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John 12:50b  So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.  Even as Jesus spoke exactly what the Father told Him to say, the Holy Spirit wants to lead us in our conversations so we know what and how to speak about the Kingdom of God to the people around us: our spouse, children, friends, co-workers.  Our words should refresh, reassure, speak truth, restore, and mend.  How good are you at letting others speak?  Do…

I John 2:27  But you have received the Holy Spirit, and He lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true.  For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what He teaches is true—it is not a lie.  This verse is NOT teaching us that we should not study God’s Word or listen to Bible teachers.  Reading this verse in context, we realize it is referring to the false teachers of that…

Mark 1:22  The people were amazed at His teaching, because He taught them as one who had authority…   The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to speak in Jesus’  name.  Our  “Power of Attorney”  to act in His name has validity in Heaven.  When we are living in sync with Holy Spirit leadership, remarkable things can happen: healings, miracles, divine discernment, wisdom, special faith, and more.  The same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead can be at…

Mark 3:14-15  (Jesus) appointed twelve—designating them apostles—that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons.   The Holy Spirit equips us. He gives us the necessary means to carry out our God-assigned tasks.  There is a great difference between God’s ways and thoughts and ours.  His are infinitely higher and superior to ours (Isaiah 55:8-9).  So, living a Spirit-led life requires attention to the Kingdom of…

Acts 1:4-5  Once when (Jesus) was eating with (the disciples), He commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift He promised, as I told you before…in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.   It was on the 50th day after Easter that the apostles were praying together in the Upper Room and the Holy Spirit descended on them, just as Jesus predicted.  (This year Pentecost Sunday is being celebrated…

Romans 11:33a (NIV)  Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out!  We serve a rational God—creative and intelligent but also compassionate, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love (Ps. 103:8).  He has an end in mind that is consistent with His character.  His motives toward us are always pure, consistent with His nature and for our good.  Jesus is His  “express image” (Heb. 1:30. …

Exodus 15:11 (NLT)  Who is like you among the gods, O LORD—glorious in holiness, awesome in splendor, performing great wonders?    What have we learned so far this week regarding the existence of God?  God has revealed Himself in creation.  Scripture assumes the existence of God but does not seek to prove it.  People’s innate belief in God’s existence and humanity’s moral nature all testify to God’s existence.  Remarkably, God cared enough to reveal Himself to us so that we…

Romans 2:14-15 (The Message)  When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience.  They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation.  There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong.  People are moral beings, with a sense of right and wrong.  Conscience is inherent in…

Romans 1:20 (NLT)  For ever since the world was created people have seen the earth and sky.  Through everything God made, they can clearly see His invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature… A universal belief in a supreme being is innate or intuitive in people everywhere.  However, this belief is not so universal in what that god is like.  Christians believe in one loving God who is interested in a personal relationship with them.  Those who believe in other…

Psalm 19:1 (NLT)  The heavens proclaim the glory of God.  The skies display His craftsmanship.  A remarkable interdependency exists between everything in the universe.  Vegetation depends on sun and soil and water.  Streams flow into rivers and oceans.  Animals depend upon nature’s multiple food sources.  People depend upon wood for fire.  Without sufficient rain, crops die.  An intricate balance exists that gives us compelling evidence for God’s existence and is known as the cosmological argument.  The cosmos, this orderly, harmonious…

Hebrews 11:6 (NLT)  And it is impossible to please God without faith.  Anyone who wants to come to Him must believe that God exists and that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him.  The Bible makes no attempt to prove God’s existence.  The writers assume He exists and expect people to believe it by faith.  Anyone who comes to Him “must believe that He exists.”  But people will not put their faith in someone in whom they don’t believe.  Read…

John 21:16b (NLT) “Then take care of my sheep,” Jesus said.  Jesus had come to save the  “sheep”  at the cost of His own life (John 10:15).  He asked Peter to take up the task.  “Feed” (vs. 15, 17) means to supply with food, or to take to pasture.  “Tend” (vs. 16) includes all the care a shepherd would give to his sheep.  Both lambs and sheep, whether small or grown, would be the object of Peter’s new mission in…

John 21:16b (NLT) “Yes, Lord,”  Peter said, “you know that I love you.”   Jesus sought to prove Peter’s innermost purpose in following Him.  “The desire for personal success, eminence, achievement, reward, or even the relatively unselfish motive of doing something for needy humanity was not enough.  Only a complete love for Christ would be sufficient to carry Peter and his fellow disciples through the careers which awaited them.”  Peter’s response was sincere.  He had learned that he could not…

John 21:15 (The Message) After breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”   How many times have you heard Jesus say these words to you?  What things gain ground unexpectedly in your life, making it necessary for the Lord to question your wholeheartedness?  How easy is it for you to honestly and humbly respond?  It happens in different stages of life.  Somehow we get busy and Jesus asks for a…

