Luke 24- Praise: the Answer to Salvation

⁵² And they, after worshiping Him, returned to Jerusalem with great joy, ⁵³ and were continually in the temple praising God.

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 After Christ was resurrected, His disciples saw him and understood all that He had previously told them.  They understood why they were left, to share the Gospel with all nations.  They believed all that He said and were saved...What was their response?  Continual praise...

Lord, help me to be actively praising you, always...

Acts 6- Mercy

²⁷ “But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹ Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. ³⁰ Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. ³¹ Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. ³² If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. ³³ If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. ³⁴ If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. ³⁵ But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

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 Who can say such things? Only a loving God...

Lord, help me to love you by my actions...  toward others, towards You and in myself.  What a sacrifice to give up justice and ourselves.  Allow this sacrifice to be joyfully given to You.  What incredible salvation you give us freely...the exact opposite of what I deserve! 

Mark 15- Christ Forsaken, Yet Our Separation Removed

³³ When the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. ³⁴ At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” which is translated, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” ³⁵ When some of the bystanders heard it, they began saying, “Behold, He is calling for Elijah.” ³⁶ Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink, saying, “Let us see whether Elijah will come to take Him down.” ³⁷ And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed His last. ³⁸ And the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

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For the first time Christ feels the separation from the Father caused by sin that we all have known.  Only in the first and only time the relationship between the Father & Son is divided because of OUR SIN!  But just three verses later, the veil of separation is supernaturally torn in two...signifying that God would no longer reside in the Holy of Hollies but in each of us!  What a powerful moment in time...

Lord, cause us to run to you so that we will keep the relationship open and strong.  Help us to love you by keeping your commands!

Mark 7- Message Missed

³² They brought to Him one who was deaf and spoke with difficulty, and they implored Him to lay His hand on him. ³³ Jesus took him aside from the crowd, by himself, and put His fingers into his ears, and after spitting, He touched his tongue with the saliva; ³⁴ and looking up to heaven with a deep sigh, He said to him, “Ephphatha!” that is, “Be opened!” ³⁵ And his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was removed, and he began speaking plainly. ³⁶ And He gave them orders not to tell anyone; but the more He ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it. ³⁷ They were utterly astonished, saying, “He has done all things well; He makes even the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”

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Why would Christ command that they not tell anyone about the incredible things he was doing?  Because, when people were focused on what he DID they ignored what he SAID.  And for humankind the Message, the Gospel, is the only thing that matters.  It is foremost, of critical importance, unprecedented and ignored if we are only worried about our physical needs.

Lord, help me to share your Truth and protect me from loosing sight of the importance of the message amidst the success of the work you have us do!

Mark 5- Your Faith Has Made You Well

²⁵ A woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years, ²⁶ and had endured much at the hands of many physicians, and had spent all that she had and was not helped at all, but rather had grown worse— ²⁷ after hearing about Jesus, she came up in the crowd behind Him and touched His cloak. ²⁸ For she thought, “If I just touch His garments, I will get well.” ²⁹ Immediately the flow of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction. ³⁰ Immediately Jesus, perceiving in Himself that the power proceeding from Him had gone forth, turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My garments?” ³¹ And His disciples said to Him, “You see the crowd pressing in on You, and You say, ‘Who touched Me?’” ³² And He looked around to see the woman who had done this. ³³ But the woman fearing and trembling, aware of what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. ³⁴ And He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction.”

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We are constantly afflicted by the battles of this world, the enemy and our own selfishness.  Time and time again we see that Jesus telling those that are healed that it is because of their faith.  We know that with even a small amount of faith on our part, can accomplish great things...if it is according to the will of God.  

Lord, give me faith to overcome the world and flee from sin so that You would be glorified!

Mark 4- No Faith?

³⁷ And there arose a fierce gale of wind, and the waves were breaking over the boat so much that the boat was already filling up. ³⁸ Jesus Himself was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” ³⁹ And He got up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Hush, be still.” And the wind died down and it became perfectly calm. ⁴⁰ And He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

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Are we just like the Disciples?  I think sometimes we are... We are going through life's storms with God right inside us.   He is not worried or fearful, but we are terrified.  We cry out to God, "don't you care that we are going to die?  Where are you? Why don't you stop this?"   Calmly He replies, "Why are you afraid?  Do you still have no faith?...haven't you been watching Me work in your life for the last few years?  I have done greater things than calm this storm...and I will do greater things for you, even more than you can think or ask!"

