Experience God's Love Through A Risen Life!

"Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted" (Galatians 6:1).

As I read the Apostle Paul's words in Galatians 6:1, I am struck by their profound and timeless wisdom: "Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted." As followers of the Messiah, these words call us to a higher standard of love, compassion, and restoration.

In our modern, fast-paced world, it is easy to become judgmental and quick to condemn those who have fallen short. We live in a culture that often thrives on gossip, scandal, and public shaming. But Paul's admonition challenges us to resist this temptation and approach our fellow believers with gentleness and restoration.

We all struggle with sin and weakness. None of us is perfect, and we all have areas where we fall short of God's perfect standard. We must extend that same grace to others because we know our need for grace.

As Messianic believers, we have been granted the ultimate restoration through the sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection of Yeshua (Jesus), the long-awaited Messiah. Through Him, we have been reconciled to God and brought into His family. We have a new identity, purpose, and power to live transformed lives.

But this transformation is an ongoing process. We are all works in progress, constantly shaped and molded by the Holy Spirit. And amid this process, we encounter our fellow believers who have also been caught in sin or transgression.

Paul's words remind us that our response to their struggles should not be one of judgment or condemnation but rather of gentleness and restoration. We are to approach them with empathy, understanding, and a desire to help them find their way back to the path of righteousness.

This does not mean that we ignore or minimize the seriousness of sin. Sin permanently damages both the individual and the community of believers. But our goal must be to restore the person, not to punish them. We must remember that we, too, are susceptible to temptation and weakness and that it is only by God's grace that we can stand firm.

As Messianic believers, we are called to be a light to the world, a shining example of the gospel's transformative power. Part of that calling involves being agents of restoration and reconciliation within the body of the Messiah.

When we approach our fellow believers with gentleness and compassion, we reflect the heart of our Savior, who came not to condemn the world but to save it. Yeshua's ministry was characterized by a relentless pursuit of the lost, the broken, and the outcast. He did not turn away from those who had fallen but instead reached out to them with love, grace, and the power to make them whole.

As we seek to follow in His footsteps, we must be willing to do the same. We must be willing to walk alongside struggling people, offering them the support and encouragement they need to find their way back to the Lord. We must be willing to do so with a spirit of humility, remembering that it is only by God's grace that we are able to stand.

In this way, we can be a living embodiment of the progressive and Messianic vision that Paul lays out in his letter to the Galatians. We can be a community of believers united in our commitment to the Messiah who recognize our need for grace and are willing to extend that grace to others.

This is not always an easy path to walk. It requires courage, compassion, and a willingness to confront our sins and weaknesses. But it is the path that Yeshua has called us to, leading to proper restoration, healing, and transforming lives and communities.

Reflecting on Galatians 6:1, I am filled with humility and hope. I am humbled by the realization of my need for grace, and I am filled with hope that as we walk this path together, we can be a light to the world and a testimony to the gospel's transformative power.

May we be quick to forgive, slow to judge, and always ready to extend a hand of restoration to those who have stumbled? In doing so, we will honor the Messiah we serve and be a living witness to the power of His love and the promise of a better, more just, and compassionate world.

“As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God ” (1 Peter 4:10). 

If you are anything like a lot of Christians, you might sometimes think, “What could I possibly tell someone that might make them rethink their relationship with God?” You’re not alone. We’ve all thought, especially early on, during one’s faith journey. We look at these pastors and preachers on television or our favorite teacher on YouTube, compare ourselves with them, see that we don’t have near the charm and charisma they do, and become discouraged. Here’s some excellent news for you: as Christians, it is our duty to carry the message of salvation through Christ to non-believers in the world, and God has specifically equipped each one of us uniquely to carry out His Great Commission. As Peter wrote to the early church in the above passage, God imparts to every Christian one or more profound spiritual gifts that will be uncovered for us so that we might use them for good to help win people over and bring them closer to God. It should be noted that these gifts aren’t imparted to us by the Spirit during the conversion period, but they’ve been with us since birth. We don’t have the proper senses to know that we have these gifts or the understanding to use them properly until we’ve come into a right standing with the Lord. Like anything given to us by God, we can use the gifts he installs in us from birth to do tremendous good or evil; much of the Old Testament is witness to this fact. 

Just as much of a shame and waste of one’s spiritual gifts as using them to do wrong is going your whole life not knowing what those gifts are. Luckily, once we’ve entered a restored relationship with the Almighty, we have open communication channels with Him anytime we want. A little, or often a lot, of prayer will do wonders in getting the answers to your spiritual gifts. Spend some time each day praying for Him to reveal your spiritual gifts, and you’ll find yourself very surprised at what evangelistic capabilities have been lurking in your shadow undetected for a long time. This journey of self-discovery and growth in understanding your spiritual gifts is a hopeful and optimistic one, filled with the potential for uncovering new aspects of yourself and your relationship with God. We might not all be Charles Spurgeon, Billy Graham, or Martin Luther King, Jr., but you’ll be something even more important – you’ll have uncovered a large portion of your true self. In his letter to the church in Ephesus, the apostle Paul used Psalm 68:18 to underscore the idea that God has given each of us gifts to be used to strengthen the Body of Christ, “When he ascended on high, he took the captives captive; he gave gifts to the people” (Ephesians 4:8). 

Likewise, in his first letter to the ancient church in Corinth, the apostle wrote, “to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues” (1 Cor. 12:10). This tells us in no mistaken terms that every one of us will be able to help support, nourish, and strengthen the church in one way or another. Some of us will be able to communicate ideas and Scriptures and help other people understand new concepts, making them more adaptable to teaching. Others will have excellent oratory skills and can enrapture a crowd and keep them entertained while giving them a healthy dose of the Word while doing so – these are your preachers. Still, some of us might be the type that always has to take care of our friends; this makes for the perfect shepherd of the flock and would-be pastor. If you’re like me, you might find a penchant for words on paper, making you the ideal evangelist through written media – there’s always a need for more Christian books and articles worldwide. These are just some spiritual gifts that God might have imbued in you when you were born, and they are to be used later in life.

A critical concept that must be understood along with spiritual gifts is that they are all used to build the Body of Christ, His church. To understand this, we might take a brief look at His Body. Going back to the apostle Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, Paul uses the metaphor of a human body, complete and resplendent with flesh and bones, organs and veins, limbs, and everything else a human body comprises. Though Christ died on the Cross, was resurrected, and ascended into heaven to sit at the Father’s right hand, He is still very much with us, and the incarnation is an ongoing event. Christ continues in this world in a new body, one that is made up of every member of His church here on earth. Just like the body He was in while in earthly form, this body has everything that it had, and each member that constitutes part of it has a job in keeping that body going. So, there you have it. You are not just an average person bumbling about in the world aimlessly. Far from it, you are a beloved child of God who has been resurrected into a new life in Christ, and you are now part of His Body, equipped to help keep that body going. If that doesn’t give you a purpose and a new lease on life, then I don’t know what to say!

My prayer for you today, brothers and sisters, is that the Lord lifts you up, just as He lifted His Son on the third day, into a new life in and through His Son, Jesus Christ. Might you become a valuable member of His Body, using the gifts He has given each of us to help build and support the Body of Christ. I pray that you might not go through life unaware of your gifts and that God reveals them to you through the wisdom and discernment that only He can offer. May He show them to you now and reveal all the tools at your disposal to help your brother and sister in need and continue His heavenly work here on earth. May the Lord bless you, keep you, shine His face on you, be gracious to you, and give you the peace of knowing His only begotten Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. 

“I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. Still, to someone who considers a thing to be unclean, to that one it is unclean” (Rom. 14:14).

In this passage, we are reminded of Jesus’ declaration from Matthew’s Gospel that “It’s not what goes into your mouth that defiles you; you are defile by the words that come out of your mouth” (Matt. 15:11). Jesus was hinting to the fact that the Jewish dietary laws, which held that there was food that was ritually unclean, such as pork and shellfish, no longer needed to be adhered to if one chose not to for His coming abolished the law. Instead of food going in that tarnished the soul, it was all the trash that comes out of human mouths that was bad for it. All of the lies, curses, and filthy language, which is a direct copy of what is in one’s mind and heart, accurately measure where one is on the spiritual spectrum. If I am walking around and every other word out of my is a four-letter word, and I’m cursing everyone I come into contact with daily, it might be high time to take inventory and see if I’m not falling short in my efforts to live a life pleasing to God. We do not have the power to pronounce damnation on a person. Only God can and will do that to those who live a life apart from Him. 

However, just because we don’t consider something unclean, this doesn’t mean we can always indulge in it. Take, for example, beer or a glass of wine. There is nothing inherently sinful in and of itself. On the contrary, Jesus and almost everyone during that period in history drank wine - Israel is still known to harvest some fine grapes for the wine-making process. However, for someone who is a recovering alcoholic, even merely someone who is abstaining from alcohol for a time, that same glass of wine might be an actual stumbling block for that individual. The same goes for any food or item that might cause a brother or sister to fall into temptation and back into undesirable ways of living. The true mark of someone present, aware, and mindful is someone who cares about the people in their life and desires that they are healthy and free from such temptation. It would not be a very Christian thing to do to cause someone to relapse or fall into a pattern of heavy drinking and all of the additional temptation that comes along with such behavior, would it? 

There is a reason why the section in Romans where this passage is located (Rom. 24:13-23) is subtitled “The Law of Love.” To behave in this way, being mindful of our brother’s and sister’s needs as we go about our daily lives, and taking an active role in how our actions affect other people and their well-being is to be loving and caring for other members of the human race. It is, in other words, the Christ-like thing to do. To behave contrary to the Law of Love is engaging in the opposite of loving-kindness. We are then acting only out of self, letting human desires and not the things of God rule our words and deeds. As Paul later writes in the passage, “So then, let us pursue what promotes peace and what builds up one another. Do not tear down God’s work because of food. Everything is clean, but it is wrong to make someone fall by what he eats.” (Rom. 14:19-20). As Gregory of Nyssa wrote in the fourth century, every word or deed that does not bring a person closer to Christ brings them closer to the Evil One. The person not in Christ automatically rejects Him but what he thinks, says, or does.

My prayer for you today, brothers and sisters, is that you are well and Christ-like in each thought, word, and deed. Please be mindful of not only your own words and actions but also of every person, be it a friend or foe, that you come into contact with in your day. I pray that the words coming out of your mouth and the actions that spring forward from your hands are pleasing to God and uplifting to those in your company. May you be given the wisdom and guidance to avoid the pitfalls and snares of the Evil One and not fall into temptation while helping others to do the same. Might your thoughts and deeds be more Christ-like, bringing you closer to Him rather than nearer to Satan. I pray that you might strengthened by the Almighty’s resolve, taking in His goodness and righteousness as your portion this day, and find the time to pray for another and help build them up rather than tear them down. I pray that the Lord shines His face upon you and gives you the one and only peace that His Son, Jesus Christ, can bring you. We pray this in the almighty, powerful, and eternal name of Jesus Christ. Amen. 

I hate, I despise your festivals, and I am not pleased by your solemn assemblies. Though you offer Me burnt offerings or your grain offerings, I will not accept them, nor will I regard the offerings of your fattened animals. Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (Amos 5:21-24). 

The prophet Amos was a prophet during the period of the Divided Kingdoms, when southern and northern Israel were separate, often warring against the other. The prophet’s record of God’s Word that was delivered to him during the reigns of Uzziah of Judah (792-740 B.C.) and Jeroboam II of Israel (793-753 B.C.) and are recorded in the Book of Amos, part of the twelve minor prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Amos was born in Tekoa in Judah, but upon the Lord’s call upon him he left for the Northern Kingdom to deliver God’s message to the rulers and people of that land. This period was a time of economic prosperity for both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms, with each land being protected by a well-trained and strong military. The Lord delivered His message to His chosen prophet, Amos, during a time of intense religious activity. Amos was to confront the people of the Northern Kingdom, who had allowed their religion to devolve into a sort-of two tiered system of beliefs, in which many people outwardly worshiped YAHWEH, the One True God of Israel, but secretly allowed themselves and others to engage in idolatry. Amos’ message is as valid today as it was over 2700 years ago. How many of us have yearned for, even strive to be good believers, going to church every Sunday, yet secretly keep our attachments to the things of this world? Too many of us are great at talking the talk, but when it comes to actually walking the walk, we falter. 

The problem of God’s people slipping back into old habits and engaging in idol worship is not a new phenomenon. On the contrary. It is, indeed, a large problem that is expressed throughout the various texts of the Old Testament. It is through prophets like Amos that God would deliver His Word to His people, letting them know that they were out of line and that He was not pleased with them. Generally, God would denounce their activities, tell them what their punishment would be in graphic detail, and then, oftentimes, withhold His judgment upon them. This display of God’s mercy and grace was proof that, though His people were sinners and living in a fallen world, He would not destroy them even though they deserve it. This is also an important distinction between YAHWEH,the One True God, and other gods from ancient history - from the very beginning, He shows His eternal love for His people. The incarnation of Jesus Christ into the world would be the fulfillment of the Law, Prophets, and Psalms of the Old Testament as well as the culmination of God’s love, mercy, and grace. God’s pattern of dealing with His people through His chosen prophets of the Old Testament epoch is not unlike how He deals with you and me. Though we may be sinners, even wicked in how we lived or now live, and we deserve to suffer His wrath, we are offered the perfect salvation that comes through belief in His Son Jesus Christ. So it is that we are pardoned from a death sentence as sinners and given the gift of eternal life when we enter the Kingdom of God in and through our belief in Christ. 