John 21:12 (NLT) “Now come and have some breakfast!” Jesus said.  The invitation to eat was  “a call to the resumption of that fellowship which His death had broken.”  The fact that He ate with them would strengthen the conviction that He was really with them.  Later Peter referred to it in his preaching (Acts 10:41).  Jesus wanted them to know that personal contact with Him was possible after the resurrection.  When we face a near death experience or a…

John 21:3 (NLT)  (Jesus) called out, “Fellows, have you caught any fish?”  The disciples responded to the overwhelming perplexities of the happenings in Jerusalem by withdrawing to Galilee and engaging in the rugged joy of hard work.  The danger was that they might forget the life into which Jesus had called them: I will make you fishers of men (Matt. 4:19).  So Jesus appeared on the shore and repeated a familiar miracle (Luke 5:1-11).  John instantly recognized what had happened,…

John 21:3 (The Message) Simon Peter announced, “I’m going fishing.”  The rest of them replied, “We’re going with you.”  They went out and got in the boat.  They caught nothing that night.   With all the blur of their last week in Jerusalem still fresh in their memories, the disciples withdrew into Galilee.  It had been a trying and confusing period of their lives.  Before He had died, Jesus had taught them more than their immature spiritual state could assimilate. …

John 14:16 (NIV) And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever…  “The provision for the disciples’ future included a new dynamic: the Holy Spirit. He would be their advocate—to make the reality of God convincing to all men in the same way that Jesus did to his disciples. He would provide a fellowship with God even closer than they had experienced in the physical presence of Jesus.” Open up to…

John 14:15 (NLT) If you love me, obey my commandments.   “Having assured the disciples that He was not deserting them but rather going before to prepare a place for them, Jesus proceeded to ask for their obedience.” Does the Lord have your whole heart? If so, you will obey Him. Love is the new motive for our lives; obedience to Him is the new standard for our activity.

John 14:7 (The Message) If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well…  Philip interrupted Jesus.  He wanted to see the Father as plainly as he could see Jesus.  “Metaphysical distinctions and theological explanations meant comparatively little to him.  He was slow to apprehend anything of an abstract nature; He was a practical man–not indifferent to spiritual truth, just baffled by it.”  The human longing for a tangible God lies at the root of all idolatry.  Man…

John 14:5 (The Message) Thomas said, “Master, we have no idea where you’re going.  How do you expect us to know the road?“  Thomas flatly contradicted Jesus. His was a false step in reasoning.  “Solutions to human problems are never found in skepticism, but rather in the affirmation of faith.  Jesus responded with a positive declaration on which Thomas could base his thinking:  I am the way, the truth, and the life (v. 6).  It is one of the greatest…

John 14:1 (NLT)  “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God, and trust also in me.”  As Jesus began His critical teaching to prepare His disciples for the coming challenge to their faith, various disciples interrupted with their questions.  Like little children interrupting a parent who is trying desperately to teach them something for life-threatening situations, Jesus replies, and then reverts to His original line of thought.  If we believe that a personal God exists, who is the redeemer…

John 13:31 (NLT) As soon as Judas left the room, Jesus said, “The time has come for the Son of Man to enter into His glory”…  The departure of Judas was a relief to Jesus because as long as Judas was there in the room Jesus could not talk freely about the important topics on His mind.  “Judas had no understanding of His motives and mission.  The other disciples were equally ignorant of Jesus’  real purpose, as their questions later…

Matthew 28:6 (NLT)  He isn’t here!  He is risen from the dead, just as He said would happen.  Come see where His body was lying. The tomb was empty.  This is the greatest reason to believe in the resurrection.  All the Jews and Romans needed to do to put an end to the spread of the resurrection story was to produce Jesus’  dead body.  But He had risen, so there was no body.  We are not believing some conjured up…

John 20:25-29 (NIV – Focus verse 29)  Then Jesus said to him (Thomas), “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”  Secular historical writers have confirmed the resurrection of Jesus Christ as an historic event.  Josephus, a Jewish non-Christian writer (The Complete Works of Flavius Josephus), and Thomas Arnold (The History of Rome), and Frank Morrison (Who Moved the Stone?) all agree that after careful investigation of the facts,…

I Corinthians 15:6 (NIV)  After that, He appeared to more than 500 of His followers at one time…  We believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ because of the many first-century people who witnessed His post-resurrection appearances.  Were they hallucinating?  Five hundred people don’t hallucinate at one time.  When Paul wrote to the people in Corinth many eyewitnesses were still alive in Jerusalem and Galilee and could be interviewed one-on-one for their stories of where and when they saw the…

II Corinthians 11:22-27 (NIV – Focus verse 25)  Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked.  I spent a night and a day in the open sea.  This is the Apostle Paul’s testimony, but many other first-century Christians were tortured for their faith.  Church historians tell us that Peter was crucified upside down.  Why would they risk their lives to preach the message of a resurrected Jesus if it was untrue?  The…

