Be With Me: 7 Minutes of Biblical Wonder

Do you ever feel that there is a Word from God, from His Scripture, that isn't quite DONE WITH YOU?  That is just what He does sometimes. Jesus tells Satan, because he obviously forgot, that there is more to life than bread.  The essential elements includes His Word if one wants to live an abundant, supplied life.  Be With Me is just that, an effort daily to place ourselves by a discipline in...

Listen 7 minutes today while Satan promises something he doesn't own; he offers something that is not his to give.  He pretends to command the topic of  authority , that he has already messed up fatally in.   Certainly there are kingdoms.  Certainly those kingdoms have some glory.  Every city's airport signs say so. But who made the kingdoms?  Who made authority and charged the delegatio...

IF God makes this cancer go away, THEN I'll believe. IF my son survives this war, THEN I'll follow. These are ways we put God to the test.  Jesus says NO. It is not supposed to be like that.  After all, God has already passed the tests of faithfulness.  It is called HESED in the Old Testament.  Unfortunately, people keep getting a D- in the testing of our faithfulness. Satan makes the mi...

Hunger is in God's toolbox.  Jesus has put Himself in the wilderness to show us how it is done.  He is hungry. He is at the limit of human endurance in this particular area, but other areas of temptation/stress are analogous: relational, sexual, honesty, diligence... Satan tries to shortcut the ways of God.  Hunger is is a tool that God frequently uses to get us to trust Him more and see His...

Jesus goes on vacation to the wilderness.  Just kidding.  It is anything but a vacation.  He goes for a purpose: to be TEMPTED.He puts on His HUMANITY HAT to be tempted.  Why go through all the trouble?  Because it will be worth it.  The trouble will be of great value for you and me, mostly.  The difficulty helps the process.  The travail helps us to the endpoint. He goes NOT alone.  He's not...

Amidst the waters of John's baptism, the Father and the Spirit SHOW UP.   They are delivered into our world by the renting of the separation between the physical world and the spiritual world.  There is a TEAR between the worlds.  That is a cool start to the moment! Then Jesus is endorsed, affirmed, encouraged, confirmed and commissioned by the rest of the trinity.   The Spirit comes PHYSICAL...

John the B has a fight with Jesus.  He disagrees with Jesus.  He refuses Jesus with his actions and his words.   So what exactly were they fighting about? What causes a really holy, spiritually in-tune guy like John to protest against Jesus? It is about righteousness.  John says that "Jesus you are perfectly righteous, and you don't need my baptism of repentance. In fact, I should be the...

There is some really good news in today's passage about hell.  Yes it says  that it is an unquenchable fire.  That doesn't sound good.  But it is preventable.  God knows His own.  He will gather them into His barn.   Jesus lays out a dichotomy of HIS fire: the intimacy of the holy spirit, real, ongoing relationship vs. the fire of judgment. What if you don't like it?  I am pretty su...

Am I a REPENTFUL person?  Does Repentance CHARACTERIZE my life? John the Baptist encourages such a heart in the strongest possible terms.   He is confronting a group of people known for their actions; their behaviors.  He lets them have it:  YOU VIPERS!.  He calls the a bunch of snakes. Why the wrath of John?  Because John is afraid of the Wrath of GOD for them.  He's not afraid OF them, he i...

John would fit in contemporary diet emphasis.  He ate Local.  But, it was LOCUSTS. We find out some startling details about our friend John.  We find out what he wears.  It is based on where he lives.  Specifically CAMEL hair.  Have you ever been to a location where camels natively live?  It is usually quite harsh. We find out his insect diet.  There are some societies that still eat bugs .  It is...

So the gospel starts with a call to repentance via John the Baptist.  It is a message that has been prepared for a long time externally, but we all have some activity to do to prepare ourselves.  The good news is that it is not impossible.  The term used is "at hand", within reach, you can do it, it is very near. The bad news is that it is the ever-unpalatable REPENTANCE.  It is the pesk...

Jesus grew in the favor of God.  Jesus increased in the favor of God.   It is a godly thing to increase in the favor of God. It is something you cannot buy or earn.  But it is something that can be done.  We CAN please God in our obedience, listening, agreeing, relating responding and in our reveling a bit.  I wish from today for me and you that we would live under the favor of God and increase in...

Jesus was SUBMISSIVE to a human woman and to a human man.  This blew my mind today.  First, he INVENTED authority and submission. Then, he chose to subject Himself to that structure.  He could have done it another way.  He could have never made Himself submissive.  Yet, Jesus chose to submit.  And here, specifically mentions, and I think, TEACHES it. Why?  Well, it is a difficult, and for many THE...

