Be With Me: 7 Minutes of Biblical Wonder

Kindness is being nice to someone you should be nice to. Mercy is being nice to someone who specifically doesn’t deserve it.   Of all the people you “should” be nice to today, There is one person who is at the end of the line.  She is exactly the last person you should be nice to.  She cannot repay you anything.  Worse, let’s say she can, but she WON’T.  She refuses to return the kindness you offe...

We all want SATISFACTION.  It is not a bad goal.  What is the road to satisfaction paved with?  Today we find out.  I don't know about you, but I experience hunger and thirst as actual  pains. Welcome to my world.  Being a friend of Jesus is to seek satisfaction by seeking a bit of this hunger and thirst pain.  We are to be hungering and thirsting for righteousness.  He wants us to be wanting...

How do you win a crying, scared two-year old child?  Wrong answer: with POWER and command, "STOP CRYING!" Right answer: with meekness.  You still are the adult in the room, you have 'infinite' power.  But you make yourself approachable.  You have both the power to help, but the gentleness to make the assistance receivable.  Welcome to the beatitude: Blessed are the meek, for th...

"Good Grief" said the wise Charlie Brown.  Let's consider for 7 minutes what can be good about GRIEF, MOURNING and WEEPING.  Jesus agrees with Charlie.  Blessed are those who weep and mourn. There is plenty in the here and now to grieve over. First, there is stuff "out there": fallen world, leaders, churches, etc. But then more up close and personal, there is stuff "i...

What is your friend if you are a friend of Jesus?  What benefits and assists the Christian walk? Alternatively, are there things that could drag you down with liability?  Welcome to the BEATITUDES.  It is a bunch of BLESSED ARE...that turns the world upside down. Blessedness, says my study bible, is the "state of well-being of relationship with God."  It is more profound than just "...

The names of the 12 Apostles are literally going to be on the gates and on the foundations of the heavenly city of the New Jerusalem.  The place where you are going to live forever, is going to have these guys names carved into the wall.  Apparently, they are pretty important. They are first called IN so that they can go OUT.  They are called in to BE WITH HIM (does this sound familiar to any list...

600 years before Jesus, Isaiah perfectly reveals Him.  It is enough to single-handedly believe and follow Jesus forever.  Isaiah notes four things we now see more clearly: That God takes great pleasure in Himself.  The three Persons of the Trinity think the other Persons of the Trinity are pretty special. Do do otherwise would be blasphemy. The people of God are a bunch of losers, unchosen, poor,...

Mankind is assessed for its' VALUE today.  What IS the VALUE of a man or a woman?  Well, the good news is that it is MORE THAN that of a SHEEP.  Come to think of it, our value is more than rules too. The Bible has a lot to say about our care for animals.  BTW, they don't know what day it is so they are just as likely to fall into a pit on that day as any other.  Our care and stewardship...

Jesus reminds His adversaries, "you know the Old Testament story about David UNLAWFULLY eating bread devoted to the Lord and for His priests, right?"  It's in the Bible.  You should know the story, and its' MEANING, especially as it relates to "breaking the Sabbath".  When the New Testament refers to something like this in the Old Testament, it is like a trumpet call...

Who is boss of the Sabbath? Who has ultimate authority? What does Scripture say about honoring the Sabbath? What does Scripture say about Eating Grain as you pass by? How are we to behave as followers of a God who is a big fan of MERCY? These are like giant trains all heading for a big collision in yet another conflict with the Pharisees.  The Pharisees have a firm position--so firm, that they fee...

Jesus says that an AVALANCHE of testimony bears witness about Him.  The Trinity bears witness the works and miracles bear witness the Father bears witness the man John bears witness the man Moses bears witness the Old Testament writing bears witness the New Testament words of Jesus bears witness The response is summarized in one word: refusal.  They set their hope on the wrong person, wrong thing,...

A young woman by the name of Winnie met us at a foreign airport and WHISKED us through all kinds of scary authorities.  She was our ADVOCATE.  We skipped all the lines. Similarly, at the day of judgement  everyone will be called (you may now unbuckle your seatbelt) and will obey arising from our tombs (everybody off this plane) and have to face judgement (customs, immunization checks and immigrati...

Lots of great men and women, smarter and taller than me, have addressed some of the tricky doctrines of God.  We call them the DOG's.  Dead Old Guys and Dead Old Gals of the faith.  One's I am thinking of might be Jonathan Edwards, John Bunyan, Tyndale, Martin Lloyd Jones, Corrie Ten Boom, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther and John Calvin.   "The Father/Son give life to whom He will.&qu...

