Our Prayers are a Sweet Aroma to The Lord
READ : Revelation 5:6-12 “…Angels were holding golden bowls, full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (v. 8). “Another angel…was given a great quantity of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints” (Rev. 8:3). Do you remember the wonderful aroma of cookies baking, the smell of a freshly bathed baby, […]
A Man of Sorrows
Read: Isaiah 53:3 He could have been called a man of holiness, for he lived a perfect life. He could have been called a man of love, for no one was ever kinder. But the Gospel according to Isaiah calls Jesus “a man of sorrows.” What a name! Line by line and phrase by phrase […]
Despised and Rejected
Read: Isaiah 53:3 Of all the hurts life can inflict upon us, none is more bitter than the pain of rejection. It might surprise you to know that God’s own Son experienced that pain too. Of all the pains life can hold, of all the hurts others can inflict, among the bitterest is the pain and […]
Love is Sacrificial
Read: 1 Corinthians 13:5 In a world that says, “I want it my way,” lovers must learn to say, “Not my way, but yours.” I continue to be impressed by the way the great love song of the Bible explains what love is by describing what love does. Here is love’s definition: “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous […]
Love is Humble
Read: 1 Corinthians 13:4, 5 Humility—it is an attractive quality in anyone, but it is especially becoming in those who love. Love, the love God both shows toward us and inspires in us, is humble. In saying that, I do not mean that love is lowly or ordinary or simple or humdrum. On the contrary, love […]
Love is the Greatest Virtue
READ : 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13 is well worth memorizing. It upgrades love to the top of the list of Christian virtues. In the Corinthian Church some were bragging about their spiritual gifts. Love is more important than all […]
Overflowing With Hope
Read: Romans 15:7-13 Do you know what the rarest and most precious commodity on earth is? No, it’s not gold or diamonds, not oil or uranium; it’s hope. For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope . […]
Benefits of Believing
Read: Romans 5:1-5 When the American writer Henry David Thoreau lay on his deathbed, an old aunt came to him and asked if he had made his peace with God. “Madam,” he is supposed to have replied, “I was not aware we had quarrelled.” Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with […]
Reflections on Noah’s Ark
READ : Genesis 7:11-16 They went into the ark with Noah, two and two of all flesh in which there was the breath of life. And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the Lord shut him in. God’s instructions to Noah also called for sealing […]