From this passage in Amos, it is revealed to us that God despises outward religious displays in His name that diverge from true and honest worship of Him. Having compassion for one’s neighbor and being moral and staying on the right path were infinitely more important to Him than the songs being sung and sacrifices being made in His name each day. So it is in our lives that these traits, which are imputed to us through a genuine faith in God’s only Son, Jesus Christ, are more important than the outward displays of being a Christian - going to church, praying so everyone can see, and reciting Bible passages with ease, and blaring a contemporary Christian music song for all to hear. Jesus touched upon this during the Sermon on the Mount, as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matt. 6:6). 

My prayer for you today is that you may be genuine and true in your faith. May you be given the wisdom and discernment to realize what is true and false in your life and this world and be guided on right paths towards the true, which are of God, and away from the false, which are from the Evil One. May God continue to work wonders and miracles in your life, working all things for the good. Our God is a God of redemption, making all things new through His only Son, Jesus Christ. May the darkness of your trials and tribulations be turned into the brightest dawn, illuminated by the Light of Christ. I pray that you may be restored into the original image that you were created in, in His image, and that you might be forged into His likeness. I pray that you might see Him in all things, and have compassion and love for your brothers and sisters, seeing how you might be of help wherever you might be. No one is too far gone to find salvation in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. May you go forward lifted up into a new life in Him, just as He was lifted up on the third day. Amen. 

“And he answered them, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news preached to them” (Luke 7:22). 

All four Gospel traditions begin with the narrative of John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin and the forerunner of Jesus, who was sent into the world to testify to the coming of the Messiah. More than likely, historically, Jesus was a disciple of John the Baptist before launching His earthly ministry. John the Baptist was imprisoned on the orders of Herod Antipas not long after baptizing his cousin, Jesus, in the Jordan River. Herod had been reluctant to put John the Baptist in bondage because many of the people were behind his movement; many of them had gone to see and be baptized by him, and it is likely that Herod was also interested in what John had to say. However, John crossed a line that Herod couldn’t ignore when he criticized Herod’s marriage to his brother’s wife, Herodias, among other issues, the ascetic, who dressed and behaved much like the prophet Elijah from the Hebrew Bible. It was shortly before John’s imprisonment, according to John’s Gospel, that Jesus’ ministry began to supersede John’s ministry of baptism by water. John, recognizing that Jesus was, by all accounts, the coming Messiah, was not bothered by this fact. Indeed, he saw it as God’s will, knowing that he was not the Messiah himself but the one who was to proclaim His coming. John the Baptist himself is recorded as saying, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

When scholars and historians comb over the evidence they have for the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth, the body in which the incarnation was made manifest, most come to a consensus as to just what kind of ministry Jesus’ was, the first mention is often a healing ministry. To say that Jesus had a healing ministry is, in this writer’s humble opinion, an understatement. God did profound, supernatural wonders and works through His only begotten Son, often as signs and deeds so that people would believe, as is recorded in the Gospel of John. It is no coincidence that John the Baptist, who heralded the arrival of the Messiah, like the prophets of old, carried the Word of God to His people, dressed, ate, lived, and proclaimed God much like one of the greatest prophets of the Bible, Elijah. For it was Elijah who resurrected the son of a widow (1 Kings 17:17-24), which foreshadows the resurrection of Christ, just as John the Baptist foreshadowed the coming ministry of his cousin, Jesus, the Son of God. Elijah was a great healer in the Biblical tradition, too. Just as God worked miracles through the hands of Elijah, Jesus’ healings relied on calling on God, the Father, to work through Him so that the healings and resurrections could take place so that others might believe in the power of God and that Jesus was who He said He was. The historical Jesus also likely saw himself as a prophet, for whom God was not just something transcendent or “out there,” but an experiential reality. It is recorded in the Gospels that Jesus said, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and his household” (Mark 6:4). 

While John the Baptist knew who Jesus was before he was imprisoned by Herod, most likely at Fortress Machareus after Herod ordered for him to be arrested (Matt. 14:1-2; Mark 6:14-29), he must have been eager to know who he had been privileged to baptize before his incarceration was indeed the Christ, the one who was to come. Jesus, who had a symbolic mind, didn’t simply reply, “Yes, I’m the Christ,” when John sent a message inquiring as to what was going on so that John’s disciples might also believe. John, who had been couped up in a jail cell with only a slit for a window to the outside world, wasn’t doubting Jesus, but likely his mind was playing tricks on him. Knowing this, Jesus replied by ensuring John was indeed the Messiah, that John could rest easy, even in his current situation, and that he had fulfilled his role in paving the way for Him. Jesus offered hard facts. Those who were sick and suffering were being healed, the blind were being given their sight (also a perfect metaphor for coming to God), and the poor and oppressed were hearing the Good News finally. Notably, this passage extracts some of its content from the Old Testament, from the voices of the Prophets, such as Isaiah and Jeremiah. Jesus, as Christ, was, is, and always will be the fulfillment of the entire corpus of the Old Testament. 

John the Baptist is a marker in the timeline of humanity. Since John had proclaimed that the Lamb of God was amongst us, Jesus had indeed come. The eternal had collided with that moment in time – God’s immanence was a reality for all those with eyes to see and ears to hear. God had come to earth as a man in the form of Jesus Christ. Nothing would ever, or could ever, occur like it again. Life would never be the same; praise be to God. The calendar would eventually be changed in the Christian tradition to mark this as the time before the incarnation, B.C., and the time after Christ’s life, death, and resurrection; A.D. Jesus is the solid line that divides the two epochs. The incarnation of Christ into the world divided all of time into two and split life into two. “Hence if anyone is in the Anointed, he is a new creation; the old things have passed away; look; they have become new (2 Cor. 5:17). As Jesus gave up His spirit on the Cross, He exclaimed, “It is finished!” (John 19:30). The mission in which Christ was sent into the world was to usher in the coming of the kingdom of God and to pronounce forgiveness of sins on all who believe in Him and He who sent Him – the final atoning work of Christ on the Cross. Our souls have been repurchased from the Evil One with the blood of Christ, and the bill of sale is final. 

I pray, brothers and sisters, that you may come to know the mercy and grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. May you be filled with the wisdom and discernment to have your eyes and ears opened so that you may both see and hear the Word of God, know what His will is for you, and understand that no matter what obstacle you are now facing, you have the great Redeemer on your side. Your sins have been washed clean by the blood of Christ Jesus. Rejoice and thank almighty God for the gift of everlasting life we share in and through Him. Just as it was while He was with us on earth, if you are sick, wearied, worn down, come to Him, put your issues at the altar, at His feet, give them to Him, and He will give you the rest and the respite that you have been searching for. I pray that you may go forward into your day with the love of God and the peace of His Son, Jesus Christ, in your heart. Where we once were dead in our sins, we have arisen into a new life in Him. Praise be to almighty God! Amen. 

"He answered and said to them, "When it is evening, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red'; and in the morning, 'It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red and threatening.' Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times" (Matt. 16:2-4).

Most people have heard the saying, "Red sky at night; sailors delight; red sky in the morning, sailor take warning." Jesus, a Galilean where the fishing industry thrived on the Sea of Galilee, was familiar with the jingle that helped fishermen through the ages discern what the weather would be like the next day or on the morning before heading out to cast out their nets. Several of the twelve apostles, the core group of disciples closest to Jesus, were fishermen, namely Peter, his brother Andrew, and John and James, the Sons of Zebedee, called the “Sons of Thunder” by Jesus. In Matthew's Gospel, when Jesus first encounters these men, Jesus asks them to follow Him. Speaking metaphorically and uniquely to Jesus in the Gospel tradition, He doesn’t merely ask them to tag along. Instead, He says, “Come follow me, I will make you fishermen for men” (Matt. 4:19). Jesus was, of course, telling His new apostles that He would turn them into evangelists, helping to spread the Good News to all those who needed to hear it. 

Part of being an evangelist, one of those who cast their nets to drag in the wicked and sinful (which we have all been numbered a part of as human beings) and bring them to God, whose kingdom was and is imminent, is asking for and receiving the discernment to read the signs of the times. In the passage above, Jesus criticizes the Pharisees and those who clung to the Law for being able to gauge the goings-on of each worldly day. Still, they didn’t have the "eyes to see and ears to hear” (Matt. 13:15). Jesus goes on to tell them that the only sign that the “blind” will receive is the sign of Jonah. The sign of Jonah is revealed earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, in Matthew 2:38-40. The sign of Jonah was the appearance of the prophet Jonah himself and the message he had to carry to the people of Nineveh. The prophet and his message changed the lives of the people of Nineveh. Therefore, Jesus is telling these people who don’t have the discernment needed to understand the things and ways of God and His kingdom that Jesus and His Gospel, the Truth and Light of the world, is the sign. 

Jesus Christ, for those who have been given the gift of wisdom and discernment, is the final revelation from God before His imminent arrival. God's revelation can God's further than Jesus Christ, the Word, our Lord, and our Savior. In Jesus Christ, we have the full revelation and manifestation of the Living God, the Ancient of Days, who can be seen and touched.

Jesus’ message about Jesus'able to understand the weather each day but incapable of discerning otherworldly things is also summarized in the meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus in John’s Gospel, where the incredulous Nicodemus has a hard time understanding what it is precisely that Jesus is telling Him. Jesus responds to Nicodemus’ lack of understanding with a slight rebuke, “If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (John 3:12). This speaks volumes about the handicap that so many people, especially in today’s secularized today are stricken with. We seem to be able to grasp the things of this world with no problem, but when it comes to the matters of the Spirit, the things of God, we have a hard time wrapping our minds around them. How many people have you run into, or perhaps you’ve experienced it yourself, who read the same passages in the Bible repeatedly but can’t understand what is written in the Word of God? That is because the human mind has been programmed to operate naturally, basing their thoughts and actions on the things they can see. But the things of God are not things we can see; they are the unseen supernatural forces at work in your life and the world. Therefore, it is written by the apostle Paul, “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). 

The call to understand t"the signs of the times is also a call to the pastoral community. It is a call to all those in a pastoral role to redouble their efforts in pastoral affairs, commitment to God and His people, and service – to be the shepherd of their flock. As we are all members of the priesthood of believers (1 Peter 2:9), this is a call to every Christian. The entire Body of Christ must strive to open their ears to hear and their eyes to see so that they may discern and distinguish the signs of the times and judge their interpretation of how they can apply God’s Word to their lives and their evangelical outreach accordiGod's In so doing God’s revelation can be penetrated at a greater depth, understood more fully, and put forward to be used to a greater degree than it otherwise would be. Assigning this role to every Christian, as well as challenging the pastors of each community to engage in seeking out the signs of the times, underscores the call to commitment and service that such times and the Word of God require. This is even more important today, where advances in science and technology have redefined the way that humans interact with one another. We must understand the times we are living in and the issues at hand and see how we can best apply God’s Word to these circumstances to carry out the Great Commission effectively. 

It is my prayer for you today, my brothers and sisters, that you are given the wisdom and discernment not only to understand worldly things but to see beyond that, to understand the ways and the Word of God and how it is most applicable in your own life and in being in service to others. A life lived that is not in service to your fellow man is not fully lived, so I pray that you may look to all the biblical examples, primarily our Lord, Jesus Christ, to His earthly ministry, when He came into this world, fully-man and fully-God, not to be served but to serve. We must pick up our crosses and bear them daily if we are to follow Him properly, and to do so, we must understand the signs of the times. I pray that God gives you the eyes to see and the ears to hear so that you may be more fully engaged in matters of the Spirit and less concerned with the issues of this world. I pray that you understand that this world is passing quickly but that His kingdom is eternal. Until next time, may God bless you and keep you, may He be gracious to you, may He shine His face upon you, and give you the peace of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. May you be lifted into a new and resurrected life in Christ, just as He lifted His Son. Amen. 

“For, just as we have many members in one body, yet the members do not all have the same function, so we who are many constitute one body in the Anointed, and are members each one of one another; and having different gracious gifts, according to the grace given us” (Romans 12:4-6).

While one might look around and see all the many denominations in the Church today, with churches and conflicts not uncommon between the various groups, it might seem as if the Christian faith is divided among sectarian lines. However, this couldn’t be farther from the truth and original intent of the earliest Christians. Unity in Christ was, and always will be, one of the defining factors of the faith. Whether one is a Catholic, Baptist, Eastern Orthodox, or non-denominational believer, we all believe in the same fundamental beliefs: that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that, after dying on the Cross in atonement for our sins, on the third day He rose again to be seated at the right hand of the Father from where He will come again to judge the living and the dead. This is an abbreviated form of a creed or confession of faith. The earliest creeds come from the Bible, the Word of God: “Jesus is Lord” (Rom. 10:9) is one of the shortest and earliest. These creeds ensure that no matter what differences we share as individuals and corporately, we can affirm our faith with such a creed and believe it in our hearts, knowing in our souls that it is the absolute truth, then we are all Christians. The universal Church is referred to as the Body of Christ: we are His body, and each of us is a member of that body. 

No one member of the body, at least in the Protestant tradition, is of greater importance than any other while we are in the flesh here on earth, and neither will we be of any greater importance than the next brother or sister in the Kingdom of God. Like Christ, we must realize that the old way of thinking and order of things must be tossed away. Those of us who want to “get ahead” in our faith lives must be content knowing that we should follow the words of Jesus when He told the disciples, “Whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave. That is what the Son of Man has done: He came to serve, not be served—and then to give away his life in exchange for the many who are held hostage” (Matt. 10:28). Many of us lived our prior lives, before coming to Christ, merely for ourselves, trying to have more and get what we want based on our selfish desires and wants, without caring about who we trampled over along the way. Sadly, plenty of us are still tempted to fall into the trap of selfishness, even as dedicated Christians, as it is one of the central issues concerning the fallen nature of man, and we must be aware of this tendency if we are to get anywhere in our new life in Christ. Luckily, as with all things, God’s Word always shows us first what the problem is and then what the solution to the problem is. 

