Be Encouraged

“For not even His brothers were believing in Him.” (John 7:5) If Jesus had come to transmit a set of teachings that enabled people to function with immunity toward God, we would have to conclude He failed. It takes words to illuminate the mind as to what the heart can act upon; the goal is a changed heart. At this point in Jesus’s story, His brothers did not trust He was the Christ or savior of th...

“We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:69) What does holy mean? Essentially, something or someone is set aside for Father God’s use. You fit in His hand for His purposes, and no other hand has a right to hold you, much less use you. Jesus was God’s instrument to separate us from sin and death. Not death because of sin but the death that sin is. What, the...

“‘But there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him.” (John 6:64) I believe that Judas had all but given up on Jesus as the Messiah. His deal to hand Jesus over was, in his mind, the last-ditch effort to get Jesus to step up to the plate and hit a home run. Well, Jesus did, but not in the way any...

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.” (John 6:47) The proof of eternal life is in trust. Many times, I have seen the trust of Christ transform a soul. After watching me for two weeks, Linda decided she wanted what I had received when receiving Christ as my life. Looking at me, she declared she wanted to have what I had. Midway through her request, she turned to look to my...

Today, we explore our essence. Your salvation is like a powerful pivot, turning you from a misguided path away from God to a purposeful journey through Him. Envision Jesus, the Creator, stepping into the narrative of your life, taking up the very role you were destined for. It's not a mere acknowledgment; it's a continuous surrender of every moment, all 24 hours of each day, in every sphere of lif...

PSALM 138:2 Promise Received I WILL BOW DOWN TOWARD YOUR HOLY TEMPLE AND GIVE THANKS TO YOUR NAME, FOR YOUR LOVING KINDNESS AND YOUR TRUTH; FOR YOU HAVE MAGNIFIED YOUR WORD ACCORDING TO ALL YOUR NAME. DAVID EXPRESSES HIS GRATITUDE TOWARDS JEHOVAH, ACKNOWLEDGING THAT HE HAS NOT BEEN LEFT WITHOUT DIRECTION. IN MODERN LANGUAGE, HIS WORDS CAN BE UNDERSTOOD AS SUCH: "I WILL BOW DOWN TO YOUR HOLY TEMPLE...

“For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:40) The will of Jesus’s Father is a right now event with two aspects that Jesus offers. See Him AND Trust Him! The scripture declares every eye will see Him. This must also mean that every heart can trust Him. Has your heart subm...

“But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.” (John 6:36) What the regular folk wanted was not being offered by Jesus. Everyone believed they had to obey God, rally around a leader, and fight Caesar. With words like these, Jesus seemed so heavenly-minded that He was no earthly good. The Jews wanted an economic system honoring the Law of Moses, with God blessing their efforts....

“Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.’” (John 6:35) Jesus is as good as said, “I am the whole menu. There is no more. If you sense need, you are consuming something other than Me.” We can so easily get distracted by the flesh’s desires raining on us 24/7 that we put God on some back burner, looking to other th...

“So they said to Him, ‘What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform?’” (John 6:30) Several times, Jesus declared He could do nothing but what He saw Father doing. Twice, He said He could not initiate one thing. Yet the people wanted Him to initiate and do according to their desires. He would be their King if He did their bidding. The people wanted t...

“Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.’” (John 6:29) Men asked what they could do that looked like God was doing it. Jesus answered their question. He declared God was at work in them to trust in the One He had sent. It is Father’s good pleasure to raise up to Himself many sons. Father had sent many judges, kings, and prophets. He also...

Now that we know Heaven is God Himself, we can say, "Hell is anything other than God." God is life; the other is not. God is Light; the other is not. God is love; the other is not. Here is a list of God things: joy, peace, temperance, self-control, patience, and so on. If you have the Not things, you have what we call Hell. Hell is the permanent place for the not-God stuff. It is a place where you...

Welcome to today's face-to-face episode titled "What is Heaven?" Many envision Heaven as the ultimate abode, where love abounds, desires are fulfilled sans government interference or taxes, and even the neighbor's dog refrains from incessant barking. Smiles are ubiquitous, and accolades flow freely, creating a euphoric earthly paradise. However, this perception is a far cry from the truth. Heaven...

“For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” (John 5:46-47) ] The Jews of Jesus’s day said they trusted Moses’s words. Jesus reminds them that Moses told them of the coming Christ and that they should listen to Him. On the Mt. of Transfiguration, Peter thought they should build three temples—one for...

You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent. It takes hard work to distrust God. I met a man who declared he once trusted Christ. Now, for him to continue to do so is foolishness. He has all sorts of reasons why he cannot trust there is a god. Yet his life is swimming in conspiracies. He traded in God’s love for a few dozen conspiracies. Down deep, he knows som...

Our Scripture today is from John chapter 5, verse 24. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. See Jesus. Trust Jesus. Live His life living you. Why? Why not? Those who have put their trust in Christ Jesus proclaim they know they have passed from death to life. Their pro...

Our verse today is John chapter five, verse four. For an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted. God said His light will shine out of darkness. That light is the One who is shining in our hearts the Light of our knowledge...

“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:...

Welcome to the face-to-face episode titled, Holy Spirit Guidance. "But when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own but only what He hears, and He will show you things to come. The Spirit will glorify Me because He will take from what is Mine and disclose it to you. Everything that the Father has belongs to Me. That is why I said the Spirit will ta...

Today’s verse is from John 4 and verse 53. So the father knew that it was at that hour in which Jesus said to him, ‘Your son lives’; and he himself believed and his whole household. I am of the age where more of my friends are in the spirit than the flesh. I don’t mind the thought of dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens. I expect if, for some reason, all those friends showed up in...

Today’s Scripture is taken from John 4:50. Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your son lives.’ The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off.” As Andy, in the movie Shawshank Redemption, would say, “Get busy living or get busy dying!” I would say, “Get busy trusting or get busy dying!” Either way, “get busy”. Jesus said the same thing a little differently, “I wish that you were cold or ho...

Here is today’s Scripture Quoted from John 4:48. So Jesus said to him, ‘Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.’ Jesus told us, “You should not have needed signs and wonders to trust Him.” In another place, Jesus said to the people He was talking that they were “an evil and adulterous generation craving for a sign; but no sign would be given to it but the sign of Jona...

Here is today’s Scripture Quoted from John 4:42. And they were saying to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.’ What could these people have heard that could convince them that this person, Jesus, was out to save them as much as the Jews? We don’t know. But, somehow, Father use...

“From that city, many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me all the things that I have done.’” (John 4:39) The same is true today. Many trust Jesus through the testimony of others. Some get to know Him personally and then trust Him. Either way works. Jesus was thrilled that Thomas wanted to see for himself the proof that this person before hi...

“Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.’” (John 4:21) Jesus is saying to us that the worship center has moved. It has no permanent mailing address on earth. Worshiping God has been relocated from a building with rules to worshiping the Father, who dwells in the human heart. The directive has changed from...