'Holy Spirit' Tagged Posts
Daily Devotions
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days’ rise again.” vs. 31 Mark 8:27-33 Mark reports in his gospel that when the disciples tell Jesus that they believed he was the messiah; he gave them a glimpse of what was to come. There would be a period of great suffering and rejection and finally…
Daily Devotions
The Lord God helps me; therefore, I have not been disgraced; therefore, I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame…” vs. 7 Isaiah 50:6-9a The prophet had likely been exposed to a shame-based culture, a society that seeks to regulate behavior by heaping shame and disgrace on any person who doesn’t live up to the cultural norms. Some of us know what that’s like too. For some perverted reason some…
Daily Devotions
Now therefore revere the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.” vs. 14 Psalm 34:9-14 Most people have a curiosity about their ancestors. Some spend years in genealogical research to figure out their family tree. Others send in saliva samples to testing companies like 23andme or Ancestry to find out what an analysis of their DNA can tell them about…
Daily Devotions
Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.” vs. 57 John 6:54-58 Some of us can remember a time when the celebration of Holy Communion was infrequent in some of our congregations. There was a sense that what really counted was a good sermon, and direction on how believers ought to live in this broken world. And at the same time, in the majority of…
Daily Devotions
Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn her seven pillars. She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table.” vss. 1-2 Proverbs 9:1-3 Many are familiar with the ode to the capable wife that is found in Proverbs 31 but some don’t like it very much. They claim that it perpetuates a patriarchal attitude toward women. That may be true, but it’s also true that Proverbs also implies that the source of…
Daily Devotions
They were saying, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, “I have come down from heaven”’?” vs. 42 Ephesians 4:25-29 The religious folks were having a tough time with Jesus. He’d come from Nazareth where he was known as the son of Joseph–his mother was Mary, a good woman who everyone knew. And now he was claiming to be the Bread of Heaven?! They just couldn’t buy it!…
Daily Devotions
We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.” vs. 14 Ephesians 4:11-16 Paul didn’t know a thing about social media or political campaigns, but he was very aware of the ways people could be manipulated by crafty and deceitful arguments. The little congregations that he had started were rife with rumors and doctrinal disagreements, and always there were those who took…
Daily Devotions
Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt. Our soul has had more than its fill of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.” vss. 3-4 Psalm 123 When we are children we discover that we live in a hierarchical system, and it isn’t long before we figure out our place in that hierarchy. It probably starts in the family and then…
Daily Devotions
I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows.” vs. 2 2 Corinthians 12:2-5 Many Jews believed that when a righteous person died they would be taken to a garden called Paradise, a place similar to the Eden that was well-known from the Hebrew Scriptures. Paul claims in this boasting section of his letter to the Corinthians that…
Daily Devotions
Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.” vs. 5 Ezekiel 2:1-5 Ezekiel had been deported to Babylon along with thousands of other residents of Jerusalem and Judea. Sometime later, probably as a young man, he was grasped by the Spirit and told that he had been chosen to bring the Word of the Lord to the people living in exile. He was told…
Daily Devotions
As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain.” vs. 1 2 Corinthians 6:1-5 Paul loved the Corinthians. He had lived among them for many months and he knew many of them personally, and now as he writes to them, we can see his passion in his words. He believes that they are his brothers and sisters in Christ, and that in Christ they are a new creation. But he…
Daily Devotions
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he brought them out from their distress; he made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.” vss. 28-29 Psalm 107:1-3, 23-32 The seas have always held a fascination for those who lived along their shores. Thousands of years ago we discovered that the oceans held a great storehouse of food, fish of every kind, and we built boats and used nets to harvest their riches.…