Jesus tells us that we are to serve one another and that the old order, those being served are above everyone else, must pass away so that the man or woman who lives a life of service is first and foremost in the eyes of God for He sent His only Son into the world, God-incarnate to serve others and ultimately bear the sins of the world as a whole before His passion on the Cross. Christ is the ultimate example of a life and ministry of service to the underprivileged and radically destitute. Secondly, God has provided each of us with a particular gift or set of gifts so that we can help others and help carry out the Great Commission, which is Christ’s commandment to spread the Gospel to everyone who needs to hear it. 

We often don’t recognize our gifts until we have been convicted by the Spirit and confessed our faith. Some of us may be better at preaching, some at teaching, some at writing and working on social media, others may be gifted with material goods and wealth that they are blessed to be able to tithe with the Christian community, some may be great at counseling or pastoring in some capacity. No matter who you are, you have been given a gift by God that will help you as you share the Word of God and help another member of the Body of Christ grow. If you are unsure about your gift, the answer is simple: pray. Pray for wisdom and discernment; pray that the Spirit fills you and gives you the answers you need. We find our self-identity in Christ, and we also will come to know all the negative and positive attributes that make us who we are as we mature as Christians. As we are restored to God’s image, the image we are created in, we will become more aware of God’s will for us and how He has specially equipped us for the task we have been assigned. 

Today, my prayer for you is that you may be given the wisdom and discernment that you need to know what God’s will is for you as a member of His Son’s body and that you might be enlightened as to what the spiritual gifts are He has given you to help you in this divinely ordained mission we are all commissioned with. I also pray that you may humble yourself, putting away any selfish desires and wants, and look at the needs and afflictions of your fellow man and that you can tap into the gifts that God has given you to help another brother or sister in need. It is also my fervent prayer that we do not look at other believers in comparison and find the disunity between one another but that we can see them as fellow children of God, as brothers and sisters who share in the same faith and salvation, and that you too may join this prayer for unity in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May the Lord bless you, keep you, and give you peace. May all your days be filled with the love of Christ, and may the Spirit be poured out upon you, and may the Lord open your hearts to receive any gifts or blessings the Spirit has to give you. Amen. 

“Beloved friends, if life gets extremely difficult, with many tests, don’t be bewildered as though something strange were overwhelming you. Instead, continue to rejoice, for you, in a measure, have shared in the sufferings of the Anointed One so that you can share in the revelation of his glory and celebrate with even greater gladness!”(1 Peter 4:12-13 TPT)

Many times, newcomers come into the faith with the expectation that their life will be smooth going and free from troubles, with every desire of their hearts met once they’ve accepted Christ into their hearts. To teach such a message is nothing short of the prosperity gospel, another gospel altogether, and to believe it is to be dangerously misled. It is written, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:33). These are not promises that every desire and every want will be given to you if you remain steadfast in your faith and obedient to God but that all your needs will be met. As Jesus said, “If you then who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?” (Matt. 7:11). We need not worry about what we are going to wear, drink, or eat, no matter what the other circumstances in our life look like, so long as we remain in close contact with our Creator and ask Him to supply all our needs, He will ensure that these are met (Matt. 6:25-34). 

Indeed, when we choose to follow Christ, our lives are marked with challenges and adversity that we otherwise wouldn’t have to be concerned with. While we eliminate the most significant problems of life – the curse of the Law, bondage of sin, and the penalties of sin, which is death, a whole new host of issues that affect our lives may arise. Once again, we can look to the words of Jesus here for guidance. He tells us that, as Christians, we are to pick up our crosses and bear them daily in our walk with Him (Matt. 16:24-25) and that we should not fear the things that can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. We should, however, fear the things that destroy both the body and the soul (Matt. 10:28). These things speak volumes about what becoming a disciple of Christ, asking Him to enter our lives, might look like. It does not say that we will live on an easy street. Instead, it tells us that we are to face every uphill climb and every challenge that is put before us each day, knowing that we can rely on His strength to bear the weight of our burdens, for He already bore it for us on the Cross. Likewise, we do not need to fear people or things of this world that can take away life or limb because we have been ensured eternal life for believing in the name above all names, Jesus Christ. The apostle John would echo this in his first letter to the church of Antiquity, “And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever” (1 John 2:17). 

In the above passage, the apostle Peter is telling Christians that no matter what uphill climb or dark night they are facing, they should not be surprised, for Christ did not mince His words when He said to us that we would be presented with persecutions, prosecutions, and trying times for His name’s sake. Instead of crying out in anguish, we are to continue steadfast in our faith, remaining obedient to God and His Word, strapping on the armor of God, standing on the Gospel and our Faith, giving thanks for everything that He has done, is doing, and will do for us. Solomon, traditionally held to be the author of Proverbs, spoke of this many centuries before the time of Christ, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (Prov. 3:5-6). We should remember that when we suffer, we suffer with Christ on the Cross, but we should rejoice in this suffering, for as believers, we are given the gift of eternal life in Christ, meaning that we join Him in a resurrected life. The righteousness and goodness of God become our portion for all our days through our faith in Jesus Christ. 

It is my prayer that no matter what you are facing, no matter what trial you are going through, you can give thanks to God for everything that He has done for you, and yes, give thanks for the suffering that you are enduring for the suffering is done in and through Christ, giving you the blessing of eternal life and a new life resurrected in Christ, with Him alive in you and you alive in Him, seated at the right hand of God, the Father. I pray that you can pick up your cross daily and know that when you are at your weakest, He is at His strongest, helping you to endure all that comes your way. I pray that you not only can give thanks but that you can rejoice and celebrate in the darkest of nights, for the darkest hour is just before dawn, and you have been given the greatest of gifts in your faith in Christ, the wonderful salvation that we share as a community of believers. May you sing God’s praises as He sings over His creation. May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord turn His face upon you and be gracious to you; may the Lord shine His countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen. 

“I will give them integrity of heart and put a new spirit within them; I will remove their heart of stone from their bodies and give them a heart of flesh, so that they will follow my statutes, keep my ordinances, and practice them. They will be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 11:19-20 CSB). 

Throughout the history of ancient Israel, the Israelites found themselves consecutively under the thumb of tyrants. The course of the Old Testament can nearly be summed up by the rebellious acts of Israel’s people, of God’s people, and the punishment that ensues because of this disobedience. The Exodus of Egypt, when Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt and into the Wilderness for forty years, before his successor, Joshua, would finally bring God’s Chosen People into the Promised Land through a series of military conquests, to the conquest of Israel by the Assyrians and the subsequent Assyrian captivity in the eighth century BCE were early historical examples of this cyclical pattern in Scripture. It was during the Assyrian captivity that the prophet Isaiah spoke out boldly for God. Three centuries later, the neo-Babylonians and their conquest of the Israelites and the Babylonian captivity, the prophet Ezekiel acted in a similar role to Isaiah, carrying the spoken Word of God to the people as both a warning and, later, to remind them of God’s promises. This cycle of oppressive subjugation, periods of freedom, followed by a turning away from God and a foreign power coming into once again rule the Israelites would continue past Jesus’ time, first with the Greeks and, finally, the Romans who would be the final power to occupy ancient Palestine and the Levant, which would result in the Jewish diaspora and the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. 

Throughout the first half of Israel’s history, God took an active role in interacting with certain people, the prophets of the Old Testament, so that they could hear His Word, know His anger, and also know that He would still keep His covenant with Israel, despite their disobedience, showing His mercy and grace balancing out His righteousness and justice even before the incarnation of Christ. In the above passage, the conclusion of the prophet Ezekiel’s vision is recorded in the eleventh chapter of that text. This concluding portion is quite illuminating regarding both the prophet and God’s people, both those left under occupation and those taken into exile. It is clear from this passage that the prophet, after hearing about the wrath of God and His anger towards the disobedience of His people, has his hope lifted at the last hour. Ezekiel could not have had much hope for the future of the Israelites nor see any chance of redemption following his vision that carried him to the city of Jerusalem. Though it is a ray of hope, it is a slender ray of light in a very dark situation. While nothing could stop the judgment of God against Jerusalem, Ezekiel’s message was not one entirely of doom. It left the door open for a task to be carried out and it would be those in exile who would have to carry out this work after the prophet delivered the message to these people. 

The people of Jerusalem who had not been taken into exile had squandered this gift from God as they were prideful about their providential luck. Instead of giving thanks to God for putting them in irons and sending them off to a foreign land as slaves they boasted of this advantage and lived sinful lives, worshipping idols and worldly things instead of YAHWEH, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the One True God of Israel. In 597 BCE many of Jerusalem’s finest citizens were sent into exile. After showing that they weren’t concerned with the plight of their peers who had been sent into exile and trying to take power and gather wealth for themselves at the expense of the underprivileged of society, God had had enough of his rebellious people who were left behind. The Israelites left behind in Jerusalem had squandered a perfect opportunity to rebuild the city and do something wonderful for Israel and its people. Opportunity knocks for all people at some point in their lifetime but this must be accepted gratefully and any undertaking resulting from it is done for the glory of God and not because of selfish ambition and for one’s worldly desires and comforts. The question arises as to what ifthose left behind had worked for the glory of God instead of being blinded by selfishness. How many times in your life can you look back and ask what if? 

For a people who had lost faith in God, the Israelites were truly blessed. Ezekiel would proclaim to those sent off to captivity that the Lord would gather them back together and bring them back to their homeland, the land that was promised to Abraham and his seed, Israel. Their hardened hearts would be softened, and they would receive the blessings, grace, and mercy that their God had always shown His people. Echoing the words spoken by King David, recorded in 1 Chronicles, where it is written “He will be my son, and I will be his father. I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever” (1 Chron. 22:10), Ezekiel is to proclaim to the captives that they will be his people, and He will be their God, their Father. Both texts are messianic prophecies of the everlasting Davidic throne that would be fulfilled through the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ nearly six centuries from the period of Ezekiel. Christ would be the ultimate fulfillment of the entire Old Testament canon of the Law and Prophets, ensuring that God’s grace and mercy were available to all and that anyone who called on the Lord's name and believed in Him, would be restored to the image we were created in, in His image, and will forever be His children, and God, our Father. Think of your past, how many times have you made a mistake or acted contrary to what God would want from you? Yet, there is no end to His love, and when we ask Christ to enter our lives, it is by His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:5), by His blood, we are saved from our sins. We are all sinners, and against God, and God alone have we sinned, but we are made righteous and whole through our confession of faith in Christ. 

I pray for you on this day, that you can search your heart, and no matter what past transgressions you have committed, whether they’re repeated patterns of minor errors or something more heinous that you think you just can’t be forgiven for, that you allow the love of God to soften your hardened heart, just like the Israelites in the Old Testament, and find that through Christ, and Christ alone you are made whole again and that His righteousness and goodness will be your portion for all of your days. No one is too far gone to receive the salvation that comes from Christ’s finished work on the Cross. I pray that you’ll understand what it means to follow God’s love and ordinances, and that, freed from the curse of the law, you can love God and love neighbor and bring the Word to those who need to hear it in these dark and tumultuous days. I pray that the Spirit enriches your life, and brings you wisdom and discernment and that you have all your needs met, for if you put Him and His Kingdom first, these promises will surely be given to you. I pray that no matter what storm you might find yourself in, or within you, is cleared up with the words that Jesus spoke on the Sea of Galilee, “peace be still” (Mark 4:39).

“So  Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man [on the cross],  you will know that I am the Christ, and that I do nothing on my own  authority, but that I say exactly what my Father has instructed me to  say. Yes, He who sent me is ever with me; I am not alone, because I  always practice what pleases Him.” Even while He was saying this, many  believed in Him” (John 8:12-13). 

The  first three Gospels in our Bibles all originate from a common source,  possibly from the Gospel of Mark, the first Gospel written sometime  around 60-65 AD. These are called the Synoptic Gospels, meaning “related  to” or “similar,” roughly translated. The first three Gospels, indeed,  are similar in the events they portray and the summary they provide for  the reader of Jesus’ earthly ministry, death, and resurrection. The  Gospel of John, written by the “beloved disciple,” who is in all likely  the apostle John, the son of Zebedee, who would be the only apostle to  survive into old age and not die due to persecution -though there were  several close calls and his imprisonment on Patmos towards the end of  his life, where tradition holds that the apostle had the visions that  led to him being inspired to write Revelation. John’s Gospel takes a  completely different track than the Synoptic Gospels, giving Jesus a  longer ministry with two trips to Jerusalem. The reader should note that  this doesn’t mean there is a contradiction in the Gospels, rather the  Spirit inspired and coauthored each Gospel differently likely tailored  for a different group of believers, with a slightly different message.  Matthew's Gospel, for instance, is written directly for the Jews, to  show them that Jesus was the promised Messiah. John’s Gospel was likely  written during a period when Gnosticism was beginning to infiltrate the  early church and the high Christology of John leaves no doubt that Jesus  was uniquely fully-man yet fully God. 

Throughout  John’s Gospel, he masterfully records the escalating confrontation  between Jesus and the religious authorities of Jerusalem. In the  Synoptic Gospels, the reader is presented with Jesus on trial before the  Romans and the Sanhedrin. In the Gospel of John, it is the world, which  includes the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who are on trial, and John  presents a series of witnesses that stand in defense of the truth of  what Jesus said. In chronological order throughout John’s Gospel, they  are as follows: John the Baptist, Jesus, God the Father, Moses and the  Scriptures, the Holy Spirit, the disciples, and the fourth evangelist,  John. The passage chosen for today is a continuation of the Tabernacle  Discourse, in which Jesus speaks to convince the crowd of the truth of  who He is and that it doesn’t matter whether He comes from the Galilee  or that the scribes and Pharisees search the Scriptures and can’t find  any indication that a prophet like a Moses would come from that region –  Jesus and the truth about Him does not rest with any man on earth but  comes entirely from divine authority.

