'resurrection' Tagged Posts (Page 4)
Daily Devotions
When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’” vs. 39 Mark 5:35-43 What Jesus said to the mourners at the synagogue leader’s home was crazy–and they knew it! That’s why they laughed at him! They knew the difference between death and sleep, and so do we. That’s why we mourn when someone dies–it’s the natural thing to do. Of course Jesus paid no attention, went…
Daily Devotions
You have turned my mourning into dancing; you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,” vs. 11 Psalm 30:6-12 The psalmist had a strong sense of having lived in the Lord’s favor through his entire life. There had been times when things had not gone well for him but he didn’t doubt that the Lord had his back. He knew that ultimately God’s underlying love would lift him up, and that hope never abandoned him when times…
Daily Devotions
Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises.” vs. 4 Psalm 98:1-4 We’re not sure what triggered the psalmist’s extravagant hymn of praise to the Lord–it was likely some celebration of God’s special relationship to the house of Israel. But what catches our attention is his sense of the close connection between the Lord and the creation. We get that same feeling every year as we continue our celebration of…
Daily Devotions
Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’” vs. 5 Mark 9:2-6 When Peter was at a loss for words he usually said something–it was his way of dealing with anxiety, and as an extrovert, it was more comfortable for him to talk than think. So on the mountain of transfiguration, after a powerful vision of Jesus as the…
Daily Devotions
Isaiah 25:6-9 … “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” vs. 6 As the people of God have looked toward the future, prophets like Isaiah have painted vivid pictures of the magnificent banquet that will be prepared for us by the Lord. This feast of victory will provide the best food imaginable, rich goodies…
Daily Devotions: July 2, 2020
July 2, 2020 Psalm 145:11-14 … “The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.” vs. 14 Through the centuries we’ve had varying attitudes about God and some very different definitions of God’s being. Those ideas even change within the course of a lifetime, as most all of us can testify. When we were children we probably tended to attach human attributes to God, making God a kind of a ‘superman in the sky.’…
Daily Devotions: May 15, 2020
May 15, 2020 1 Peter 3:18-22 … “in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.” vss. 19-20 Peter reminds us that in the early years of the Church, believers gravitated toward the image of the ark as a metaphor for…
Daily Devotions: April 13, 2020
April 13, 2020 Acts 2:14a, 22-32 … “But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.” vs. 24 While it’s unlikely that these words from Acts are Peter’s exact words, they do represent the convictions of the early church as it took shape in Jerusalem during those tumultuous years following Jesus’ death. The disciples had had a powerful experience of his continuing presence and they believed that…
Daily Devotions: April 11, 2020
April 11, 2020 Romans 6:3-11 … “Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” vs. 4 This has to be the strangest Lent that any of us have ever experienced! As the days have turned into weeks, and now months, our understandable fear of disease and death has led to ever-increasing isolation…
Daily Devotions: November 9, 2019
November 9, 2019 For full passage click: Luke 20: 27-33 … “Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, ‘…the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.’” vs. 27, 32-33 The Pharisees and Sadducees, the two major parties among the Jews, disagreed about the resurrection. For the Sadducees, since it wasn’t mentioned in the Torah, it couldn’t be true.…
Daily Devotions: July 19, 2019
July 19, 2019 For full passage click: Colossians 1:21-23 …And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him—” vss. 21-22 The Church has done a good job of proclaiming the death of Jesus as the means of our reconciliation to God. We’ve heard that story year after year in our worship. It’s the core…
Daily Devotions: April 21, 2019
April 21, 2019 For full passage click: Luke 24:1-12 …“But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.” vs. 12 The disciples initially dismissed the women’s story of their visit to the tomb of Jesus, as a fanciful tale. But Peter had second thoughts and decided to check out what they had said. He was amazed to find the tomb…