There are two great basic reasons to be filled with the Spirit of the Lord. One is to have more access to Who He is. Another is to give Him more access to who you are. Once isn’t all there is, either. Be refilled at every opportunity. There are rooms in the dwelling place you call your heart that He has not been given the keys to, and they are […]

Jesus taught that work and spiritual disciplines will be rewarded. The warning He offered regarding the rewards was that some will be from humans and some will be from Yahweh: “Whenever you fast, don’t be sad-faced like the hypocrites. For they make their faces unattractive so their fasting is obvious to people. I assure you: They’ve got their reward! But when you fast, put oil on your head, and wash […]

Luke described an event in chapter 2 of his book The Acts of the Apostles in which all of the believers at a prayer gathering were filled with the Spirit of Yahweh. They all then started speaking loudly about the magnificent acts of Yahweh. The Holy Spirit then either made them able to speak in many different languages, or made many people who spoke in many different languages able to […]

As the crowd was pressing in on Jesus to hear God’s word, He was standing by Lake Gennesaret. He saw two boats at the edge of the lake; the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the land. Then He sat down and was teaching the crowds from […]

Then Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit and said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders: If we are being examined today about a good deed done to a disabled man—by what means he was healed— let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene—whom you crucified and whom God raised from the […]

Jesus warned some religious leaders once that blaspheming the Holy Spirit would not be forgiven (Matthew 12:22-31). That is pretty serious. We could look at what was happening in that situation and think that we would not have made the mistake the Pharisees did, because we would know that Jesus did the miracles because He is God. Suppose we went to a meeting of our favorite congregation, though, and we […]

But the things that used to be advantages for me, I have, because of the Messiah, come to consider a disadvantage. Not only that, but I consider everything a disadvantage in comparison with the supreme value of knowing the Messiah Yeshua as my Lord. It was because of him that I gave up everything and regard it all as garbage, in order to gain the Messiah and be found in […]