John 5:8 “Then Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.’” Art? It was my freshman year of college and my schedule included an Art Class. This did not make me a happy camper. The first night of class the instructor had each of us draw Continue Reading…
Joel 2:25 “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten” “Dying is hard work,” a friend said to me as I stayed with my dad during his final days on earth. “It’s like childbirth, with its accompanying labor and transitory pain into a new world.” I saw Continue Reading…
I Corinthians 15:3 “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day….” First importance. At the risk of sounding redundant, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Continue Reading…
Mark 10:49 “…Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” Bartimaeus—a blind beggar on the side of the road. His affliction had stripped him of all dignity, leaving him, according to Jewish society, only a few steps above a leper. His self-sufficiency had been replaced with total dependency on human Continue Reading…
Isaiah 59:14 “So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter.” GK Chesterton writes, “The heavenly chariot flies thundering through the ages, the dull heresies sprawling and prostrate, the wild truth reeling, but erect.” Oh how we underestimate Continue Reading…
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Do you know the most popular Old Testament scripture? According to Biblegateway, Jeremiah 29:11 reigns as the most frequently requested Continue Reading…
Ezekiel 12:7 “So I did as I was commanded.” “I am not called to be successful. I’m called to be faithful.” These well-known words of Mother Theresa pose a hard sell in our goal-driven society. It’s far too easy for us to jump on the cultural treadmill and conclude Continue Reading…
John 20:1 “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.” “These acts shattered steel, but they can’t bend the steel of American resolve.” Those words of President Continue Reading…
Matthew 26:46 “Here comes my betrayer!” How awful to be identified as a “betrayer.” This is how Jesus referred to Judas on the night of his arrest. On the other hand, Peter denied Jesus not once but three times, yet the next time Jesus encountered Peter, he didn’t refer Continue Reading…
Isaiah 60:1 “Arise, shine for your light has come.” Mark—Chapter 5. One chapter that describes three of the most hopeless situations recorded in the Gospels: a man whose sanity had been stripped away by not just one, but a legion of demons; a woman who, after twelve years, had Continue Reading…