Where is my faith?  God, you are good and you work all things together for my good.  Help me to have faith.  Grant me the faith to move mountains, by trusting You!

Matthew 27- Their mocking missed the obvious

³⁹ And those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads ⁴⁰ and saying, “You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” ⁴¹ In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking Him and saying, ⁴² “He saved others; He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel; let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in Him. ⁴³ He trusts in God; let God rescue Him now, if He delights in Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

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They missed it...Jesus laid down his own life.  He had demonstrated multiple times that when they wanted to catch him they could not (see John 8:59, 10:39 & Luke 4:30).  Jesus told his disciples many times he was going to lay down his life and more importantly take it up again.  John 10:17-18

What is is that we miss the point on?  Lord, open our eyes so that we may see who you are and how you want to change me!

Matthew 26- Failure Amidst Certainty

³¹ Then Jesus *said to them, “You will all fall away because of Me this night, for it is written, ‘I will strike down the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered.’
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³³ But Peter said to Him, “Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away.” ³⁴ Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you that this very night, before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” ³⁵ Peter *said to Him, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You.” All the disciples said the same thing too.
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⁶⁹ Now Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard, and a servant-girl came to him and said, “You too were with Jesus the Galilean.” ⁷⁰ But he denied it before them all, saying, “I do not know what you are talking about.” ⁷¹ When he had gone out to the gateway, another servant-girl saw him and *said to those who were there, “This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.” ⁷² And again he denied it with an oath, “I do not know the man.” ⁷³ A little later the bystanders came up and said to Peter, “Surely you too are one of them; for even the way you talk gives you away.” ⁷⁴ Then he began to curse and swear, “I do not know the man!” And immediately a rooster crowed. ⁷⁵ And Peter remembered the word which Jesus had said, “Before a rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.


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In the book of John, Peter is the first one to declare who Jesus truly is.  He is the spokesman, the one who claims his allegiance within hours of shunning all association with Jesus.  How susceptible we are as humans to believe perfectly, and yet walk out the door and fail miserably.  It takes only an instant to give in to self glorification and forget who God is.  We are all in the same boat...

Lord, allow me to live by Your Word, and help me to remember how close to failure we are without you.

Mattew 25- According to Our Ability

¹⁴ “For it is just like a man about to go on a journey, who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them. ¹⁵ To one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey. ¹⁶ Immediately the one who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and gained five more talents. ¹⁷ In the same manner the one who had received the two talents gained two more. ¹⁸ But he who received the one talent went away, and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

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 God has entrusted each of us with talents, gifts, skills, passions and lives...He does not give us the same ones, because we have been given different roles.  However, He expects the same results!  Did you notice that?   Both of the good servants doubled what they had been given.  God provides us purposefully with what we can handle and expects us to use it to our fullest potential, not be paralyzed with fear.  His expectations are clear...and Paul reminds us of that in I Cor 10: 31-33~

³¹ Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. ³² Give no offense either to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God; ³³ just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit but the profit of the many, so that they may be saved.

Matthew 24- Heed the Calling

³⁷ For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah. ³⁸ For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, ³⁹ and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.

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 Noah was told that God would bring judgment on the earth in 120 years.  He spent that time calling the people of the earth to repentance, to no avail.  The people ignored the calling.  So as he continued to call the people he built an ark, for somewhere between 50-75 years...yet people still ignored him.  Jesus will return in much the same way, people being called but ignoring the truth presented to them.  

Lord, help us to be faithful in our calling of the lost!  You will draw them, but we are here to share who you are & what you want from us.  A relationship with you!  Give us faith to continue even as we are ignored...and pray for the lost.

Matthew 23- The INSIDE is what Matters to God

²⁵ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. ²⁶ You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also.
²⁷ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. ²⁸ So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

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What a scathing proclamation about the Pharisees!  But, is is true of us as well?  Do we care more about what people see than what is going on in our hearts? Our minds?  Although it is important how we represent Christ to those around us, Jesus tells us that if we allow the Holy Spirit to cleans us on the inside our outward appearance will be clean and pure as well.

Lord help me to care more about what you see than what the world sees!