Through Jesus We Can Discover Our Response to Violence and Oppression Seldom a day goes by when we don’t hear of terrorists who commit violence and murder in the name of their faith. These religious zealots believe a higher calling gives them the right to kill others in order to elevate their beliefs. This seems […]
What We May Perceive As a Lack of Love May Actually be the Embodiment of It In the book of Revelation, John shares a grand vision with an epic scope, far reaching and future focused. But before we get to that, God has some first-century messages for seven area churches. Three of these messages appear […]
Considering Jesus as the Word of God Shines New Light on Some Verses in the Bible 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 […]
Four Insights in How We Are to Approach God Because of who Jesus is and what he did for us, our relationship with God the Father changes. Through Jesus we have a new connection with Papa that we didn’t have before. We can now approach him. In fact the writer of Hebrews encourages us to […]
Jesus Wants Us to Live in Unity but Instead Our Manmade Denominations Divide Us I recently attended a friend’s ordination ceremony who had graduated from seminary and became a minister. It’s not the first such occasion I attended, and it won’t likely be the last. It was, however, the first time I really listened to […]
The List of Faith Essentials Is Short, a List of Only One Item Two thousand years ago the religious leaders, called Pharisees, heap a bunch of manmade requirements on the backs of the people so they can be right with God. Some scholars place the number at over 22,000 regulations, far more than the 613 […]
Jesus Uses Narrative to Inform Us About His Father’s Kingdom Jesus uses parables—“an earthly story with a heavenly meaning,” as I learned in Sunday school—to teach us about the kingdom of God. We are part of the kingdom of God, and we need to do a better job of acting like it. Since Jesus talks […]
Ananias Obeys God to Heal Saul Who Wants to Arrest Him I like the story of Saul’s conversion in the book of Acts, turning him from a murderous bigot into a passionate follower of Jesus. A flash of light, a voice from heaven. It has all the makings of a great story. In this account, […]
Consider the Kingdom of God as the Ultimate Church Model To guide how we should function as his followers today, we must consider what Jesus says about the kingdom of God. Here are twelve key truths about the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God: 1. Is Close A dozen times or more Jesus proclaims […]
Whether We Pray Often or Seldom, We Have Likely Fallen into Unexamined Habits How do you begin your prayers? What is your common salutation? It might be “Heavenly Father . . .” or perhaps “Father God . . . ” or maybe “Dear God . . . ” (How about, “Hey, God. It’s me again.”) […]