Childhood of Growth, Strength, Wisdom and Favor   Jesus’ entire childhood up to age 12 is described in four words: Growth, Strength, Wisdom and Favor. The irony is that He invented all that stuff.     For example, growth is the #1 characteristic of a thing that has LIFE.  How do you know something is ALIVE?  It grows in some way.  It is a big deal.  NASA’s whole budget seeks out this one thing: li...

Mary and Joe are TERRIBLE parents...or... there is another explanation. This is the story of the ultimate parental TERROR.  They are faithful Jews who regularly traveled the 80 miles to Jerusalem for the Passover.  Jesus had been to passover, maybe in Jerusalem, many many many times before the Great Week. Jesus is an independent 12 year old.  He had likely earned it.  After all, he was a perfect 1...

Herod killed a bunch of little boys who he thought were Jesus.  Or at least he suspected them of possibly being Jesus.  Either way, he kills them in a foretelling of the sacrificial death of Jesus 31 years later. And our good friend Joseph gets his third and fourth dream. One says go back to Israel, Herod is dead.  Unfortunately his monster son has taken his place.  Joseph is afraid.  The fourth d...

Jesus was an immigrant, a refugee, a foreigner.  This is in addition to being poor, estranged, thought of as illegitimate, and His start is just plain strange.  Imagine being Joseph as provider and protector of this treasure. Joseph gets his second angelic visitation telling him to get up and take the child to Egypt of all places. Joe obeys immediately. In the middle of the night. He sets an incre...

So Herod is sitting in his office one day when some guys come in looking for the “King of the Jews.”  Technically, that is Herod, as he was appointed so by the Romans.  But these guys want  the real thing.  They want the REAL King of the Jews who was appointed by GOD.  And who IS GOD.  This is the beginning of a VERY bad day for Herod.   We learn that these men have gathered together to learn and...

The CONTINUAL is the Soil of the MOMENT.  The CONSTANT is the soul of the INSTANT. At a funeral, one hears of the actions and attitudes that characterize a person. Then, one hears in various stories how they are manifested in a particular instant. I just went to a memorial service of a friend and it was a real JOY to hear of those moments.  So it is today with the old, female, widowed, bad-tribed,...

Up to this moment, all the contemporary news about Jesus has been rainbows and puppies.  Then Simeon gives the 1st BAD NEWS about Jesus:  He will be opposed and will be revealing the thoughts of everybody.  It won't be pretty. (that's why a rescue mission was called for in the first place).  Here's the super bad news for today:  One of those people who's heart and soul is expos...

The good news for Simeon is that he gets to say, "My eyes have seen your salvation!" The bad news for Simeon is that he does NOT get to DIE IN FAITH .  Faith is assurance of things you have NOT YET SEEN.  So when Simeon sees Jesus, and knows Him as savior to the Jews and Gentiles, he "loses his faith", because it is now seen.  I'm sure it was a very happy moment for him. ...

We have a faithful, not perfect, guy who stays in the game with God day after day.  He's been given a little TREASURE: he's not gonna die until he sees Jesus.  I hope he was 20 when he got the promise and then lasted until he was 80.  That would be 60 years of daily anticipation.  "Is today the day that the Lord shows up?  No?  Then I can't wait for tomorrow." Your being h...

Growing up, at my house, if I provided a bag of Skittles,there was a bit of a tax.  After opening them, all the PURPLE SKITTLES had to be given back to Dad.  Similarly, Jesus is given back to God by his presentation at the temple.  It was sooooooo important to Mary and Joseph that they went all the way back to Jerusalem, 80 miles! by foot! with a one month old! to do this rite.  They waited until...

Mary and Joseph have to take yet another trip to Jerusalem to be there at day 40 of Jesus' life.  He needs to attend a ritual in the temple.  Problem:  Mary is a sinner and is impure and cannot participate before a holy God. Solution:  God has made a way.  God loves Mary and all of us enough, VALUES us enough to make a way.   Cue the pigeons.  If you are too poor to afford a LAMB (Mary and Jo...

Jesus submits Himself to circumcision on the eighth day.  Why?  Why on day 8 of the rescue mission does Jesus submit to a minor surgery? As your podcaster, by the time I get to dictating the 7 minutes, it may sound like I have a few ANSWERS.  That may be true, but an hour or so before that, I start with a QUESTION.  A WONDER.  Today's was: Why is Jesus circumcised. He's of the Line of Ab...