Jesus  is telling the people that when they see Him on the Cross atop  Golgotha, they will then know that He is the Messiah. Yet, even as the  only begotten Son of God, Jesus could do nothing on His own, all the  authority for what He did and who He was, is, and always will be. Jesus  had to take His marching orders from God, the Father. That is why we  always see Jesus praying at the outset of any miracle or sign, he is  communicating with the Father for Him to provide the power to change  water to wine or to resurrect the dead. Though Jesus was out of His  heavenly element, being made fully man as well as fully God through the  incarnation, He was not separated from God. The Father was always with  Him, watching over Him, and protecting Him until the very end, when he  would be turned over, in the hands of sinners, to bear the filthy sins  of the world to accomplish His atoning work on the Cross. Jesus was  always doing what was pleasing to God, He is the only one to ever walk  this earth entirely without sin – and He was God incarnate. That is why  Jesus told the people during the Sermon on the Mount that they should  “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). 

The  takeaway from this should be clear to those who meditate on the  Scripture for even a short while. If Jesus, who was God incarnate, fully  man and fully God, had to rely on the Father for all things, always  asking for what He needed through prayer and seeking answers through  contemplative meditation (the reason Jesus often walked off to be alone)  then how much more must we rely on the Father for all our needs? It has  already been pointed out how Christ teaches us that we are to try and  be perfect as our Father, God, is perfect. Though we will surely fall  short, as we are all sinners, we are not under the curse of the Law but  under grace, our sins washed clean by His blood. Likewise, we are to  meditate on His Word night and day (Josh. 1:8) and ask for wisdom and  discernment. We must pray that a right spirit be given us, and a pure  heart installed so that we can be more Christ-like in our faith journey.  Despite our human errors, as Children of the Light, the Father, our  Creator, in whose image we were made and restored to in and through  Christ, will never turn our back on us or desert us. We also have the  added benefit of having Christ as our great high priest and intercessor  in prayer so that when we find ourselves in a trial or during times of  adversity, our prayers are received by Christ, seated at the right hand  of the Father, who will intercede on our behalf (Heb. 4:14-16). 

Today,  it is my prayer for you that you come to know Christ as your great high  priest and intercessor in heaven. May you go forward with the peace of  Jesus Christ in your heart, always doing your best to ask what God’s  will is for you and that you can carry it out with the help of the Holy  Spirit. May you be given the wisdom and discernment that you need, and  your heart be opened to receive the gifts and blessings that the Spirit  might dispense for you. I pray that you always put your faith in Christ  and that you see Him and the Father as your total strength and strong  tower, your divine fortress. Just as Christ was lifted up, a prophet  like Moes, I pray that you too are lifted into a new life in Jesus  Christ, with Him dwelling in you and you in Him, who is seated at the  right hand of the Father from where He will soon come to judge both the  living and the dead. May you always strive to do all for His glory,  setting aside your own selfish wants and desires. This is my prayer for  you today. Peace and blessings. 

“But let him ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like surf of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways” (James 1:6-8).

The widely accepted author of the Book of James is the Lord’s brother, James, who was not a believer during Jesus’ earthly ministry, but we know that he became an early leader in the church in Jerusalem in the years following Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. James, the younger half-brother of Jesus son of Joseph and Mary, was the head of the Jerusalem Council, a pivotal event in the history of the early church, where he supported Paul’s view that the keeping of the Law was not a stipulation that gentile converts to the nascent faith had to uphold (Acts 15:12-21). The famous church historian of the third and fourth centuries, Eusebius, wrote that James spent so much time kneeling in prayer before God that his knees turned into what looked like camel’s knees. There is no reason to believe that this statement was factual other than a means to vividly express the piety of the Lord’s brother, James. Like so many faithful early Christians, James would become a martyr for the Word, giving his life in 62 A.D. Clement of Alexandria remarks that he was flung from the Temple’s pinnacle before being clubbed to death.

As a leader of the early church in Jerusalem, James was the head of a group that might be correctly termed Christian Jews. Unlike the Gentiles that Paul would become accustomed to working with, these Christians were much like the very first Christians in that they came from a background that was nearly entirely devoutly Jewish and still saw themselves as such, going to synagogue and maintaining the necessity of circumcision but finding the bulk of their faith put in Jesus as the Messiah and fulfillment of the Law and Prophets instead of blindly following the Law, as their ancestors had done for ages before them. Due in part to this, and the fact that the epistles and letters of Paul would have been unknown to James and his contemporaries as they were not widely circulated among the church until a few decades after James’ martyrdom, one finds that the message of James often stands at variance, even in opposition to, what Paul writes in his works. Nonetheless, the general epistle written by the Lord’s brother under the inspiration of the Spirit provides the Christian with valuable moral warnings, rebukes, and exhortations. 

The above verse advises Christians on the resources available to them during periods of adversity and tribulation and how the individual believer can access them. James reminds us that the believer must have wisdom and faith as they go up against the trials that life lays before them and that they should constantly pray for God’s wisdom and a concrete measure of faith. These early Jewish Christians would have been very familiar with wisdom for to them it was much more than sheer head knowledge or intelligence but how one begins to enter a relationship with their Creator, “fear of the Lord” being the beginning of Wisdom (Prov. 1:7). Later in his letter James contrasts earthly and divine wisdom showing the former to be from the evil one while the latter is heavenly and good, being imparted by God’s Holy Spirit (Jas. 3:17). 

As Christians we must ask for this wisdom to be given to us. God wants to hear our prayers; He wants to address our specific needs. Jesus told His disciples that whatever they ask in prayer will be granted to them so long as they shoe faith (Matt. 21:22). Whoever then asks for such wisdom must do so in the spirit of belief and do it with unwavering faith, without doubts. If there are any holes in the Christian’s faith, they should ask that they be plugged. “I do believe, Lord; help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24). One can ill afford to make light of such doubt for it implies we do not believe God is capable of all the things He is able to do. It is questioning God’s omnipotence. We must have sincere conviction that does not waver between two polarities. 

The one who doubts, or shifts between doubt and the edge of belief is a man who is double-minded and unstable in everything they do. It is not uncommon to face a period of doubt or two in our walk with God, all believers are tested in a like fashion. What matters is that we show dedication and consistency in our faith and that we know how to overcome such doubts by seeing them for what they are, as the devils attempts to stifle our faith, and to ask God to destroy the attacks of Satan, to thwart and blunt the sword of evil that is aimed for our souls. By putting on the armor of God (Eph/ 6:10-12) each day and remaining steadfast in our prayers, asking that God’s wisdom and discernment be granted us, asking for specific needs, and allowing our faith to flourish as the Spirit works and moves in our lives, standing on that faith and the Word of God, we can ensure we remain obedient to Him.

Therefore, Brothers and Sisters, I pray for you on this day that God impart His wisdom and discernment to you through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in your life. I pray that you may remain steadfast in your faith and love of Christ, and that your every need is met by the God who provides us with all of our needs. He has given us a well-spring of living water, may your thirst for it be quenched as you sip from the cup of eternal life. I pray you may be of one mind, not wavering in your faith, resting assured that God is capable of seeing you through even the darkest of nights. He is the God of the impossible. I pray that your life may filled with the Word and love of God and that, with His help, you avoid all pitfalls and snares the evil one might lay before you. Amen.

I hate, I despise your festivals, and I am not pleased by your solemn assemblies. Though you offer Me burnt offerings or your grain offerings, I will not accept them, nor will I regard the offerings of your fattened animals. Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (Amos 5:21-24). 

The prophet Amos was a prophet during the period of the Divided Kingdoms, when southern and northern Israel were separate, often warring against the other. The prophet’s record of God’s Word that was delivered to him during the reigns of Uzziah of Judah (792-740 B.C.) and Jeroboam II of Israel (793-753 B.C.) and are recorded in the Book of Amos, part of the twelve minor prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Amos was born in Tekoa in Judah, but upon the Lord’s call upon him he left for the Northern Kingdom to deliver God’s message to the rulers and people of that land. This period was a time of economic prosperity for both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms, with each land being protected by a well-trained and strong military. The Lord delivered His message to His chosen prophet, Amos, during a time of intense religious activity. Amos was to confront the people of the Northern Kingdom, who had allowed their religion to devolve into a sort-of two tiered system of beliefs, in which many people outwardly worshiped YAHWEH, the One True God of Israel, but secretly allowed themselves and others to engage in idolatry. Amos’ message is as valid today as it was over 2700 years ago. How many of us have yearned for, even strived to be good believers, going to church every Sunday, yet secretly keep our attachments to the things of this world? Too many of us are great at talking the talk, but when it comes to actually walking the walk, we falter. 

The problem of God’s people slipping back into old habits and engaging in idol worship is not a new phenomenon. On the contrary. It is, indeed, a large problem that is expressed throughout the various texts of the Old Testament. It is through prophets like Amos that God would deliver His Word to His people, letting them know that they were out of line and that He was not pleased with them. Generally, God would denounce their activities, tell them what their punishment would be in graphic detail, and then, oftentimes, withhold His judgment upon them. This display of God’s mercy and grace was proof that, though His people were sinners and living in a fallen world, He would not destroy them even though they deserve it. This is also an important distinction between YAHWEH,the One True God, and other gods from ancient history - from the very beginning, He shows His eternal love for His people. The incarnation of Jesus Christ into the world would be the fulfillment of the Law, Prophets, and Psalms of the Old Testament as well as the culmination of God’s love, mercy, and grace. God’s pattern of dealing with His people through His chosen prophets of the Old Testament epoch is not unlike how He deals with you and me. Though we may be sinners, even wicked in how we lived or now live, and we deserve to suffer His wrath, we are offered the perfect salvation that comes through belief in His Son Jesus Christ. So it is that we are pardoned from a death sentence as sinners and given the gift of eternal life when we enter the Kingdom of God in and through our belief in Christ. 

From this passage in Amos, it is revealed to us that God despises outward religious displays in His name that diverge from true and honest worship of Him. Having compassion for one’s neighbor and being moral and staying on the right path were infinitely more important to Him than the songs being sung and sacrifices being made in His name each day. So it is in our lives that these traits, which are imputed to us through a genuine faith in God’s only Son, Jesus Christ, are more important than the outward displays of being a Christian - going to church, praying so everyone can see, and reciting Bible passages with ease, and blaring a contemporary Christian music song for all to hear. Jesus touched upon this during the Sermon on the Mount, as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Matt. 6:6). 

My prayer for you today is that you may be genuine and true in your faith. May you be given the wisdom and discernment to realize what is true and false in your life and this world and be guided on right paths towards the true, which are of God, and away from the false, which are from the Evil One. May God continue to work wonders and miracles in your life, working all things for the good. Our God is a God of redemption, making all things new through His only Son, Jesus Christ. May the darkness of your trials and tribulations be turned into the brightest dawn, illuminated by the Light of Christ. I pray that you may be restored into the original image that you were created in, in His image, and that you might be forged into His likeness. I pray that you might see Him in all things, and have compassion and love for your brothers and sisters, seeing how you might be of help wherever you might be. No one is too far gone to find salvation in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. May you go forward lifted up into a new life in Him, just as He was lifted up on the third day. Amen. 

“But seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given as well” (Matt. 6:33).

God has certainly bestowed upon us many blessings in life – not the least of which is that gift of life itself. However, we also have definite obligations that must be fulfilled. The Bible reveals to us what God expects from His people. The proper response to this is to thank Him and live a life that is obedient to Him and conformed to His will, letting go of all selfish, self-righteousness, and our own will to obey His commands for us as they are revealed to us through His Word. 

A large portion of the promises contained in the Bible are conditional. However, as it concerns are maturity and growth as Christians, most of these promises are conditional upon our acceptance of His Will for us and the obedience we show in our daily lives. One can tell a tree by the fruit that it bears. A good tree does not produce bad fruit and a bad tree only brings forth corrupt fruit (Matt. 7:17-20). 

A question you must ask yourself is who do you live your life for? What takes up the foremost space in your thoughts and future plans? It would do well to remember the words of Jesus here when He said that one cannot serve two masters, as he will only end up loving one and hating the other or hating one and loving the other (Matt. 6:24). We can’t, in other words worship the false idols of this world and truly say that we love God and do His will anymore than we can love God with all our might and our neighbor as ourselves while being attached to the lusts of the flesh that are in this world. The things of this world are passing but the kingdom of God is eternal (1 John 2:17). 

So, though we are in this world we are not of the world, as Christians. To follow Christ in the manner He expects us to certainly means we may face struggles and tribulations in our walk with Him. But this also means that we are ensured the privilege of resting easy with the peace of Christ in our hearts no matter how choppy the seas of life get. He is certainly able to calm those seas with a simple command, but He doesn’t always chose to do so. What you are promised is that you can call on Him anytime and the raging storm of fear and anxiety, even in the most adverse of conditions, will be quelled. 

So, what are “these things” that are written in Matthew 6:33? A quick read of the entire relevant passage, Matthew 6:25-32, tells us that as we seek to know Christ better and follow Him each day, putting Him first in our daily living, we will begin to fully experience the love of God and the care that only He provides. God will provide for your every need. Not your every desire but your every need – the necessities in life will be provided for you. What you eat, what you drink, and what you will wear is nothing you should ever concern yourself over for it will be provided by your Heavenly Father as sure as the sun rises and sets again each day. So long as we put God first in everything, like the good Father that He is, will provide for all of our needs. In order to put Him first er must trust in Him and be happy with Him. We should trust Him in everything and make His ways our ways as much as humanly possible. So that we know what God wants from us we must study His Word and meditate on it night and day, moving fast to obey His commands (Ps. 119:60). Look no further than the inspired writings of the apostle Paul in 2 Timothy where he reminds us that all of Scripture is God-breathed, infallible and inerrant, and useful for guidance and teaching (2 Tim. 3:16).

