Author: Norm

SCRIPTURE: John 20:24-31 “Unless I see… I will not believe.” (John 20:24) Lots of people can relate to Thomas. Some have tried to demonstrate the believability of Jesus and God. (See Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ or The Case for the Creator). This is good stuff, and can be helpful to some. But in the end,…

SCRIPTURE: John 20:19-23 “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” (John 20:21) Jesus came to be like us, so that might be like Him. We are given the Spirit, and sent on a mission, the same mission as Jesus! We represent God again: we announce God’s good news of forgiveness. Its not that we…

SCRIPTURE: Psalm 123 “As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master…” (Psalm 123:2) In this scenario, it is the proud, not God, that cause ridicule and contempt. God is not like a cruel master, cursing and abusing his slaves. But those praying do not look to their human masters for relief or hope….

SCRIPTURE: Romans 7-8 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? (Romans 7:24) Paul shows the struggle of life on our own, in our own strength, in the ‘sinful nature’. Eventually we all come up against the futility and despair of sin and death. We were made…

We will look at Romans 7-8 tomorrow. SCRIPTURE: Romans 5:1-6:23 “Adam, who is a pattern of the one to come.” (Romans 5:14) Humans were created to be like God, but like Adam we chose not to live that way. We follow the sinful pattern of Adam, rather than the ‘very good’ pattern of God. Until Jesus comes, the…

SCRIPTURE: John 20:10-18 “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” (John 20:17) I believe that Jesus is the Word of God made human (John 1:1). While on earth, He was fully human, like us: His Father was our Father, His God was our God. We tend to jump to quickly…

SCRIPTURE: John 20:1-9 “He saw and believed.” (John 20:8) The resurrection was too radical to fake or make up. Why would the disciples all face torture and death for a scam? How could you get so many people to agree to lie about Jesus’ resurrection. It doesn’t take long, when the pressure heats up, for someone to…

SCRIPTURE: John 19:38-42 “A disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders.” (John 19:38) Joseph Arimathea fears Jewish leaders, so he is a secret disciple. Nicodemus is a Jewish leader, so he talks to Jesus at night (John 3:2). I recently spoke with an Iranian Christian who told me about Muslims converting in Iran. She…

SCRIPTURE: John 19:28-37 ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:30) For His whole life, Jesus was under attack. Satan was doing everything he could to get this ‘Adam’ (human) to fail. Every trick in the book was used against Jesus, but Jesus stood firm. Unlike all other sons…

SCRIPTURE: Psalm 122 “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.” (Psalm 122:6) When this Psalm was written, the old covenant temple was built there. Today, the new covenant temple (people whose hearts are open to God) are everywhere. Jerusalem for Christians today is anywhere and everywhere that God is among His people. You might say that Jerusalem is…