A very humble podcaster takes a crack at the doctrine of ELECTION.  Good luck with that.   It all started out just dandy:   God (Yea! somebody is in charge) God gives (I like this so far) God gives LIFE (this still sounds good) God gives LIFE to whom (people.  Great! I am one of those!) God gives LIFE to whom He CHOOSES (just hold on one second) Now I start to bristle.  Wait, not everybody? If I w...

Our official passage in John 5:21 makes an audacious claim:  God raises the dead.  Either He does or He doesn't.  Everything rests upon this power.  Jesus puts it out there like a big stumbling block. Paul makes an argument FOR God raising the dead by arguing AGAINST it in 1 Cor 15:12-26.  If Christ is not raised from the dead and there is no RESURRECTION, consider the implications: We have a...

We must let God be God.  In other words, He is revealing Himself in a certain way.  He is active in certain ways and not in others.  We cannot pick and choose.  We really need to stand back and marvel. In 1 Samuel 3:18 it says that Eli, after hearing about what God was up to, said, "It is the Lord, let him do what seems good to Him."  Today, Jesus reveals stuff about Himself that we shou...

We've been considering WHO is the BOSS, and today, OVER WHAT? Who gets to be "Lord of the Sabbath?" Though the external fight is over paralysis, there is an inner war.  There is an internal war over SIN.  After the Sabbath and healing battle subsides, Jesus tells this person to change INSIDE.  Stop sinning.  Whatever the sins you were committing up there in the colonnades of the poo...

I got some very bad theology in a song at church last week.  The songwriter used the phrase that we have "regrets and mistakes" as we come to the altar.  As if it didn't offend anyone else. As if there was not a heavenly offense.  As if just by pulling up your bootstraps and doing a little bit better it would fix this problem.  I think it is not what is regularly in the Bible.  Jesu...

Who is BOSS of Sunday's?  Who is boss of sexual morals?  Who is boss of what I do with money?  These are all questions that are in play throughout history, even today. Primarily, they ask who gets to decide?  The funny thing is, is that Jesus is right there giving them a big heads-up as to what He likes.  They ignore HIM and tell Him what they-think-He-would-want.  It is a ridiculous scenario...

Though I know it sounds crazy, there are people who do NOT want to be healed.  The gain of their infirmity is greater than the pain of their changing.  This applies to some people with physical, social, moral or even spiritual infirmities. So when Jesus asks the question, "DO YOU WANT TO BE HEALED?" it is a real question.  There are even psychological pathologies in which a person PRETEN...

Jesus endorses INTERMITTENT FASTING.  At, least, SPIRITUAL intermittent fasting.  Here's a definition to consider: fasting is an affliction you do to yourself to prepare yourself for a possible future benefit. He says that it is like making a new wineskin.  Getting it ready.  Preparing the vessel.  Then, HE is in charge of the possible filling.  The whole process denotes a humbling, a coming...

Do you move TOWARD or AWAY from the little people of our society; to the outcasts; to the needy; to those one inch more sinful than you; to the undesirables; to the knuckleheads; to those who broke one more rule than you? These are EXACTLY the people that God moves towards.  He reclines with them.  He shares a meal.  And...gets criticized for it. But this just allows Jesus to bring HESED, His favo...

Hesed is the most important word in the Bible that you have never heard of.  It is in the Bible more than 200 times, but we almost always miss it.  It is kind of hidden.  It is the DNA-level characteristic of God that is detailed over and over in the Old Testament.  Here's the problem:  It is a HEBREW word.  the Bible I read is in ENGLISH.  The Hebrew word HESED is usually translated as two w...

Matthew is politically abhorrent, financially treacherous, collaborative with the enemy, and is a social outcast.  Jesus kind of says, "You are EXACTLY the kind of guy we need in the body of Christ.  Let me give you an opportunity to rub shoulders with my other 11 disciples.  It will be good for you and them to start a little church together."  That is, the church is for the UNHOLY; for...

A busted spinal cord, the most complex system in the universe, is a pretty impressive VISIBLE need.  Jesus trumps it with an even more impressive INVISIBLE need.  That is SIN.  Who possibly can fix either problem?  Well, stick around, He'll show you.  He fixes the VISIBLE problem to emphasize that He is the fixer of the INVISIBLE problem. How do I sign up for this impressive fixing?  What WOR...