Blog (Page 163)
Daily Devotions: January 10, 2020
January 10, 2020 For full passage click: Acts 10:39-43 … “All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” vs. 43 The book of Acts gives us a sense of the early Christian message through sermonic vignettes from Peter and Paul. In this one from Peter, we learn that the chief gift available to believers was the forgiveness of sins through the name of Jesus. Most of us have no…
Daily Devotions: January 9, 2020
January 9, 2020 For full passage click: Acts 10:34-38 … “Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” vss. 34-35 In Peter’s world, it had been unlawful for a Jew to associate with Gentiles, and he had scrupulously avoided them for all of his life. And then everything changed! First there had been a vision of…
Daily Devotions: January 8, 2020
January 8, 2020 For full passage click: Psalm 29 … “Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name; worship the Lord in holy splendor. The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the Lord, over mighty waters.” vss. 2-3 In our time, God is little more than an impotent fictive being for many people. They use God’s name almost exclusively as an interjection and seldom in a prayer. They often espouse a kind…
Daily Devotions: January 7, 2020
January 7, 2020 For full passage click: Isaiah 42:1-9 … “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.” vs. 1 Isaiah wrote these words with respect to Israel, and he presumed that the nation would be the agent of the Lord’s redemptive power. This was the “new-look-Israel” – a country focused not on tribal expansion, but on being the…
Daily Devotions: January 6, 2020
January 6, 2020 For full passage click: Matthew 2:1-12 … “In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’” vss. 1-2 Matthew’s little tale of the wise men from the East is a familiar part of most Sunday School…
Daily Devotions: January 5, 2020
January 5, 2020 For full passage click: John 1:15-18 … “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.” vs. 18 We are so blessed that the Christ was made fully known in the person of Jesus. Through that incarnation we have come to know that grace is the normative word of God for the universe. Obviously, humans have needed to invent laws of many…
Daily Devotions: January 4, 2020
January 4, 2020 For full passage click: John 1:10-14 … “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.” vs. 10 It’s been hard for the world to distinguish the Christ. We’ve imagined that God is totally separate from the universe, off in some place called heaven, and that things on earth have been left up to human discretion. Even though all things came into existence through Christ and…
Daily Devotions: January 3, 2020
January 3, 2020 For full passage click: Ephesians 1:8b-14 … “With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” vss. 8b-10 According to Scripture, all things in the universe have their beginning and their ending in Christ, the one and…
Daily Devotions: January 2, 2020
January 2, 2020 For full passage click: Ephesians 1:3-8 … “just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.” vs. 4 In the beginning, the universe came into being through the infusion of the Christ, and through billions of years that Christ has continued to breathe life and light into the continuing creation–and that includes every member of the human race. None have been excluded. None have…
Daily Devotions: January 1, 2020
January 1, 2020 For full passage click: Psalm 147:16-20 … “He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do not know his ordinances. Praise the Lord!” vs. 20 As we begin a new year, some are putting together short lists of their resolutions. A few may even be so bold as to share them. They do seem more credible when they’re put down where others can see your intentions. A resolution kept to oneself will likely be the…
Daily Devotions: December 31, 2019
December 31, 2019 For full passage click: Psalm 147:12-15 … “Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion! For he strengthens the bars of your gates; he blesses your children within you.” vss. 12-13 Traditionally, this is a time for recounting the events of the previous year and to celebrate the blessings of our continuing lives. Some of us will be going out to dinner or perhaps inviting friends to share drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Many will make…
Daily Devotions: December 30, 2019
December 30, 2019 For full passage click: Jeremiah 31:7-14 … “Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands far away; say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, and will keep him as a shepherd a flock.’” vs. 10 The people of Israel were, and are, remarkably resilient people. Over 2,000 years ago their Prophets showed relentless optimism as they looked into the future. Again and again they proclaim that even though their people…