Matthew 27:62-66 (NIV – Focus verse 64a)   So give the order for the tomb to be made secure. Even today, skeptics question the validity of Christ’s resurrection.  But consider the precautions that the Romans took to make sure that Jesus’  body was secure in the tomb.  First, they put a huge stone across the entrance that was so big (some say 2 tons) that nobody was getting in or out of that tomb.  Second, they put a seal across…

I Corinthians 15:3-8a (NLT)   What I received I passed on to you as of first importance:  that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas (Peter) and then to the Twelve.  After that, He appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time… Then He appeared to James, then to…

II Peter 1:4 (NIV)  Through these He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.  Resurrection power is not a one-time deal that happened those many years ago.  It reaches 2000 years down through history to you and me to offer us a connection to God that not only brings us personal spiritual transformation but also gives…

Ephesians 2:6 (NIV)  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the Heavenly realms in Christ Jesus… Our salvation story is just the beginning.  Resurrection power enables us to overcome our personal limitations and go on to do amazing things with God.  We can experience spiritual growth, connect to a divine calling, and become a change agent in this world.  We get to reflect the vision of the final Kingdom that the Old Testament prophets…

Romans 8:11 (NIV)  And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you…  We live in a world filled with death and disease.  Despite having the best medical knowledge in the history of mankind, only Jesus has power over death.  One day, Christ will return and reset the world system that went…

Hebrews 9: 27 (The Message)  Everyone has to die once, then face the consequences (after that comes judgment – NLT).  The Resurrection validates Christ’s Message. It means that all of Jesus’  “You-have-heard-but-I-tell you”  sermons were, indeed, true (Matt. 5).  Without it we have no redeemer, just another prophet.  Without it we have no definitive truth, just another philosophy, just another point of view.  The Resurrection unmasks false beliefs.  It warns you NOT to risk your eternity on them.  It proves that life…

I Corinthians 15:13-22 (NIV) (focus v. 20)  But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead…  The Resurrection validates Christ’s identity.  It was God’s giant exclamation point to the whole world that Jesus was, indeed, the Son of God.  Jesus does have power to take away sins.  Every aspect of our faith in Jesus is rooted, connected, catalyzed, and proved through the events we remember during Easter.  The Resurrection proves that there is life after death and that Jesus was, in…

Acts 3:15 (NLT)  You killed the author of life, but God raised Him from the dead.  And we are witnesses of this fact!  The Resurrection was the game-changer.  It was not a tag-on.  No, it gave meaning to the crucifixion.  It brought resolution to it.  It turned grief into celebration.  It was the  “rest of the story.”  Without the resurrection, the story of Jesus ends in tragic death; but salvation does not end at the cross, the place of death. …

John 19:38-42  (NIV) We call it SILENT SATURDAY, a space in which we wait and hope.  Of course, we know that Sunday is coming; but the disciples didn’t know that.  All they knew was that Jesus was dead, and so were their hopes and dreams.  But faith is what you cling to when understanding is dead.  We don’t believe after we understand—no, we believe in order to understand.  SILENT SATURDAY is the time to engage faith, not disengage it.  It…

April 2  – Mark 15:21-47 – focus verse 34 (NIV) Have you ever spoken these words: God, my God, why have you abandoned me?  Maybe you didn’t say them out loud but you spoke them in your heart and mind.  At times, we go through periods of deep and profound need, but God doesn’t seem to be showing up for us.  There is only silence.  Yet, the truth is that God’s goodness is most manifest in those moments.  We can’t…

Mark 14:61-63; Mark 15:1-20 (NIV) Throughout the second half of Jesus’  earthly ministry, He alerted the disciples that they would face opposition just as He would.  Their spiritual development would depend on how well they could cope with that reality.  The stakes were high as Jesus faced the high priest, and later Pilate.  His life hung in the balance; but He did not fight back or reflect fear.  He trusted His Father.  Pilate was amazed by this (Mark 15:5).  Jesus…

John 16  Focus verse: 16:33; John 18:1-11 (NIV) As Jesus walked with His disciples from the place of the Last Supper toward the Garden of Gethsemane, He continued to press into their hearts important truths to sustain them in the coming dark hours.  He knew they would be shocked and overwhelmed by the imminent disaster.  He wanted them to remember His words when the crisis hit.  He wanted them to be able to find peace in spite of outward turmoil. …

John 12:1-9 (NLT) Mary and Martha’s dinner honored Jesus as a way to express deep appreciation for resurrecting their brother, Lazarus.  But while everyone celebrated, did Mary pick up on a melancholy tone in Jesus, something the others missed?  Was her shocking public display of affection (pouring her expensive perfume on His feet) a Spirit-led, prophetic act of worship?  As the fragrance filled the room, did the men’s chatter become quiet?  Did her grateful tears and her act of washing of…