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Not Regardless
Psalm 116:12–17, John 6:54–69, Acts 9:31–43 Yesterday, we briefly touched on the reality that the world doesn’t like the entirety of the message of Jesus. It struggles with nice and submission. Add on the whole eternal life piece and the world casts it off. Other beliefs that the church has wrestled with and argued over
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Not-So Great Expectations
Psalm 43, Jeremiah 38:1-28, John 15:17-16:2 Life is not always easy. There are those that just seem determined to oppose you even if it is to their advantage to support you. Pride, jealousy, greed, and envy can lead anyone to make poor decisions regarding others. King Zedekiah was not a particularly strong king. His advisors
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Let Them Loose
Psalm 105:1-22, Romans 1:18–32, Ezekiel 20:39–44 They were given over. God let them loose. Whether it was the Israelites or Gentiles, God let them loose. The world is a very bad place. People hate. People steal. People lie. All sorts of things and behaviors are just wrong. God let it be. When Paul writes to
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Such Saving
John 6:40-44, 1 John 5:13-21 Jesus’ words in John can be limiting if we let them be. For example, if we were too literal in seeing or not seeing Jesus (John 6:40), most of us would not have much hope for eternal life. There are many who have visions and dreams of Jesus, they might
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Being Someone for Someone
Daniel 5:1–31, Isaiah 6:1–10 Belshazzar didn’t learn from the stories of Nebuchadnezzer. Yesterday, we read about how Nebuchadnezzer didn’t really seem to learn the lessons that were in front of his face. On the other hand, there seem to have been a few things that he respected, one of them being the holy things from
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Pedestals
Daniel 4:28–37, John 6:25-35 Nebuchadnezzar is an interesting study in faith, belief, unbelief, wrong belief, and pride. Nebuchadnezzar had been confronted by God’s might, majesty, and power multiple times during his reign. One would have thought that he might have learned something. However, Nebuchadnezzar seemed to have to learn multiple times. As Nebuchadnezzar’s story ends
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Checkmarks and Tasks
Galatians 2:15–3:6, Philippians 1:20–26, The church in Galatia was struggling. Someone was pouring bad ideas and thoughts into them, causing them to walk away from the faith that Paul had taught them. The funny thing is that many of them probably didn’t know that they were being drawn away. It is easy, step-by-step, to be
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Perfect Perfectionism
Matthew 5:43–48, 2 Corinthians 12:1–10 Perfection. There are many well-meaning people that say perfection is the enemy of progress, profit, completion, excellence, or that perfection is the disease of a nation or a disguise of insecurity. Generally, however, it is not perfection that is the issue but perfectionism. This is where all the energy to
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Inherting Legacy
Genesis 47:18–26, Acts 4:34–5:11 In the United States, land has long represented freedom, self-reliance, hope, and self-determination (on one hand), slavery, clearances, eviction, theft, and deceit (on the other hand. How can such divergent perspectives be? Well, for many Native Americans the initial immigration of Europeans may have not been a disaster, but what occurred