A Word of Exhortation
READ : Hebrews 13:20-25 Bear with my word of exhortation. (v. 22) The book of Hebrews was written to encourage wavering Christians. Its recipients were people who professed the Christian faith, but now were having second thoughts. The writer of Hebrews calls his letter “a word of exhortation,” and his thirteen chapters of exhortation can be […]
The Promise of Salvation
Read: Luke 23:32-43 Here we can see salvation reduced to its simplest terms. Stripped down to essentials, this is what it’s all about. It’s about a request and a promise. The third word from the cross was spoken by Jesus to one of his fellow sufferers, the man we usually call the penitent thief, who died […]
Abraham: The Sign of a Covenant
Read: Genesis 15:1-21, Genesis 17:1-16, Romans 4:3-8 So Abraham shows us the very way of salvation. God’s covenant relationship with us is based on his grace, to which we respond with faith, or trust, and that is what puts us in a right relationship with God. One of the most important concepts in the Bible is the relationship […]
Abraham: Blessed to Be a Blessing
Read: Genesis 12:1-3, Isaiah 42:1, 6-7 The blessings God gives us are intended to be shared with all, beginning with the inestimable blessing of salvation from sin and including all the other good things the Lord has given to us. I know that I have been greatly blessed. Perhaps you have too. So many of […]
Abraham: A Friend of God
Read: Genesis 12:1-4, Isaiah 41:8 The call of Abraham marks the launching of God’s plan to eventually bring blessing to all of the earth’s peoples, and it all started with God’s decision to single out this one ordinary man. Recently TIME magazine, the leading news weekly in America, ran a cover story on Abraham. For a person to be […]
How to Resist the Devil
Read: James 4:7-8 For many people the Devil is nothing more than a cartoon character. But we have a real and terrible enemy in Satan. Let’s learn today how to fight against him. How do we go about resisting the devil? To Jesus Christ and his apostles, that was a vitally important question. Our Lord had […]
How to Conquer Your Besetting Sin
Read: Romans 6:11-14 Have you been struggling for a long time against a particularly stubborn sin in your life? Well we have good news for you today, there is a way for you to get help. I wonder if you are aware today of some besetting sin in your life. “What’s that about?” someone asks. The […]
How to Approach God in Prayer
Read: Hebrews 4:16 Many people today are so unacquainted with God or feel that he’s so far away they don’t even know how to talk to him and hardly even dare to try. But you can learn a way to approach him with confidence. Suppose you wanted to approach God in prayer, to come into […]
Nicodemus
Read: John 3:1-17 Just like currency, language can suffer from inflation, but it’s no exaggeration to say that John 3 is the most important chapter in the Bible. Here’s the story of one of the most important encounters with Jesus in the entire New Testament. It comes from the third chapter of the gospel of John. Now there […]