My prayer for you today is that, wherever you’re at in your walk with God, you will come to know Him better and yearn to love like He loves and that you will walk in His ways all the days of your life. Though struggle will come, I pray that you are able to find rest in the Lord and confront your troubles with the peace of Christ in your heart. I pray that you seek Him first, above all things, and that all the blessings and promises contained in His Word come to fruition in your life as you become more Christ-like in your daily life. May you study the Scriptures daily and ask that the Spirit guide you in your studies so that the wisdom and discernment that comes from the Word of God will be yours, too. Finally, I pray that His righteousness and goodness will be your portion and that His goodness and mercy follow you all of your days. Amen.

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the men of old obtained a good report" (Heb. 11:1-2). 

After Jesus' resurrection, He began to appear to the apostles. He finally appeared to the apostle Thomas, who doubted whether the Lord had risen. This gave rise to the term "Doubting Thomas" in the world. When Jesus appeared to Thomas, and he could believe, since he had seen the resurrected Jesus with his own eyes, Jesus told Thomas and the other present apostles, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed" (John 20:29). Jesus was indicating that it is easier for someone to believe in something they can see, something or someone they can physically touch. Understandably, Thomas's belief came from his experience, but Jesus knew that He would soon ascend to the Father, where no one would see Him until He returned in His glory in the second coming. All believers who Jesus didn't physically appear to would have to believe based on what they learned about Him and the faith that developed from there.

From the very beginning of the Old Testament period, people who believed in the One True God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, particularly the Patriarchs, had always gone out on a limb of faith, believing not in what their senses told them they should believe in but let their faith guide them, instead. As a reward for such faith, they were richly rewarded both here on earth and in the heavenly treasures that awaited them. Whatever they were hoping for, their faith produced it through God. Now, as new creations in Christ and the New Covenant of the Kingdom of God, his life, death, and resurrection are heralded by faith in Christ alone, restored in our relationship with our Creator, and we are rewarded in the same way. The author of Hebrews, attempting to speak to a group who, faced with persistent trials and persecutions, were about to turn back to the old ways of the Law, proves this statement repeatedly with his exegesis of the Old Testament throughout the rest of Chapter 11 of Hebrews. 

Everyday, ordinary people who believe in God, trusting entirely in Him, and taking Him at His Word, through the Word, receive faith that would not otherwise be available to them without God in their lives. Jesus reminds us of this when he tells us, "With man nothing is possible; with God everything is possible" (Matt 19:26). Faith is genuinely letting go and letting God in the full knowledge that He will never turn His back on us and will always provide for us no matter where we find ourselves. One might say that to have faith like this is to see things the way God sees them. This means that we quit running our lives based on our own will and hand it over to the Divine Author of Life, allowing Him to take the reins. We must stand firm on the Word of God and know that in the same way, our eyes allow us to see physical objects in this world, faith replicates the same in the unseen world. Faith manifests itself by assuring that what we hope for will come to fruition. This faith provides wisdom and discernment into realities that would otherwise remain unrevealed. The person of faith lets these revealed truths and the Truth of the Word generate power for their daily life. 

My prayer for you on this day is that you may let go and let God take control. I pray that the Spirit fill you, and with the peace of Christ in your heart, you be given the wisdom and discernment that only solid faith provides, allowing you the assurance that all that you hope for and all the promises that God made possible through his Son, our Lord, and Savior Jesus Christ, will come true in your life. Where there may be gaps in your belief, small holes in the fabric of faith, I pray that He help you in your unbelief and fill those holes so that, like the heroes of the Old Testament, you will be handsomely rewarded in this life and the next. I pray that you may be given eyes to see and ears to hear, stand firm on God's Word, and have the faith to carry it to those who need to listen to it the most. May you also be blessed to see creation and learn more about God, His power, and His love for His creation – for it is by learning about God's creation that we respond in faith to the Truth in the Word. Amen. 

"He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded that what God had promised, He was able to perform" (Romans 4:20-21).

The Old Testament is often seen as a collection of texts that prophesied the coming of Jesus as the Messiah, while the New Testament provides further insights into how Jesus fulfilled these prophecies. The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Romans, extensively used the Old Testament to argue his points across all sixteen chapters. The central message is that through Christ, believers are able to overcome death and attain eternal life. The miraculous birth of Isaac to Abraham and Sarah serves as a key example of faith and helps us understand how to remain faithful to Christ. Through our faith in Christ, we are transformed, reconciled with God, and restored to the divine image in which we were originally created.

Indeed, Abraham is a fine example of faith from the Old Testament. From the beginning of Abraham and Sarah’s walk with God, it was going out on an extreme limb of faith. God promised Abraham and made a covenant with him that many nations would be linked to Abraham and his seed (Genesis 17). Just when it seemed that this was hardly likely, as Abraham had only been given a son through Sarah’s slave girl HagarSarah'sewarded Abraham for his great faith and long-suffering, in the same way, that all of us believers are rewarded when we show the same qualities in our relationship with God, through Christ. One might have expected to use the story of Abraham being told to sacrifice his son, Isaac, only to be told by God not to go through with it at the last second, as he was testing Abraham’s faith one finAbraham'shat would foreshadow God sending his one son into the world where He would not intervene, for it is through Christ’s death on the CChrist's subsequent resurrection three days later that our sins are forgiven. We can have salvation through faith in Him alone. 

Through this faith, Paul is trying to tell us that we are made right with God and are recipients of His goodness and righteousness for all of our days when there is receptiveness of such faith. Abraham never wavered in his faith, and even when the going got tough, he only doubled down his faith and gave all the praise and glory to God, taking none of it for himself but allowing for the glory of God to shine through his works, which were only made possible by the same God. Apart from God, Abraham would not have been able to carry out what he did to keep his part of his covenant with his Creator. Likewise, apart from Christ, we cannot perform in any meaningful way on any given day, for Christ makes all things possible as our great high priest and intercessor, sitting at the Father's right hand, praying us even when we can’t. There is nothing man can do on his own; God carries him all his life, whether he likes it or not, and it is always God’s will that takes us wherever we are going, so we must pray for wisdom and discernment to know what His will is for us and to conform our will to His will, no matter what that means for us and our lives. We are not in control, God always has been, is, and always will be the one who had authored our lives. 

Today, I pray that you take solace in the fact that we are not in control of our lives. I pray that God fills you, through Christ and the outpouring of His Spirit, with the wisdom and discernment to know what is and where it is that He wants you to be and how He wants you to serve Him. Furthermore, I pray that you may be filled with the same kind of faith that drove Abraham and all the others that came before us and that you are given the strength in Christ, knowing that when you are weak, He is at His strongest, to let that faith get you through each day. No matter what hill you climb or valley you descend, God will never turn His back on you, and you will always be led in the right direction if you follow the will of God. May you be persuaded that you alone are capable of nothing but that you, as a new creation in Christ, are capable of all things through Him and the Father. May the Holy Spirit continue to descend upon you and open your heart today to receive the gifts and miracles it has to give the faithful. Amen.. 

“Woe to him who builds his house by unjust gain, setting his nest on high to escape the clutches of ruin! You have plotted the ruin of many people, shaming your own house and forfeiting your life. The stones of the wall will cry out, and the beams of the woodwork will echo it” (Habakkuk 2:9-11). 

During the Old Testament period, the prophets would come forward during tumultuous times to declare messages that God had delivered to them. The prophets were often puzzled by what God was up to, yet they carried His Word to the intended recipients. The central concept and key to Habakkuk’s message are that even during trial and tribulation, God expects His people to remain faithful and continue trusting Him. There is always reason to stay hopeful when one remains close to God. This message carried by most of the prophets would find its total fulfillment in Jesus Christ, who is the fulfillment of the entire content of the Old Testament – the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms were all about Him. Jesus would espouse the same sentiment in a much more explicit form, “With man nothing is possible, but with God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26). 

 Habakkuk’s message anticipated the coming of the Chaldeans, which would come to fruition between 612 and 605 B.C. The Chaldeans didn’t become a threat to Judah until after the battle of Carchemish, which took place in 605, but in 597, they had overrun Jerusalem and took King Jeroiachin prisoner. The Israelites were cyclically under the thumb of oppression by one foreign power after the other after God led them out of Egypt and through the forty years in the Wilderness. During the sack of Jerusalem, or any period of trial, it is conceivable that there would be some people who would continue to follow God’s laws and man’s laws, even during an extended stretch of lawlessness, but that there would be others, far too many of them, that might take advantage of the situation and try to skirt around the rules, forgo morals and the laws of God, and make the best of it for themselves, selfishly, whether its for financial or material gain, at the expense of their fellow citizens. There are reasons why martial law is applied to nations during wartime, and there is no tolerance for looters, privateering, and other enterprises that not only violate the laws of the land and harm others but further decay the morale and moral fabric of society, give aid and comfort to the enemy. 

In Habakkuk’s oracle, particularly in the above verse, he warns of such apostasy. He warns that those who carry out such wicked acts will have plotted against their people and planted the seed for their destruction. What good is any material gain if its cost is the absolute price of your soul? It is not the bodily death that Habakuk is speaking of but spiritual death – total separation from God. Jesus tells us, in the Great Commandment, that we are to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves (Matt. 22:36-40). Habakkuk prophesied the acts were opposite from the message of total love and obedience to God that Jesus would preach six centuries later. This is also what Christ spoke of when He said, “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it” (Matt. 16:25). We are to give up the old way of doing things, to let the old self die and to be resurrected into a new life in Jesus Christ, repenting for the sins of our past, and saved from living that life anymore. We lose nothing by letting the selfish ways of our past life live in bondage to sin, but we gain everything, including eternal life, when we ask Christ to live inside us. 

Today, we should be thankful that we don’t have to live stuck in the sins of our past. We need not worry about being held in slavery to sin, or the curse of the Law, for Christ shed His blood on the Cross so that there may be salvation for those who believe in Him, the One the Father sent. God’s love is so great that despite the wickedness of human nature, for no man is born a good, no one is good except God alone (Mark 10:8), that He sent His only Son into the world so that we might not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). We are thankful that in the course of history, God spoke to us through the Prophets, and that His Word is recorded in the Bible, which is fulfilled through the life, works, death, and resurrection of Christ. Christ is the key to unlocking all of Scripture, the God-breathed text of the Bible, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, as God’s unified story in two parts. Let us give thanks for the wisdom we get from Scripture and the discernment given to us by the Spirit to put Christ at the center of not only Scripture but our entire lives. 

“And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses. He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:13-14). 

Before Christ’s incarnation, His earthly ministry and the work He did on the Cross, followed three days later by the glory of His resurrection, the people of Israel, those who practiced the Jewish religion of the Second Temple Period and beforehand, were slaves to the Law, both the written Law of Moses as it is contained in the Torah and the oral laws, totaling 613 laws that one had to obey daily if they were to be utterly obedient to God. Naturally, no one could match this kind of perfection except the One that was to come, Jesus Christ, so your average first-century Palestinian Jew would oft find himself as “unclean.” There were certain rituals and sacrifices that the unclean would have to perform before they were pronounced clean by a Temple priest. Much of these laws are written down in Leviticus, and it does a reader well to read through that chapter for no other reason than to understand what a dead end the Law was. It served its purpose perfectly well at the time, being a temporary measure, a period in the overall timeline of God’s plan of salvation as laid out in Scripture. Still, a more perfect sacrifice was needed if people were to be free from their sins. 

Leviticus 12:3 also details the Law and ritual of circumcision. All Jewish boys were to be circumcised, the outer skin of the Penis removed, as a mark of being one of “God’s Chosen.” So, when Paul refers to the uncircumcision of the flesh, he is referring to those Jews, or even Gentiles, who remained living in the flesh; this was akin to living life uncircumcised, for the perfect sacrifice that was to release man from his sin, set him free from the bondage of the Law, and give them the gift of a restored relationship with their Creator and eternal life came in the form of Christ. But the circumcision that Christ offers is not of the flesh; it is not a mark on the skin. It is of the heart. To believe in Christ and to accept Him as your Lord and Savior is to take on this mark of circumcision upon the heart (Rom. 2:25-29). 

A debt was owed by all of humanity before Christ. Sins are against God and God alone, and since the “Fall” in the Garden of Eden, when Eve ate the forbidden fruit at the serpent’s behest, we all inherited the sin. In fact, there are ancestral sins that plague families for generations. Man fell into the evil trap of sin at the behest of Sinthe serpent, and debt had to be paid for the man to be free from its wicked curse. The Law was no help; it was a mere stop-gap measure to make do until God could swing His grand designs into motion, which occurred in the life, work, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Once one is convicted of sin by the Spirit Sin, they give themselves over to Christ, opening their hearts so that they might allow Him to live in them and work through them as they are resurrected into a new life, alive in Him. Any debt of sin and curse of Sin Law was broken, and man was set free from this debt as Christ bore the load of our sins, and as He was nailed to the Cross, our sins were pinned on to it as well, to be washed clean by His blood. It is by His stripes that we are healed (Isaiah 53:5). 

This morning, let us give thanks that we are freed from the “uncircumcision” that is a life lived in the flesh when we turn to Christ as our redeemer. By becoming His disciple, and taking up the call to follow Him, we are released from the deep debt of sin that is such aSinffront to our Creator, and we are free to live a life free from sin. We thank God Sint we don’t have to live life like we used to and that we have a great high priest, a mediator, always sitting at the right hand of the Father, so that prayers of intercession may be non-stop and the lines of communication always open so that our prayers never go unanswered. “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you” (Matt. 7:7-8). 

“For this reason, take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand” (Ephesians 6:13). 

