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  "But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” No one in all human history ever received a greater message from God. The Firstborn of all creation who is the visible representation of the unknowable God Almighty and through whom everything was created was to enter the human race and change human history as a baby born to become the Lamb slain before the creation of the world. This message carried Mary through the hardship and dangers ahead of her, and the heartache of the sacrifice of her son as the sacrifice for her sin and for everyone else who became born anew as a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ. The song “Mary Did You Know?” captures the great gulf b...

  10/14/2022 Jeremiah 29:8 …“Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have." The enemy is pleased when God is cursed by society because of his own people. Our grumbling and complaining about our lot in exile (which society can sometimes seem to be) give inspiration to the false prophets among us who imagine they are 'speaking truth to power' in the name of God when they feed the flames of our hostility against those who despise and criminalize us for being God’s people. This becomes a self-fulling prophecy that goads God's people to strive against society. Jeremiah goes on to prophecy how Israel must stand up against their captivity by living normal lives and supporting and praying for their captors because God is going to bless them now and restore them in 70 years. That is the context for a following oft-quoted verse 11, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper...

  10/12/2022 John 8:32 – “…you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” “Decide your own truth” is the ‘upside-down’ to Truth. It is a lie designed to imprison us in our own selfishness. Like the bizarre underworld in the popular streaming series where everything good in this world is transmogrified into a twisted counterpart in a parallel world, our selfish nature creates a toxic world where one can come to believe good is evil and evil is good. It separates rather than unites, causing ever-narrowing divisions as it isolates us through fear and loathing of all who challenge our own truth. God is the embodiment of Truth and unites all who love and obey Him into a growing eternal family. Godliness is evidenced by love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, and other expressions of the highest form of love, which is God Himself. Receiving God’s Truth expressed in Jesus the only begotten son of God who redeemed us from our sin, frees us from selfishness and forms the lovin...

  9/8/2021 Philippians 1:15 [NIV] "It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill." Tribal Christianity was never God’s plan. The Body of Christ limits its ability to serve the Kingdom of Heaven when it gets sidetracked struggling against each other. Yes, Christ is preached, and sinners are reached with the Good News, but at what cost? When we choose to trash talk other believers or cast doubt on their relationship with Christ or their unique approach to the Gospel, we create a fence around our own approach. The enemy uses these barriers to limit our outreach to the lost. The world is filled with a great number of Christian denominations and communities. While this can this be both good and bad, different approaches can reach a greater variety and number of people. I believe this is one of the reasons why Jesus commands us to love one another, because it has a real effect on our witness to the world, for good or ill. The Holy Sp...

  9/1/2021 John 6:29-30 [NIV] Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? God requires us to believe in Him and in the Savior sent to redeem us from our sins, so that we can have a relationship with Him. If our response is “Prove yourself”, we may find we have cut ourselves off from the presence of God. I say ‘may’ because there is no hard and fast rule here: sometimes, God does graciously provide evidence of His love and care to his demanding children. Ancient Israel living in the wilderness found food and water miraculously provided to them. That it was not enough for some is evidence that our demand for evidence of God’s existence will never satisfy us if in our hearts we refuse to believe or trust God. Some will dismiss the miraculous or attribute it to some natural cause, or find some reason to resist God. The problem does not lie with a lack of evidence...

  8/24/2022 Romans 8:35 [NIV] "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" We must not trivialize God’s incomprehensible love for us. It is so easy to do that, in our preoccupation with ourselves. Our needs, our hurts and problems that destroy our peace and joy. If God did not spare his own son, we must not spare ourselves. Because the world does not understand this, and is even offended by it, it does not understand its need for redemption. It is why we must be in the world but not of it, if we are ever to grasp and appreciate what lies ahead for us… all things good and glorious that await the Day of the Lord. Both judgement and reward for all of humankind and the children of God. IF we take God’s love and promises seriously, we will find courage in the face of overwhelming trouble, peace in a world overtaken by the insanity of evil and the wickedness of those determined to cancel ...

  10/30/2021  Matthew 5:43-45 [NIV]      “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous".     So, Jesus, who is my enemy?  This question is suspiciously like the one posed by the Pharisees after hearing the story of the Good Samaritan: ‘Who is my neighbor’?     The teachings of Jesus confuse those who don’t yet have the Mind of Christ.  In order to have His mind, one must believe Jesus is God come in the flesh to die for our sins, AND we are sinners who need to be forgiven.  Only then can we grasp Truth itself.  That doesn’t mean the truth is easy.  We still have our selfish natures—the ‘I Me Mine’ that is the source of all of our anguish on this side of eterni...