“Now here is the king you’ve chosen, the one you requested. Look, this is the king the Lord has placed over you. If you fear the Lord, worship and obey Him, and if you don’t rebel against the Lord’s command, then both you and the king who rules over you will follow the Lord your God. However, if you disobey […]
In chapter 5 of Mark‘s stories, he related the events of the day trip to the Gadarenes area. There, they met the demoniac and pig herders. After destroying the herd of pigs, they met the townspeople who came out to check on the reports of the herdsmen. The demons knew Jesus already, and prayed to Him that He would let […]
Now the people were waiting expectantly, and all of them were debating in their minds whether John might be the Messiah. John answered them all, “I baptize you with water, but One is coming who is more powerful than I. I am not worthy to untie the strap of His sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and […]
Matthew described in chapter 10 of his testimony a Kingdom mission that Jesus sent him on with the rest of the apostles. Included was a bit of information about blessing or condemning people along the way. Jesus sent out these 12 after giving them instructions: “Don’t take the road leading to other nations, and don’t enter any Samaritan town. Instead, […]
Many beings that Yahweh has created to be His servants have interacted with His human servants through the ages. They always seem to be difficult to describe and more difficult to imagine by the people who are reading others’ sketchy descriptions of them. One whom John encountered in the Revelation of Jesus he received seems to be of quite a […]
Once I was speaking on holiness through an interpreter to a group of people who spoke Spanish. Several times people in the audience interrupted my interpreter with suggestions for her that were intended to improve her choice of words in translating what I was saying. I began to wonder what understanding the group was gaining from my effort. In Exodus […]
The culture that we live in attempts to control us with fear. People in power attempt to control others with fear. They can insulate us from Yahweh and immobilize us if they can impose fears on us. Fear of hell, fear of disease, fear of injury, fear of bad luck, fear of rejection, fear of poverty, fear of failure, and […]
“Was John’s baptism from heaven or from men? Answer Me.” (Mark 11:30 Holman Christian Standard Bible® ©) One of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant, my husband, has died. You know that your servant feared the Lord. Now the creditor is coming to take my two children as his slaves.” Elisha asked […]
Some believers, probably with the gift of evangelism, are very upset over something they call the “Social Gospel.” It upsets them because it is not focused on evangelism. Of course… Some believers, probably with gifts of teacher or pastor, are upset that the church is seeming to be irrelevant to the culture it encounters in our towns and cities and […]
Have you ever suffered the effects of what people call a “tension headache”? How often does it come from the tension between what God has said to us He desires to see happening in the earth, and the contrast of what we actually see happening in the earth?