The Holy Spirit Gives Jesus’s Followers Special Abilities In the Bible, Paul talks about spiritual gifts, special abilities given to us by the Holy Spirit. These aren’t for our personal use but for the common good of Jesus’s followers, that is, his church. Some of these supernatural abilities enhance our existing capabilities, while others are […]
Celebrate the Holiness of God The prophet Isaiah has a dream, a vision. He sees into heaven. God sits on his throne over the temple. Six-winged angels, seraphim, hover above him. They sing out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. Earth fills with his glory.” As their voices ring out, the temple shakes and […]
Hide God’s Word in Your Heart God gave us the Bible so that we might learn about him and draw closer to him. While some people think of the Bible as God’s instruction manual for right living and proper performance, I think of it more as a love letter. Because God loves us (Romans 5:8) […]
The Son of Man Stands to Welcome Stephen Into Heaven Stephen stands before the Sanhedrin. His testimony becomes a sermon, which smartly recaps the story arc of the Old Testament, starting with father Abraham and spilling over into the New Testament, ending with a sacrificial death of Jesus. Though I would never suggest someone skip […]
After prior discussions about adding to or taking away from the Bible, it gives one pause in considering footnotes in some translations, which effectively note that a certain phrase or verse is “not found in all manuscripts.” Consider the Lord’s Prayer. The end is one such example: “For yours is the kingdom and the power […]
God Gives Us Holy Spirit Inspiration to Guide Us for Our Benefit and His Glory For the last week, I had planned to write the introduction to my next book. I had the whole thing outlined, and I knew what I wanted to cover in the opening pages. Each day I asked God to give […]
What Can We Learn from the Ending Sentence or Thought in Each Book of the Bible? As a writer I know the two most important things of anything I write are the beginning and the ending. A strong opening draws readers and keeps them interested, while a powerful close gives readers something to take with […]
A Personal Essay About Encountering God, Prayer, and Hiding in a Prayer Tower The afternoon assignment at a writers retreat is to take a walk and describe our observations. Leaving the rest of the group in search of some needed solitude, I come upon a sign that simply says, “Prayer Tower.” I can’t ignore the […]
God Will Shine So Brightly that We Won’t Need the Sun to See As the epic battle in Revelation continues, just before Babylon—the symbol of all that’s evil—is about to receive her final punishment, an angel comes from heaven. John writes that this angel has great authority, and his splendor illuminates the earth (Revelation 18:1). […]
Does that Make Him the Word of God? The book of John, which is a biography of Jesus, opens with a most poetic passage. It calls Jesus the Word. It confirms Jesus’s presence at creation and that he took part in it. In fact without Jesus creation wouldn’t have happened. Life came through Jesus. His […]