Celebrate Christmas in a fresh, new way with this Advent devotional It’s easy to get caught up in the busyness of Christmas and miss its true meaning. Why not make this holiday season a special time for preparation to reflect on the Messiah’s birth? In The Advent of Jesus: A Devotional Celebrating the Coming Savior, […]
Helping Others Is One of Many Ways to Worship God I like the stories about Jesus helping people in need, such as by feeding them and especially by healing them. Even more I like it when Jesus confronts the religious practices of the day. We have so much to learn from his example. It’s a […]
God Will Answer When We Pray After Zechariah’s discouraging implication that God is weary of his people and will no longer be their Shepherd, Zechariah has some good news. He concludes his prophetic writings with an optimistic prophecy of a better tomorrow, a future hope. This is a hope that the people of his day […]
Regardless of Circumstances, God Walks With Us In Paul’s second letter to the believers in Corinth, he warns them not to deceive others or distort God’s word (2 Corinthians 4:2). That is, don’t misrepresent God’s character or intent to the world. Yet, this happens. Some people, in their zeal for Jesus, promise those on the […]
Azariah the Son of Oded Azariah, son of Oded, comes to Asa, King of Judah. The prophet tells the king, “If you see God, you’ll find him. If you walk away from him, he’ll walk away from you” (2 Chronicles 15:2). That is, to seek God first. King Asa takes the prophet’s warning seriously and […]
May We Be One in Jesus and Ignore What Could Separate Us We live in a divisive time, with one group opposing another, often in the most zealous of ways, sometimes even with violent outcomes. As a society, we’re quick to put people in a box and label them according to some aspect of their […]
We Are Sanctified in Jesus and by the Holy Spirit I don’t often use the word sanctification, but I should. It sounds too much like a theological construct that someone made up to explain God. Yet it’s in the Bible. So is sanctify. Therefore, it’s worthwhile for us to understand and embrace its meaning. Let’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 […]
In my prior post, entitled Cannibalism, Holy Communion (aka the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist) was seen as a spiritual invitation to salvation. Communion is a symbolic rite reminding us of Jesus’ sacrificial death for us as the solution for the wrong things we have done. This is all good. However, Paul warns against the abuse of […]
God Does What It Takes to Get People’s Attention God speaks to the prophet Ezekiel and gives him a prophecy against Ammon, against Moab, against Philistia, and against Tyre. The prophecy against Tyre is the longest and most devastating, but all four carry the same rationale. God will inflict them with punishment for their past […]