The apostle Paul is well-known for using potent allegory and alliteration in his epistles and letters. In various places in Scripture, the apostle uses the example of being a soldier, an endurance athlete, and a farmer enjoying the fruits of his hard labor (2 Tim. 2:3-6). In the concluding chapter of Ephesians, Paul uses yet another allegory to the soldier's life, tools, and trade. During an era of warfare where the best troops, the Roman army, wore thick armor while carrying a shield in addition to their weapon, the likeness of ensuring that one is in right standing with God each day through firm faith in Christ strengthened by the outpouring of the Spirit, the metaphor is quite apropos. The life of a Christian is not one lived one Sunday at a time, with a whole week of being at the mercy of the world in between. From the very beginning, even as Jesus’ earthly ministry was beginning, John the Baptist was calling people to a life of repentance. Notice that John didn’t tell people to change their thoughts for one hour a day, not just for a full day, but for each day moving forward. Jesus’ message of the coming of the Kingdom of God, and to those who will enter it, was for the man or woman who desired to live a genuinely repentant life, one day at a time, for the rest of their lives. 

To truly repent means looking into the heart and changing how one thinks and does things. It can also mean turning back and going back to God. As Christians, we are called, like the story of the prodigal son (Lk. 15:11-32), to come back to our Father who is in Heaven, to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the One True God, through His only Son, who came into the world to walk amongst us in the flesh and in whom and by whom we thus find our salvation from the blood spilled atop Cavalry Hill. Christ took on the burden of our sins and released us from the bondage of the law through his atoning work on the Cross and gave us eternal life. He died full of sin so that we don’t have to. This doesn’t mean that the minute we are baptized or confess our Faith in Christ, all our sins stop dead in their tracks, life’s problems end, and we live on an accessible street from there on out. The process of salvation may be instant as we come to Christ and inherit the promise of a restored relationship with our Creator, our openness to the gifts of the Spirit, and the mercy and grace gained through Christ. Still, sanctification is a life-long process of battling with and dueling with sin and evil inside our hearts. Sometimes, we find ourselves barely struggling, while other days, we might uncover a new sin or realize we’ve been willfully sinning through self-reflection or being called out on it. These steps backward don’t mean we’ve been defeated; it just means we need to strengthen the armor that we wear. 

How do we do that? How does one ensure that they strap on the full measure of the armor of God, forged from the strongest material? Paul writes that we should “Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest, and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace. In every situation, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one” (Ephes. 6:15-16). In other words, we’re to stand fast in, and on the Word of God, the absolute Truth, and through a firm faith built on the firm foundation of Christ, God-willing, we can resist the worst of temptations and weather the most turbulent periods of life. With the Gospel in hand, our confession of faith, and living a repentant life, we are sure to ensure that only God’s will shine through like the brightest of lights, overcoming any darkness that might darken the days in our lives. 

Today, I pray that you can stand on the Word of God with a strong faith that it is like the armor and shield of the toughest legionnaires. May you be blessed with the peace of Christ that comes from knowing Him and inviting Him into your life so that you are now an inheritor of His righteousness and goodness. God’s mercy and grace shall shine down upon you, and the outpouring of the Spirit will ensure that God is your strength and strong tower, your fortress, that the evil one may never be able to get the angle on you. If he should, those blows will no longer be flaming phalanxes but a mere pest that can be removed by the command to cease and begone in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 

“For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to His good purpose” (Philippians 2:13 CSB). 

One of the more challenging areas of our journey as disciples of Christ is grappling with letting God take control, for His will to permeate all areas of our life, and for us to pray for the desire to remain obedient to Him and His will for us and to follow that, no matter what struggles it may bring upon us, or upon what hill we may have to climb or valley we must descend. But we can be sure that as it is the work of God in us, He is doing it out of His endless love for us and that it is for the ultimate good and for His absolute glory that we conform our wills to His. 

This is not to say that God has taken away our free will when we decide to conform our own will to His. If that were the case, Paul certainly would not have been inspired to write that we are “to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (v.12). For when we go to do such works, when good works start flowing forth from our faith, we are to do so with “fear and trembling” in our heart. This ensures we don’t attribute this emission of good works to anything or anyone other than God. We especially are not to take credit for these good things, the good fruit that we might bear, and claim the credit for ourselves. It is God working through Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit, and our humility in acknowledging this is key to our alignment with His will. 

Remaining obedient to God and abiding in Him through faith in Christ makes it impossible to take God’s work in our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters for granted. This application is not as easy as the apostle Paul writes it out to be. Conforming one’s will with one's Creator can be a mighty task. In the Bible, Moses had to conform His will with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the One True God of Israel, as he led the Israelites through forty years of the Exodus in the wilderness. As the ultimate example, Jesus had to conform His will to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane before being taken into custody and put before the Sanhedrin, where he would be put on the cross later that morning. However, God’s participation in the act is promised from the very first calling to the very final act of sanctification and glorification – something we can take great comfort in.

This morning, we pray, Lord, that you help us to know what your will for us is, to give us the wisdom and power of discernment to know what it is that you will for us in our lives, where you would have us be, and what it is we can do to serve you best on this day. May we know that You will open our hearts wide to receive the blessings and gifts that the Spirit must dispense to help us accommodate Your will in our lives? At the center of it all, the key to the wisdom and the power of discernment you provide us is your infallible Word. The key to all of it is Christ and Christ alone. Amen. 

“When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, pleading with him, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible agony.”

He said to him, “Am I to come and heal him?” 

“Lord,” the centurion replied, “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, having soldiers under my command. I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.”

Hearing this, Jesus was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with so great a faith. I tell you that many will come from east and west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Then Jesus told the centurion, “Go. As you have believed, let it be done for you.” And his servant was healed that very moment” (Matthew 8:5-13 CSB) 

This passage from Matthew’s Gospel is one of the more powerful scenes in that text. It is one of several stories in the Bible that displays an outsider, that is, a non-Israelite, in this case, a gentile, and a Roman officer, coming on behalf of his ill servant who was presumably suffering from a life-threatening or life-limiting illness. The other occasion in Scripture where an outsider, considered unpure to the Jews, was healed by Jesus is also found in Matthew’s Gospel, where the Canaanite woman marvels at Jesus with her tremendous faith in Matthew 15. There is also the encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well in Sychar, in John’s Gospel in Chapter 4, which is the first person to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, following his self-admission, in that text. 

What is astounding about the healing of the Roman centurion’s servant in Chapter 8 of Matthew’s Gospel is that this Roman officer, the occupier and avowed enemy to the Israelites and Jews, comes to Jesus and recognizes that Jesus is both one under authority, that is, Jesus must do the will of the Father, just at the Roman centurion must obey the orders he receives from his superiors. Jesus is also amazed at how the Roman, concerned with the health of his servant, proclaims that, once again, like Jesus, he has men under his authority. He can tell them to go, and they go and come, and they must come. Still, the centurion’s faith was what truly bemused and moved Jesus so much so that he turned the disciples and used the gentile, the Roman centurion, as one of the most significant examples of faith in all of Israel - that He had not seen such faith in all the land. 

This is one of the passages that foretells and foreshadows the spread of the Gospel to the Gentiles in the early church, that Jesus’ message was not just for the Jew, but for all in the world who have faith that Jesus is who He says He is and that He can do anything through God, the Father. The Roman centurion is one that we, as Christians, can model our belief in the power of Jesus’ authority, for Jesus declared that the Roman centurion didn’t need to bring Him back to His home for his servant to be healed. Still, all Jesus had to do was say the word, and what He commanded would be done. Furthermore, the Roman centurion notes at the beginning of the encounter that he “is not worthy.” This is true in that instance and in all our lives. 

None of us are worthy of the salvation we gain through Faith in Christ. Still, since He bore all of our sins on the Cross and broke the curse of the law and died the atoning death on the Cross, and just as He was bodily resurrected on the third day, we are resurrected into a new life in Him and through Him, restored to the original image that we were created in – the Spirit-breathed image of God himself. No, we’re not worthy of it, but because of God's great grace and mercy, the FatherFathere grateful beneficiaries of His righteousness and goodness for all our days. Today, though, like the Roman centurion, we are unworthy to bow before Christ and ask Him that he bring about our needs. This is what God asks for us to do, “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). Let us be thankful that we are given this salvation, and so long as we are dedicated to living a life of daily repentance, striving for to live a life, restored in His image, to be forged into His likeness, we will one day be sanctified and enjoy that gift of everlasting life in Christ. 

“You’re boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough? Clean out old leaven so that you may be a new unleavened batch, as indeed you are. For Christ, our Passover lamb has been sanctified” (1 Cor. 5:6-7). 

In today’s daily inspiration, we look at the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians and how he rebuked the church in Corinth. As if the sexual immorality running rampant through that church wasn’t bad enough, Paul reminds the Corinthians that boasting about one’s spiritual status is nothing less than deplorable. Even worse, he declares that participating in such immoral acts is part and parcel of one’s spiritual freedom. Christ did not come so we could sin repeatedly and be redeemed when we stopped sinning. No, on the contrary, as our one, and one time only, sacrifice, our Passover lamb, Christ had been sanctified, and those who follow Him and believe in Him are called to live a life as molded closely to His as we can.

We all fall short of the mark each day because we are human, but freed from the law's curse, our faith in Christ is a saving faith. The church at Corinth was willfully continuing to live a sinful life and attaching the excuse for these sins to the freedom granted them through Christ. However, this was far from the freedom Christ’s atoning work on the Cross brings the believer. He brings us freedom from the punishment of sins for those who truly live a repentant life. But for those who continue to sin, over and over again willfully, their sins are like leaven that ruins the whole batch of dough, for the yeast spreads throughout the entire batch.

This can be taken on two different levels. First, one can look and say, on an individual level, that we must look inward to the heart and see if there are still sins that we are openly and knowingly participating in that we must shed so that we can continue the process of sanctification, which is often like peeling layers off an onion. We live a new life in Christ, repenting daily and silently confessing our sins to God, and when we think we’ve got it all figured out, a handful of leaven shows up that we must put at the altar of the Lord so that it can be cleansed. 

On another level, this pertains to the entire Body of Christ, His Church, or individual congregations at the local level. Suppose an individual or a group of individuals who live an unrepentant, even boastful life becomes a problem. In that case, the church should take action to see that their erroneous behavior is either corrected or, if they refuse to listen and abide by the kind of life, picking up their Cross daily to follow Christ (Matt 16:24), they should be turned over to Satan, that is, let them live their sinful lives apart from the church, knowing that God uses the evil of Satan to put such people in a corner where they will, hopefully, once again listen and come to see the error of their ways. This is not done out of malice but out of love for the sinful brother or sister who has lost their way. 

This reliance on the rod rather than the spirit of gentleness may seem harsh, but Paul was rightfully concerned for Christ’s Bride’s purity. The apostle had put much love and effort into planting the churches and enjoyed watching the good crops grow. Still, the trees that refused to bear good fruit were a constant source of agony, and many of his epistles deal with personal purity or the health of the entire church. 

Today, may we thank God for the new life we’ve been given in Christ, but also, may we search our hearts and ask Him to help us through wisdom and discernment for sins known and unknown, the leaven that may ruin the entire batch, so that they can be dealt with immediately and tossed out so that we may live our daily life free from error and striving towards the goal of sanctification, which may require much pain and discomfort, at times. May we thank Him that He came into the world, God in the flesh, and took on the sins of the world and died the atoning death that Christ did on the Cross so that we may have the promise of a new life, whether in this world or the next, which is eternal life and salvation and the process of sanctification so long as we, like Christ, pick up our Cross each day and continue with endurance the work first begun when we were first called! 

“You, therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.  What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:1-2). 

In Paul’s second letter to Timothy, the apostle directs the reader to the grace given through Jesus, the Messiah. Not only does he point out that they are to be grateful recipients of the grace that all believers who come to Christ are imbued with, but that they must also bear testimony to the grace that we receive so that others may also be inclined to be drawn closer to their Creator through Christ. The call is not just to bear testimony but to deeply understand the Truth of the Word, who was with God in the beginning and through whom and in whom all things were created (Cf. John 1:1-3). 

This understanding is to be shared, making the audience feel empowered and significant as they become teachers of the Word, ensuring that future generations of Christians can bear witness to Christ’s mercy and grace.

In the following passages (2 Tim. 2:3-7), the apostle Paul reiterates the reader's duty to be obedient to Christ. This duty is not to be taken lightly, as we’ve been given such wonderful salvation through the mercy and grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ. It's a call to action, a reminder of the importance of our role in the faith. 

The commandment given in Matthew’s Gospels by Jesus, who is the fulfillment of all the Old Testament, is of utmost importance. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands” (Matt. 22:36-40). These commandments guide our actions and our relationship with God and others.

To emphasize this fact, Paul uses three analogies in the following verses. First, one must suffer with single-minded devotion, using the analogy of an obedient soldier who does their duty without question. Second, they must strive like an athlete in a race or competition, competing in competition with strict adherence to the rules set out beforehand and, finally, they should model their faith around the hard-working farmer who, as a reward for his labor, receives a bountiful harvest in exchange for his diligence.

So today, let us be mindful of being thankful for the grace we have all been grateful recipients and eyewitnesses to. May we work hard at being obedient to the One who brings us salvation with a renewed relationship with our Creator, restored to His image, the image we were created in. May we not only pray that our hearts be opened to receive the Truth but also be thankful for the grace that we’ve received that allows for our sins to be forgiven and be rightful followers of Christ, always looking to share the Truth with an eye to always look for those who can also be faithful teachers of the Word. 

