Month: December 2019

  • Love Between

    John 13:31–35, John 15:12–17, Ephesians 4:25–5:2, James 3:13–4:6 (read online ⧉) Love like Jesus. That’s a pretty tall order, so it seems. Part of the problem is that we are often so focused on the big things. We become overwhelmed. There are those that think they need to die like Jesus to love like Jesus.…

  • Unmade To Become Whole

    Deuteronomy 7:7–12, Deuteronomy 8:5–6, 2 Samuel 7:11–16, Hebrews 12:3–11 (read online ⧉) The way Deuteronomy 7:10 is often interpreted is as “…[God]…destroys those who hate him…” However, אָבַד (“awbad”) is also translated elsewhere in the Scriptures as broken or unmade. The concept of unmade or broken, so as to be re-made or “fixed”, is much…

  • Saturday after the Third Sunday of Advent

    Psalm 51, John 3:27–29 (read online ⧉) This Psalm is the result of a person’s sin. This is not to say that the Psalm is about the sin per se, but about a person standing before God after being confronted about the sin. While there is a lot of symbolism in the Psalm the symbols…

  • The Rot of Forgot

    2 Chronicles 30:13-27, Nehemiah 8:7-12, Jeremiah 15:16 The world is supposedly becoming Post-Christian. The thought behind the term is that the “Christian Era” was when Christianity was dominant throughout the world as if Emperor Constantine’s edict of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire made Christianity instantly accessible, understandable, and pervasive. The sad…

  • Strength and Joy

    Deuteronomy 28:45–48, Isaiah 29:17–21, John 15:11 (read online ⧉) “The joy of the Lord is my strength” Nehemiah 8:10Why is it God’s joy, and not our own this our strength? First, we are finite. Even the physically strongest person alive is not stronger than God. Second, our joy as much as it can be Godly…

  • Wednesday after the Third Sunday of Advent

    Job 33:14–30, Nehemiah 12:31–43, Luke 15:3–7 (read online ⧉) Elihu (from Job) is probably the most enigmatic person in the Book of Job. He just appears and disappears. It is almost as if there is something more going on than just a tirade. Now, Elihu definitely said things that were wrong, but many of his…

  • Childless Futurism

    Genesis 18:1–11, Luke 1:5–25, Luke 1:36–56 (read online ⧉) We are now in a time where having children is no longer an assumed item on the checkboxes of life. As people, especially women, become more educated the birth rate drops. The practical reality is that because women are educated they too can provide for the…

  • Humble Joy

    Proverbs 15:29–33, Zephaniah 2:1–4, Luke 1:26–38 Yesterday, it was hinted that humility is a requirement to experience true (Godly) joy. If you didn’t catch that (or didn’t read yesterday’s devotional), that’s perfectly fine. Humility as part of Godly joy is front and center today. In Proverbs, we read two things to focus on today. First,…