'behavior' Tagged Posts (Page 2)
Daily Devotions: March 24, 2019
March 24, 2019 For full passage click: Luke 9:6-10 …“So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’” vs. 7 It appears that in this parable, the man’s love for his fig tree was quite conditional. He could put up with three years of fruitless living, but that was his limit. That’s the…
Daily Devotions: August 29, 2018
August 29, 2018 Psalm 15 …“O Lord, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill? Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right, and speak the truth from their heart;” vss. 1-2 Many of us are pretty comfortable thinking of ourselves as sinners. We know what we’re like on the inside and that we regularly wander from the path of righteousness. It’s an identity that grows on us and we certainly don’t have any…
Daily Devotions: May 31, 2018
May 31, 2018 2 Corinthians 4:5-7…“But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” vs. 7 Paul described the good news of Jesus Christ as a great treasure and he gladly proclaimed it in every circumstance and in every setting. In his estimation, it was more valuable than silver or gold and provided healing for the deepest human hurts. He also…
Daily Devotions: March 11, 2018
March 11, 2018 John 3:19-21 … “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” vs. 19 The contrast between light and darkness was an important one in the gospel of John. In his prologue he describes the Word as the light of the world, a light which darkness was not able to overcome. In this section, he tells his readers that even though…
Daily Devotions: March 10, 2018
March 10, 2018 John 3:14-18 …“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” vss. 14-15 We can wonder a lot about the writers of the gospels, who they were and why they were motivated to write. Obviously they never guessed that the simple stories they put together would face the unrelenting scrutiny of Greek scholars around the world. But…
Daily Devotions: March 9, 2018
March 9, 2018 Ephesians 2:6-10 … “For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” vs. 10 God hasn’t given us all of these amazing gifts of grace as an exercise in generosity; but—because God is madly in love with us, and there’s a method to God’s madness. In Christ Jesus, specifically in his resurrection, there’s been a new creation in which we were…
Daily Devotions: March 8, 2018
March 8, 2018 Ephesians 2:1-5 … “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—” vss. 4-5 All humans are pretty much the same. We all have strong passions, what the writer of Ephesians calls the desires of the flesh. And those passions aren’t intrinsically good or bad, that’s just the way we’re…
Daily Devotions: March 7, 2018
March 7, 2018 Psalm 107:17-22 … “Some were sick through their sinful ways, and because of their iniquities endured affliction; they loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of death.” vss. 17-18 The psalmist was a realist. As he looked at his people’s history and saw the way so many suffered, it was obvious that they were reaping the consequences of their careless decisions. That continues to be the way it is for so many.…
Daily Devotions: March 6, 2018
March 6, 2018 Psalm 107:1-3 …“O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.” vs. 1 As we move on in the season of Lent, it’s good to see how the psalmist regarded God. We spend so much time in speculation about the Lord’s identity that it’s easy to forget the essential truth that is at the core of God’s being. Not only is God omnipotent, majestic and holy, God is good!…
Daily Devotions: March 5, 2018
March 5, 2018 Numbers 21:4-9 … “Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died.” vs. 6 Sometimes the stories that the Israelites told about God reflect a very human understanding of how God operates. In this one from the book of Numbers, the people have been complaining in the wilderness—they even show contempt for the food that God has been daily providing them. So the Lord gets even. We…
Daily Devotions: March 4, 2018
March 4, 2018 John 2:13-22 … “In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables.” vs. 14 According to the gospel of John, Jesus cleansed the temple at the beginning of his ministry and not at the end. We don’t know why John chose to put it first…he undoubtedly had his reasons…but his description matches that in the other gospels. Jesus had gone up to worship but found that…
Daily Devotions: March 3, 2018
March 3, 2018 1 Corinthians 1:22-25 … “but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” vss. 23-34 There are some people who seem content to live in this world without ever thinking about matters of spirituality or mortality. They focus on the material and seem to believe that accumulation is the highest human…