“Yet, Christ, in fullness, paid the ultimate price to liberate us from the law's curse. He absorbed the curse entirely, becoming a curse in our place. As it is written: “Everyone who is hung upon a tree is cursed.” Jesus Christ, in his divine act, dissolved the curse from our lives so that all the blessings of Abraham can be poured out upon Gentiles. And now, through faith, we receive the promised Holy Spirit who dwells within us, a testament to our freedom from the law” (Galatians 3:13-14 TPT). 

The apostle Paul touches upon four key points between Galatians 3:10 and 3:14, beginning with the Curse in 3:10, Faith in 3:11, the Law in 3:12, and finally, Jesus, Christ’s work on the Cross, which Paul reminds us of in the final passage of this section where Paul rebukes the Galatians and then transitions into teaching them the correct significance and meaning of Christ’s atoning death upon the Cavalry Hill. We are delivered from the law's curse through Christ’s blood and only through the Cross of Christ. We turn from the law of the Old Testament to faith in Jesus, the Messiah, as the deliverance from the bondage of sin and the law.

Paul reminds the reader here that Christ is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, announcing clearly that Christ bore our sins and released us from the burden of the law by taking on all our sinful burdens and becoming a curse for us. Paul cites Deuteronomy 21:23, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” Everyone is cursed and hung on a tree, but Paul’s fourth point in the third chapter of his letter to the Galatians is that the condemnation suffered by all is replaced by the One who hung on a tree. By taking on the absolute burden of all sin in the world, Jesus set everyone free from the yoke of the law once and for all. 

Those Jewish followers of Christ in Galatia were pulling the congregation in two different directions at once by claiming a special blessing for Jews and a separate curse on the Gentiles. The Galatians were slowly slipping from the new way of faith in Christ to the old hamster wheel to nowhere of following the law. Paul brilliantly demonstrates from the dead-end nature of the law itself that the Jews, too, are under a curse for failing to keep all the law. Moving from the way of faith that the Gentiles had been taught to the way of the law of their Jewish peers was no escape at all. The only way to escape the law's curse is to turn to Christ. 

In turning to faith in Christ, Paul reminds believers that Christ liberates us from the bondage of sin and the law's curse, opening the pathway to partake in the promised blessings that God made with Abraham. Parallelism in verse 14 indicates that the blessings poured on Abraham are equal to the promise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. As the Galatians had already been the recipients of the Spirit, which is the promise made to Abraham, Paul brings his argument full circle around to the first verses of the chapter and proves the foolishness of the Galatians. Let us, therefore, be grateful recipients of the Spirit, who are freed from the bondage of sin, the wages of which are death, and accept with gratitude the eternal life in Christ. At the same time, He is alive inside of us, sitting at the Father's right hand in heaven. 

Today, let us be thankful recipients of the Spirit, who are freed from the bondage of sin, whose wages are death, thus gratefully accepting eternal life in Christ while He is alive inside us, sitting at the right hand of the Father in heaven. May we praise the powerful and almighty name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, the only begotten Son of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who was, is, and always will be. Yes, how foolish indeed it would be to turn back to the law when we’ve already been filled with the Spirit and eyewitnesses to the fulfillment of the covenant God made with Abraham through Christ, who bore the load of the world’s sins and took the curse of the law and molded it into the saving faith that we all share in. 

"Now behold, today I am going the way of all the earth, and you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one word of all the good words that the LORD your God has spoken to you has failed. All have been fulfilled for you, not one of them has failed" (Joshua 23:14).

Today, have a personal and deep connection with the profound wisdom of Joshua 23:14. This verse, which speaks directly to our hearts and souls, is not just a general statement, but a personal message for each of us. "Now behold, today I am going the way of all the earth, and you know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one word of all the good words that the LORD your God has spoken concerning you has failed; all have been fulfilled for you, not one of them has failed. This verse is a powerful reminder of God's faithfulness and the fulfillment of His promises, especially for you.

As we navigate life's journey with its ups and downs, it's critical that we actively grasp God's promises. Just as the Lord faithfully fulfilled His words to the Israelites, we can confidently anticipate the fulfillment of His promises for us. Despite uncertainty and adversity, we can draw strength and hope from God's unfailing faithfulness.

When we encounter setbacks or obstacles, it's easy to become discouraged and wonder if God has forgotten His promises to us. However, Joshua 23:14 offers a powerful reassurance, reminding us that no word of God's promises has failed. Every good word He has spoken will be fulfilled in our lives. This unchanging truth can bring us a deep sense of peace and confidence, knowing that the God who promised is faithful to fulfill His word.

It's also a powerful reminder to hold on to our faith, knowing that God's promises are not empty words. They are not just hopeful desires but are inevitable and grounded in God's very character. In the face of challenges, we can lean on the assurance that His promises will be fulfilled just as He said they would, giving us a sense of security and confidence in our faith journey.

This verse also invites us to reflect on God's goodness. We can see how He has been faithful to His promises throughout our lives. This reflection is not just a nostalgic exercise, but a powerful tool that can fuel our faith for the future. It reminds us of the

In the Messianic Jewish faith, the belief is that Jesus is the Christ, Messiah Yeshua is the Hebrew and Aramaic office ("Anointed One), and name, the promised Messiah who came to fulfill the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures. Yeshua is not only our Savior, but also our Rabbi, our King, and our High Priest.

As followers of Yeshua, we are Christians who embrace the Jewish heritage and traditions while also celebrating the fulfillment of those traditions in the person of Yeshua. We believe that through Yeshua, we have been grafted into the covenant promises of Israel and have become part of the family of God

Yeshua's sacrificial death on the cross atoned for our sins and reconciled us to God, offering us eternal life and a restored relationship with our Creator. His resurrection from the dead gives us hope for our resurrection and the promise of eternal life in His kingdom.

As disciples of Messiah Yeshua and members of His Body, the Church, we strive to live our lives in obedience to Yeshua's teachings and example, seeking to bring His message of salvation to our fellow Jews and all people. We are called to be a light to the nations, proclaiming the truth of Yeshua as the Messiah and inviting others to join us in following Him.

In Messiah Yeshua, we find fulfillment, purpose, and joy. We look forward to the day when He will return as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, establishing His kingdom on earth and ushering in a new age of peace and righteousness. May we always remain faithful to Yeshua, our Messiah and King, as we eagerly await His return. Amen. at the same God who has been faithful in the past will be faithful in the days ahead, filling us with hope and expectation.

As we ponder Joshua 23:14, let's pause to thank God for His faithfulness. Let's not just remember when He has fulfilled His promises in our lives, but let's truly appreciate and express deep gratitude for His unfailing love and care. This appreciation is not just a formality, but a transformative practice that sustains us through the seasons of this life and deepens our understanding of God's faithfulness and love, changing our perspective and fostering a deeper connection with Him.

In summary, Joshua 23:14 encourages us to hold on to God's promises, knowing that not one word of His promises has failed. Let's embrace this truth, stand firm in our faith, and live with hope, eagerly awaiting the future fulfillment of His promises, knowing that the same God who has fulfilled His promises in the past will continue to do so in our lives today and in the daylights to come.

The scripture Jeremiah 7:23 says, "But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.’"

God's desire for us is simple - to obey His voice. In return for our obedience, He promises to be our God and for us to be His people. What an incredible promise! He wants us to walk in all the ways He has commanded us, not because He wants to restrict us, but because He knows it will be well with us if we do!

Obedience to God's Word is not always easy, but it is always worth it. It demands us to let go of our own desires and plans and submit to His will. However, when we choose to walk in obedience, we open ourselves up to His blessings and favor!

As we navigate through our day, let's remember that obedience to God is the key to a life of peace, joy, and purpose! Let's tune in to His voice and obey His commands without delay. And as we do, we can rest assured that He will guide us in the path that is most beneficial for us.

May we be known for our obedience to God's Word and experience His goodness and faithfulness in every area of our lives! Let's walk in obedience, knowing that it will be well with us if we do!

"What has come into being in him was life, and life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness shall not overcome it" (Iohn 1:4-5).

One of the eternally famous lines authored by the apostle John, "the Beloved Disciple" (John 21:20-50), and the "disciple whom Yeshua loved," is written in a format that boldly links the person and work of Yeshua to the Creation of the world. This connection is a powerful testament that Yeshua was not just t a Spirit sent to teach God's ways, nor was He a regular man like you and I. He was the Father's only begotten Son, preexistent, uncreated, equal, and consubstantial with the Father. These two identities and God, the Father of all Creation, form the Trinity. While not explicitly mentioned in the Hebrew Bible or the Septuagint, numerous passages allude to the triune nature of God. As God is love, and to know love is to have a foundational understanding of God, It can be deduced with a high degree of certainty that God's love was so immense that He chose to share the act of Creation with His Son, the Word pre-incarnate, speaking earth and its creatures into existence (John 1:1-3).

At the end of each day, God saw that it was good and rested to prepare for the next day of supernatural construction. Jesus, or Yeshua, whichever you prefer, was a Tekton. After centuries of believing Him to be a simple carpenter (I assure you He was adept in that craft, too), it has been revealed and accepted by most scholarss that He was a Tekton. Now, a tekton is like a modern builder and akin to a foreman or construction boss. The same God, blessed be His name, and same flesh that He was incarnated into this world in. through the fleshly being of Jesus of Nazareth, was in the business of creating, building, and planning future building projects while on earth. His perfect will was done on earth as in heaven, and through the whirlwind years of His ministry, he taught us that what was done in heaven is also done on earth. In Deuteronomy, Moses speaks of God as our eternal dwelling place with commands to destroy the Satan's work of destruction. God's love and restored church full of love will bring the Messiah to build the final stage set for the ultimate destruction of evil and construction of 10,000 years of love and harmonious peace (Deut. 33:27) with all singing "Qodesh, Qodesh, Qodesh," in reverant ecstasy of divine experience and in praise of the ruler of heaven and earth - the divine author of life,

Yeshua, the Son of Mary and Joseph, the carpenter, spent much of His life providing living proof of what the Kingdom of God being implemented here on earth truly meant. It meant giving up the love of material riches and even showing the will to leave family behind if they were a stumbling block to salvation and the promise of eternal life as the Kingdom of God becomes a reality on earth as in heaven. To seal the deal and pay for our ransom, Jesus went to the Cross, and it is by His blood our sins are cleansed once and for all. By His stripes, we are healed and can be restored to the image God created us in - His perfect image, free to be good stewards of His Creation and help build it with the coming of the Kingdom of God in mind, always working to create, praise and worship Him.

Following the resurrection, the first fruit of what is to come, Jesus built the foundation of His Body, the church, and ensured the apostles were given all authority to construct the magnificent universal corpus of believers. Jesus was, as usual, making all things new, and as the light of humanity, we should rest assured the darkness of evil and destruction will not snuff out the light. It's our duty to go and make disciples and to plant churches, to build on the foundation of the cornerstone that the builders rejected to ensure the next generations bask in the light and wish to imitate Christ in action, word, and deed, always looking to build for the good of the world and God's people and stray from destructive lives that are the broad road to death and destruction. We exhault Messiah Yeshua, the builder and perfecter of our faith and lift Him on high for He has gone to prepare a place for the true believers who endure the trials and evils of the end of the age, Jesus declared there were maany rooms in His Father's mansion. Through faith, we make this world and its people better and help them stand right before the Lord, so they too can dwell in that mansion, collecting the heavenly riches stored for those who denied themselves the things of this world and picked up their Cross and bear it daily, each day a new lifetime of repentance and restoration. 

Shalom and baruch ata hashem Adonai, Yeshua Hamaschiach ben Elohim!

 "Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times, some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth" (1 Tim. 4:1-3). 

In Paul’s first epistle to Timothy, a brother in the faith whom Paul put great trust in, Paul warns that in the last days, there will be an overwhelming number of false teachers and people who claim to be Christians but do not have the Word circumcised in their hearts. The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to warn Timothy and future generations about what is to come in the “Great Apostasy” of the church. These things are already coming to pass. One must remember that only God knows what is in a person’s heart; we can easily be deceived by these false teachers, preachers, and proponents of false gospels that are intended to lead the church astray, off the narrow path of salvation and onto the broad path that leads to destruction - just as Satan desires and sets the trap to incite such apostasy. 

This isn’t a phenomenon happening in this church or that church, and it is limited in any way to denominations or personal doctrinal and theological misunderstandings by a handful of believers in congregations across the globe. No, this is happening in my church, your church, and to the Body of Christ, the entire universal church. Many who claim to be faithful have fallen away and continue to go through the motions as they’ve been deceived by demonic forces of this world and do not even know their salvation is at risk. The leaders and mentors of the church are not immune from this falling away, and many pastors are relapsing into sin, preaching gospels of Gnosticism, New Age heretical doctrines, and prosperity gospels that allow for salvation through a message of cheap grace. 

Even Jesus warned the apostles that one of the signs of the end of the epoch would include the chosen, “for false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect (Matt. 24:24). We see this unfolding before our eyes and those who don’t may take heed to Jesus’ and Paul’s prophetic warning, searching their soul for sin and unknown barriers keeping them from a genuine relationship with God, through His Son, and the work of the Holy Spirit. One may be lying to themselves, thinking they are under grace when the Accuser, Satan, the father of lies, has them convinced of their own righteousness and good standing before God when, in fact, their life is entirely sinful. The biggest lies we are convinced to tell and believe are those we tell ourselves. Search your heart and seek repentance daily, and trust no man by the words he says, for we know not what is in other’s hearts. Don’t trust my word, don’t trust your pastor’s word, don’t trust your own understanding, but lean on God and His Word, and worry about what is in your heart.

