Posts from 2023 (Page 12)
Daily Devotions
because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” vs. 9 Romans 10:5-11 Paul taught that the righteousness of God comes as a gift through faith, and not through obedience to the law. To make this clear, he describes the content of faith as confession of Jesus as Lord and belief in the resurrection. Those who have faith, as thus defined, will…
Daily Devotions
Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.” vs. 8 Psalm 85:8-13 All of the prophets felt a call to bring the word of the Lord to the people of Israel and Judah. Most of the time it came as a warning of impending doom if idolatrous behavior didn’t come to an end. Again and again the prophet would…
Daily Devotions
and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.” vss. 12-13a 1 Kings 19:11-21 Huddled in his cave, Elijah waited for the Lord to make an appearance. First came a great wind, then an earthquake, and finally a great fire, but the Lord was…
Daily Devotions
At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’” vs. 9 1 Kings 19:9-10 Elijah was on the run. Queen Jezebel and the prophets of Baal had forced him to flee for his life and he’d gone south into the desert mountains of the Sinai Peninsula. There in a cave, isolated from his country and kindred, he spent the night,…
Daily Devotions
Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.” vs. 19 Matthew 14:18-21 The miracle of Jesus feeding the multitude with a few loaves of bread was a favorite of the gospel writers, appearing six times in all, twice in Matthew and Mark. And while…
Daily Devotions
Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’” vss. 16-17 Matthew 14:15-18 Jesus has been curing people in the crowd who needed healing and now the disciples become aware of an even more basic need. These people needed something to eat – they were getting hungry. The disciples propose a sensible solution, one that we might have considered. Why not shift…
Daily Devotions
Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns.” vs. 13 Matthew 14:13-14 John the Baptist had been killed while in the custody of King Herod at Machereus, a palace east of the Dead Sea, and it didn’t take long for the news to travel to where Jesus was doing ministry at the north end of the…
Daily Devotions
For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.” vs. 3 Romans 9:1-5 Midway through his letter to the Romans, after having described justification by faith in excruciating detail, Paul offers a section on Israel’s election as the chosen people of God. He tells the church in Rome that it breaks his heart that so many of his kindred, according to the…
Daily Devotions
“The Lord watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.” vs. 20 Psalm 145:14-21 When we read our scriptures we are tempted to take to heart the verses that we agree with and totally discount those with which we have issues. And we’re not alone. Nearly all people are adept at cherry picking as they study the bible, loving the parts that support positions they already hold, and ignoring those that don’t. The psalmist who…
Daily Devotions
The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made.” vs. 9 Psalm 145:8-9 These few words from the psalmist contain all the truth that we humans will ever need to hear, and it’s undoubtedly the best news ever, yet we find it enormously hard to believe in our hearts. Oh, we don’t mind hearing that the Lord is good to us, and that God’s compassion includes us. We actually welcome that good news,…
Daily Devotions
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” vs. 1 Isaiah 55:1-5 No kitchen is complete without one or more plaques or posters that claim to capture the essence of life in just a few words or phrases. One saying that’s particularly memorable is this, “The best things in life…aren’t things.” It’s cleverly put, easily remembered, and captures the essence…
Daily Devotions
And he said to them, ‘Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.’” vs. 52 Matthew 13:44-52 Jesus closes out this series of parables with an enigmatic saying that can be understood to describe what he had been doing in his teaching. He certainly did not disdain the law and the prophets that were a part…