jumps out at me and begs further investigation. Interestingly, only John uses “Spirit of Truth” in his […]
The Source of Life, Truth, and the Way to Father God Is Through Jesus The disciple Thomas wants to go where Jesus will go but doesn’t know how to proceed. He seeks clarification. Jesus gives him a five part answer, which another disciple John records for us. Jesus says, “I am the way and the […]
Characteristics of God In the Bible, Jesus makes several declarations of who he is and his character. In the book of John alone, he says: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). “I am the […]
We Can Believe That God Hears and Answers Our Requests When you pray do you think God hears you? Does he answer your prayers? All of them? The Bible says so. Consider what Scripture teaches. God Hears Our Prayers First, we can have assurance that God does indeed hear our prayers. John writes that we […]
When We Focus on Other People, We May Lose Sight of Our Own Calling As Jesus wraps up his stint on earth, he spends some time with his disciples, the core group he trained for three years. They will need to carry on without him, and he wants to make sure they’re ready. First, he […]
Slow Down to Appreciate the Poetic Rhythm and Evocative Style of the Apostle John I once quipped that the book of John was my fourth favorite biography of Jesus in the Bible. Another time I wrote about the Ten Most Difficult Books in the Bible. To the dismay of many, I included the Gospel of […]