THE STORY OF JESUS: Matthew 13:18-23 “Good soil… produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23) The point of planting seed is producing a crop. Jesus often explains that the crop God desires is goodness, love, mercy, justice. Also known as the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) This is what…
Category: daily meditations
Ears that long to hear!
THE STORY OF JESUS: Matthew 13:10-17 “Many… people longed to see what you see but did not see it…” (Matthew 13:17) Jesus identifies the key to faith: longing. To seek and desire with intensity, to desperately want something. Faith is more than agreeing with the mind, it is seeking with the heart. All that is required is…
Hearing God requires listening better!
THE STORY OF JESUS: Matthew 13:1-9 “Whoever has ears, let them hear.” (Matthew 13:1-9) Jesus has a large audience, a perfect opportunity to WOW them with His wisdom. Instead He tells them a simple little story, and essentially says ‘figure it out!’ If my messages were this cryptic, I’d lose my job. But Jesus wasn’t trying to…
Hang in there!
THE STORY OF JESUS: Psalm 17 “When I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.” (Psalm 17:15) These remind me of the words of Job, when he was in a tough place. “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been…
Staying clean today!?
THE STORY OF JESUS: Leviticus 11-15 “You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them.” (Leviticus 15:31) These chapters contain the purity laws, distinguishing between ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’. The laws are put in a religious context but…
In spirit and truth!
THE STORY OF JESUS: Leviticus 8-10 “This is what the Lord has commanded you to do, so that the glory of the Lord may appear to you.” (Leviticus 9:6) Why does God have to make it so tough for the people to worship Him? Aaron loses two sons because they did it wrong, yikes. And yet, it…
‘All in the family!’
THE STORY OF JESUS: Matthew 12:46-50 “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:50) At what point did Adam and Eve’s family stop being related? Aren’t we all still related, especially through our common connection to God? The idea of ‘image-bearer’ conveyed a family connection (see Genesis 5:1-3)….
Who or what lives in you?
THE STORY OF JESUS: Matthew 12:43-45 “Seven other spirits more wicked than itself…” (Matthew 12:45) I don’t know exactly what evil spirits are, but I know what they do. Their primary power is deception, negative voices that whisper their lies. What Jesus describes is how deception increases, and bondage magnifies. The Enemy uses what it can to…
When we should get literal!
THE STORY OF JESUS: Matthew 12:38-42 “The Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” (Matthew 12:40) Did Jesus rise IN three days (Matthew 26:61), AFTER three days (Matthew 27:63), ON the third day (Matthew 20:19) or after EXACTLY three days and nights (Matthew 12:40)? The phrase ‘three days and three nights’ is a…
Words have power – for good or evil!
THE STORY OF JESUS: Matthew 12:33-37 “By your words you will be acquitted and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12:37) God created us in His image, and part of that is creating this world with words. We do not create ‘out of nothing’, but we do create from what God has created. Adam’s task…