SCRIPTURE: Psalm 80 “Restore us, Lord God Almighty; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved.” (Psalm 80:19) Asaph quotes the words ‘make your face shine on us’ three times (vv.3,7,19), based on the priestly blessing: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious…
To do or not to do… something
SCRIPTURE: Proverbs 22:17-24:34 “If you falter in a time of trouble, how small is your strength! Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.” (Proverbs 24:10-11) Each one of these sayings could be focused on, I am choosing one. The point is to not stand by and do nothing when someone is…
Sleepers will awake!
SCRIPTURE: Luke 8:49-56 “Stop crying!” Jesus said. “She is not dead. She is sleeping.” In the bible, sleep is a euphemism for death (John 11:11, 1 Corinthians 11:30 15:51, Ephesians 5:14, 1 Thessalonians 4:13). This is not to minimize the curse of death, but to maximize the blessing of hope! Death is a tragic, unnatural (from a Creation point of view) experience. Jesus…
A faith that moves us towards God
SCRIPTURE: Luke 8:40-48 “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.” Here I again I am encouraged by the simple faith that Jesus honours. It is not ‘understanding the faith’ (beliefs) that helps, heals, or saves us. It is any move towards God – whether uncertain or desperate or confident – for help. This woman…
Focus on Jesus, not the pigs!
SCRIPTURE: Luke 8:34-39 So why did the demons insist on going into the pigs… scare tactics! The goal of the Enemy is to somehow turn us away from God. Discouragement, distraction, deception, despair, and ultimately destruction. Look at what happens: the man is cured, but the people can’t see it! All they see is what happened…
Legion times gazillion
SCRIPTURE: Luke 8:26-33 There is something wrong in our world. Despite all that is beautiful and good, something always seems to poison it. Demons of scandal, violence, addiction, abuse, tragedy, illness, death. Our world seems possessed by a demonic Legion times gazillion. I can’t explain how the demons in this story worked. But I do see…
“Will you trust Me even when…?”
SCRIPTURE: Psalm 79 The story behind this Psalm is the agony of persecution for a people who were serving God. This is how Christians must have felt in past times of persecution. This is still what Christians in parts of the world today feel when they are targeted, persecuted, arrested. Churches are firebombed, Christians are betrayed,…
Grace to be a builder!
SCRIPTURE: Proverbs 17:1-22:16 “One who is slack in his work is brother to one who destroys.” (Proverbs 18:9) Because there are so many proverbs, my plan was to read until one jumped out at me. This is the first one that jumped out at me, and I couldn’t let go of it after that. These proverbs make…
A twist on the Footprints poem
Let’s be honest, He’s had a drag us many times, hasn’t He?
Bigger than the storm
SCRIPTURE: Luke 8:22-25 How could Jesus sleep in that little boat, during a storm? How could Jesus rebuke the storm, to make it stop? Are these things that we could do too, if we had faith? It was faith (resting in God) that enabled Jesus to be calm through the storm. He knew God had a…