Your salvation comes from accepting the gift of grace offered to us by God, but if the message of grace and the gospel that was taught to you was false, then you were misled and needed to look to the Word, the Truth, for guidance, the forgiveness of sins, and true salvation. We need not be paranoid that every other Christian is a false believer or that our pastor, indeed, doesn’t have Christ in his heart. God will still use them to convey His word and the Gospel of His Son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. God uses evil to bring about good. In the Old Testament, Satan worked as God’s “tester,” to test the faith of those He chose to be the main actors in His plan of salvation laid out in the Bible from the first page of Genesis to the last page of Revelation. Take an inventory of your heart, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps. 139:23-24). Recall to diligently study the Scripture daily to ensure you’re not being misled and seek biblical discipleship, for “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). 

Remember to stay vigilant and grounded in the truth of God's Word. As we navigate through the challenges of discerning false teachings and remaining steadfast in our faith, let us seek guidance from the Scriptures and rely on the Holy Spirit to lead us in the way everlasting. May we encourage one another in love and hold fast to the genuine message of grace and salvation through Jesus Christ. Let our hearts be open to self-reflection and repentance, and may we always strive to deepen our relationship with God. In doing so, we can find strength, hope, and the assurance of true salvation.

"You are the most excellent of men and your lips have been anointed with grace, since God has blessed you forever" (Psalm 45:2). 

This passage is taken from the Psalters and, in the famous Septuagint, written in the lingua franca of the day, translated, and transliterated as "youthful in beauty you are, beyond the sons of men; grace was poured on your lips; Therefore, God blessed you forever" (Psalm 44(45):2). The historical context of this Psalm is probably the marriage between King Ahab (c. 874 – 853 B.C.) and his foreign bride Jezebel of Tyria. The composition of this Psalm is both poetic and prophetic, like so much of the Poetry books of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). The first half of the Psalm begins by declaring the expected roles of the royal bridegroom and competent king – to lead in warfare, protect his people, and maintain justice through his divinely appointed authority (45:2-5). 

The second half of the Psalm shifts its focus to the bride. She is a Tyrian princess who is called to undergo a profound transformation. This transformation involves leaving behind her foreign origins and fully embracing the ways of her bridegroom. She is now called to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the One True God of Israel. The bride must pledge allegiance to the king she's marrying, who God has anointed to rule over Israel. She is also called to obey and reverently worship the new, true God that unites them in matrimony, forsaking the idols and false gods of her past. This parallel is later echoed by Jesus, calling for us to discard the old and embrace a new life, worshipping God in Truth and Spirit (John 4:24).

In the inspiring verse of today, we are not just reminded of the profound significance of God's grace and His boundless love for His people, but we are also invited to experience and accept this grace personally. It is a freely offered gift, paid for by Christ's blood and work on the Cross, but one that must be received by those with the "eyes to see and ears to hear" (Matt. (13:9-16). This reminder of God's grace should not just stir in us a deep appreciation for His love but also a renewed commitment to accept and embrace His gift in our daily lives. As Jezebel is reminded to forget the old ways of doing things and to adopt the new ways of the king, here on earth as in heaven, we should take note of Jesus' declaration that "Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins [a]break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved" (Matt. 9:17). 

The final passages of Psalm 45 are not just prophetic of Jesus' eventual eternal rule as the warrior king and the ultimate judge, but they also point to the central role of Jesus in our faith. He is the one who firmly deals out justice to the wicked and sinful and vindicates those who can claim a portion of God's righteousness, goodness, and guiltlessness by believing that Jesus is who He says He is through the Word of God, the revelation of God's plan of salvation and the story of God and the relationship, and love He has bestowed on His people from the very beginning. God is a merciful God, but He is also a just God, for if He didn't demand justice, He would not be omnipotent and omniscient God and the ultimate Truth of Scripture. 

Allow us to remember today that we have been granted this wonderful salvation by accepting God's grace, which only a fool or one who has never heard the Word would reject. Through this great salvation, we confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord and was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. Though death came through Adam and sin, eternal life and blessings come from the grace of God and faith in Christ (1 Cor. 15:20-21; cf. Romans 10:9). Peace and blessings to all on this beautiful day that the Lord has created, and may you rejoice in it and be glad that we are given eternal life and freedom from our past, to accept a new life of grace and salvation through Christ's mercy. 

Note: Today's daily inspirational post is dedicated to addiction, mental health, and dependencies – issues that the church has struggled to address for centuries. Every week, there will be at least one day devoted to these topics, as many members of Christ's Body have struggled with them, either personally or with a loved one.

For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world" (1 John 2:16).

In the postmodern epoch, getting caught up in the desires and distractions surrounding us is easy. The constant barrage of advertisements, social media images, and societal pressures can lead us to chase after things that ultimately do not bring true fulfillment. But as followers of Christ, we are called to live differently. We are called to seek after things that come from the Father, not from the world.

For much of human history, persisting still today, unfortunately, there has been a social stigma around addictions and dependencies that serve only to ensure that the person feels more guilt over their addiction, makes it that much harder, and decreases the likelihood of a person seeking treatment exponentially. Society views alcoholics, people with an addiction, and anyone with any one of many mental illnesses or personality disorders that are inexorably linked to the dis-ease of addiction with disdain, lerry of their character, with the drunkard in a ditch planted in their psyche from years of stigmatization.  As Christians, it is not only our duty to treat our body as the temple that it is, for we are made in the image of God and to be good stewards of the earth and Creation, as God intended (Gen 1:27-28), we must realize what our addictions and dependencies are, and if we are unable to control them, it is our moral obligation to God to "clean house" and abstain altogether. 

We are not to worry about the stigma. As children of God, true Christians and faithful members of Christ's Body will understand our struggle and gather around their flock's wounded, sick, and tired sheep to help them. Those who don't are not Christ-like in their actions and should ncies and mental illness is much like the process of sanctification - a lifetime spent one day at a time giving ourselves to God in a life of repentance and asking to remove our self-centered solitude and put us into a place of service to others. 

Furthermore, these addictions go beyond alcohol and drugs. In today's society, with all the allures of the fallen world that is quickly passing, a large percentage of the population has an obsession or addiction to a myriad of devices, be it alcohol, drugs, other people, video games, computers and tablets that fulfill the need to give a person what they want, when they want it and be of no concern to those seeking help or those who help. The author has been on both sides of the same coin, and it takes work. It is impossible to do alone. If resolve were all it took, it wouldn't be the problem it is. With man, nothing is possible, but with God, all things are possible (Matt 19:26). If one backslides, don't be discouraged; it doesn't mean God has failed you. Freedom from unhealthy dependeso many think they need to have what they want. They think they need it now, and today's world caters to that need. Addiction to money is another issue that plagues the West's secularized system that shuns the economically deprived and underprivileged as weak. 

In 1 John 2:16, we are starkly reminded that the cravings of the flesh, the allure of the eyes, and the arrogance of life do not originate from God. These worldly desires can veer us off the course God has meticulously charted. Ther cravings of the flesh can take on various forms—whether it's succumbing to unhealthy habits, pursuing physical pleasures, or yielding to temptations that offer immediate gratification but fail to delive lasting joy. The allure of the eyes can drive us to covet what others possess, envy their belongings or status, and incessantly compare ourselves to them. The arrogance of life can lead us to prioritize our achievements above all else, to seek validation and admiration from others, and to base our self-worth on our accomplishments rather than on our identity in Christ. Jesus told us that we can't serve two masters, or else we'll love the one and hate the other. Love of "mammon," is the love of material wealth riches, that He spoke of as recorded in Matthew's Gospel (Matt 6:24).

Yet, as children of God, we are summoned to adopt a different mindset. We are urged to fix our thoughts on heavenly matters, not on earthly concerns (Colossians 3:2). We are encouraged to prioritize seeking God's kingdom and righteousness, with the assurance that all our needs will be met (Matthew 6:33). We are encouraged to discover our identity, our value, and our purpose solely in Christ, not in the transient things of this world.

Examine your hearts and our desires, as we're told to do, "Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord!" (Lam. 3:40). May we ask God to reveal any areas where we have been chasing after worldly things rather than seeking Him. Let us surrender our desires to Him and ask for His strength to resist the temptations of the flesh, the eyes, and the pride of life. And let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who endured the cross for the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2).

May we be people known for seeking after the things of God and living in a way that reflects His love and grace? May we find true satisfaction, joy, and fulfillment in Him alone. May we walk in the freedom of living a life aligned with His will and purposes?

"He said to them, "Is a candle brought to be put under a basket or under a bed and not to be set on a candlestick? For there is nothing hidden except to be revealed; neither is anything kept secret except to be proclaimed. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear" (Mark. 4:21-22). 

Today's Verse: Mark 4:21-22  "He said to them, "Is a candle brought to be put under a basket or under a bed and not to be set on a candlestick? For there is nothing hidden except to be revealed; neither is anything kept secret except to be proclaimed. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear" (Mark. 4:21-22).  In this passage, Jesus uses the metaphor of a candle to teach us about the purpose of our lives. A candle is not meant to be hidden or kept under a basket or a bed. Instead, it is meant to be placed on a candlestick, where it can shine its light and illuminate the surroundings. Similarly, as followers of Christ, we are called to let our light shine before others, so that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16).  

The message here is clear: we are not meant to hide our faith or keep it to ourselves. Instead, we are called to share it with the world around us. Just as a candle brings light to a dark room, our faith can bring hope and encouragement to those who are in need. We are called to be a source of light and love in a world that often feels dark and cold.  Furthermore, Jesus reminds us that nothing is hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing is concealed that will not be brought out into the open. This should serve as a reminder that we should live our lives with integrity and transparency. There is no benefit in trying to hide our true selves or our actions, for everything will eventually come to light. Instead, we should strive to live in a way that is honest and true, knowing that God sees everything and that the truth will always prevail in the end.  

Finally, Jesus concludes by saying, "If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear." This is a call to attentiveness and understanding. It's an encouragement for us to not only listen to his words but to truly hear and internalize them. We are called to be wise and discerning, to understand the deeper meaning behind his teachings, and to apply them to our lives. May we be mindful of the light that we carry within us and be intentional about sharing it with others. Let us live with honesty and transparency, knowing that the truth will always prevail. And let us have ears to hear, so that we may truly understand and live out the teachings of our Lord.

. 

"Now He said to them, "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled" (Luke 24:44)

The Old Testament contains prophecies about the coming Messiah, the world's Savior. Jesus fulfilled many prophecies during His time on earth, demonstrating He was the long-awaited Messiah. As He spoke to His disciples in Luke 24, He pointed out that everything written about Him in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms had to be fulfilled.

The Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms were foundational texts in the Jewish faith, and they pointed towards the coming of Christ. The Law emphasized the need for sacrifice and atonement for sin, ultimately fulfilled in Jesus' death on the cross. The Prophets spoke of a suffering servant who would bear the world's sins, and Jesus fulfilled this role through His death and resurrection. The Psalms contained numerous passages that foreshadowed Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, painting a vivid picture of the coming Messiah.

When Jesus spoke to His disciples about fulfilling these prophecies, He demonstrated the divine authority of Scripture. He affirmed that God's plan of salvation was unfolding just as He had foretold. The Old Testament was not merely a historical record of events but a living testament to God's faithfulness and redemptive plan for humanity.

As followers of Christ, we find comfort in the steadfast truth and dependability of God's promises. Just as the Old Testament prophecies were realized in Jesus, we, too, can trust that God's commitments to us will be honored. His Word is a beacon, guiding our way and reinforcing His constancy throughout history.

Let us not underestimate the transformative power of studying the Scriptures and seeking to understand God's plan for our lives. Let us emulate the disciples captivated by Jesus' words, their hearts ablaze as He unveiled the Scriptures to them. May we be stirred by the fulfillment of prophecy in Jesus Christ and encouraged to trust God's promises for our lives.

. 

"Therefore, since such a great cloud of witnesses surrounds us, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." (Hebrews 12:1). 

Hebrews 12:1 declares, "Therefore since such a great cloud of witnesses surrounds us, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." As followers of Christ, living out His love and teachings in every aspect of our lives is crucial. On our spiritual journey, we are never alone; we are bolstered by a formidable 'cloud of witnesses'—those who have preceded and shown the way. They are not mere onlookers but fervent supporters, encouraging us as we proceed in the future race. Like athletes who rigorously train and shed unnecessary weight to improve their performance, we are called to do the same. We must intentionally discard any burden and sin that obstructs our complete devotion to Christ. This may involve releasing the burdens of doubt, fear, anxiety, or any sin that entangles us, hindering our capacity to run the race with persistence. It is a daunting task, yet with God's strength and our determination, it is possible to overcome. Let us pray to God, seeking His assistance to cast off every impediment and sin and run the race before us with steadfastness.

Let us run the race with endurance, keeping our gaze fixed on Messiah Yeshua, our ultimate example and source of strength. He is not a distant figure but our living hope, guide, and strength. May we lay aside every weight and sin and press on toward the goal of knowing and serving Him more faithfully each day?  

Abba,

We're grateful for the all-star lineup of faith heroes who've passed the baton to us. This VIP list features headliners like Abraham, Moses, and David, plus the rock stars of recent times—our saints and martyrs. They're more than just names in a history book; they're our spiritual squad, our forebears in belief. Let's channel their epic legacy as we sprint in our own spiritual marathon.?for their contributions to our faith.

We admit to burdens or missteps that keep us from wholeheartedly pursuing Your path. Grant us the fortitude and bravery to cast these aside. It's about recognizing where we fall short, asking for pardon, and genuinely trying to improve. Support us in enduringly sprinting the course You've charted out for us. Empower us with Your Holy Spirit, our divine coach, so we may have the bravery to persist in trials and tribulations. The Holy Spirit is a comforting presence and a potent force that aids us in identifying and overcoming the 'weights' and 'sins' that hinder us. 

Help us to focus on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, and to rely on Your guidance and provision every step of the way. May our lives be a living testimony to Your grace and love, and may we bring glory to Your name as we run the race set before us. Amen.