Ken Winter

Some of the greatest teachings from Jesus were in response to questions that were intended to trap Him. This particular day was no exception. The Sanhedrin had already put forth the Herodians and the Sadducees, both of whom had failed miserably in trapping Jesus. So they sent out a lawyer – an expert in religious law.

As 2024 approaches and begins, many of us are taking time to revisit our priorities for the new year. It is often a time when we make new resolutions and new – or renewed – commitments. It can also be a time when we decide to take action on those things we’ve been putting off.   For the past several weeks, we have all been celebrating the advent of the Baby in the manger. But today, let’s fas...

This week i am posting the last of my four stories for the season of Advent about the incarnational birth of Jesus. My hope is that the stories become a part of your Advent tradition as you remember and celebrate the Good News of the advent of our Lord and Savior. Each of the four stories is an adolescent’s eyewitness account of the circumstances surrounding the advent of Jesus. The last three eye...

As you will recall, i am posting a weekly story for the season of Advent about the incarnational birth of Jesus. My hope is that the stories become a part of your Advent tradition as you remember and celebrate the Good News of the advent of our Lord and Savior.  Each of the four stories is an adolescent’s eyewitness account of the circumstances surrounding the advent of Jesus. The last three...

i am posting a weekly story for the season of Advent about the incarnational birth of Jesus. My hope is that the stories become a part of your Advent tradition as you remember and celebrate the Good News of the advent of our Lord and Savior. Each of the four stories is an adolescent’s eyewitness account of the circumstances surrounding the advent of Jesus. The last three eyewitnesses are fictional...

Those of you who have subscribed to this podcast for more than a year know that it is my annual practice to post a weekly story for the season of Advent about the incarnational birth of Jesus. My hope is that the stories become a part of your Advent tradition as you remember and celebrate the Good News of the advent of our Lord and Savior.

Thursday, November 23rd, is Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S. Our Canadian friends celebrated Thanksgiving on October 9th, and our friends in the U.K. celebrated Harvest Festival on October 1st. Regardless of the date on the calendar, we all typically celebrate the day with good food, good fun, and a special time with family and friends. Hopefully in the midst of all the festivities, we make time...

One day in the wilderness, the Lord said to Moses, “Make two trumpets of beaten silver.”(1) The trumpets were to be used for summoning and signaling, as an alarm and a reminder, as an announcement of celebratory gladness and reverent rejoicing. But most of all, the trumpets were to serve as a reminder to the Lord of His covenant with His people. It is interesting to me that these trumpets were for...

How quickly we too forget—that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God who turned the bitter waters sweet, is the same God who has promised to never leave us nor forsake us. He is the same God who has promised to make our way straight and sure. He has ordered our steps before us and made a way in the wilderness. We can walk in His assurance that nothing can enter into our way that He has not...

The religious events on the Day of Pentecost were disturbed in the quarter of Jerusalem closest to the Temple by the sounds emanating from an upper room. A crowd made up of Jews from many nations assembled to investigate the cause of the disturbance. As they stood there looking up, they heard their own languages being spoken by a group they quickly recognized to be uneducated Galileans.

Jesus and His disciples were headed from the upper room to the Garden of Gethsemane. His betrayal and arrest were now only a few short hours away. More than likely, they were walking through a vineyard in the Kidron Valley. It would have been a full moon, so they would have been able to clearly see all that was around them. Never being one to waste an opportunity, Jesus used the vineyard to teach...

Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach.(1) The Pharisees and their scribes continually criticized Jesus because He was associating with “such sinful people” — even eating with them! The religious leaders were functioning under the false belief that there is a hierarchy of sin – dividing “acceptable” sins from those that proper Jewish society would have deeme...

Be ever mindful that our God is always at work preparing us for what He is preparing for us. And His preparation is perfect, because He knows what we will need and He knows what we will encounter. He knows the plans He has for us – “plans for good and not for disaster, to give a future and a hope.”(1) He has been at work all around us every day of our lives leading up to this very moment. He has b...

The psalmist David records in the 37th Psalm: The LORD directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. That was true of His chosen people, the Israelites, and it is true of us today. His plans and the way He orders our steps are not haphazard. He has a purpose and a plan, even when we have no idea what it is. And the details surrounding our every assignment are very exa...

The wilderness is that place – or more accurately those places – in our lives, where we are outside of our comfort zone. The wilderness is a place that is unfamiliar and, most often, uncomfortable. It is rarely, if ever, our final destination; rather, it is that place through which we must pass in order to get to the other side.   Sometimes we venture out into the wilderness willingly, becaus...

What do we do when those around us are telling us to do one thing, but our conscience says quite another? Or what do we do when the culture surrounding us advocates one thing, when what we know to be true is quite different? Most of us are familiar with the Hans Christian Andersen folktale entitled The Emperor’s New Clothes (first published in April 1937). As you will recall the emperor becomes co...

One day Jesus and the disciples walked by a dead fig tree. The disciples noticed that the tree had withered from the roots up. It has shriveled due to a complete lack of water and nutrients. Peter reminded everyone that Jesus had cursed that same seemingly healthy tree only the day before. In one day, a tree which had been full of leaves was now withered and dead. A process that should have taken...

One day Jesus gathered the multitude that had come out into the countryside to hear Him, and He began to teach… the greatest sermon that ever was – the sermon of all sermons. Gratefully, Jesus was not delivering a message of new commandments we are to keep. Rather, He was describing the fruit that is produced in and through our lives as we remain in Him.

If you were to ask me to name some of my favorite books – other than the Bible – My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers would be at the top of my list. God has used that book more times than i can count to reinforce His truth in my life over the years. Such was the case this morning. Chambers asks the question, “ Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense cannot trust Him? ”What am i...

In his last letter, the apostle Paul told his protégé Timothy that he had fought the good fight. He had finished the race. He had kept the faith. He had completed what God had set before him. His life is an example to us to not stop short of the goal . . . to not give up . . . but to finish strong!

Seventy years after God led the Israelites out of Egypt,  their leader, Joshua, assembled the people to remind them of God’s goodness.

James, the half-brother of Jesus, wrote, “Come close to God, and God will come close to you.” He wrote that statement knowing our propensity to drift away from God, instead of drawing closer to Him. He warned us that our loyalty is divided between God and the world. i fear that all too often we desire the blessings of God in our lives over the presence of God in our lives.

Each of us walk through difficult circumstances at times and for seasons of our lives. You may, in fact, be walking through one right now. As i write this, a member of my family is walking through a difficult and challenging time. It is an attack from the enemy. It is important to remember that God is not the author of the circumstance. He is not the author of deceit, or illness, or hardship. But...

Many of you are familiar with my book series, The Called. The premise of each of the books is that each person was an “ordinary” person who God used in an extraordinary way. God only works in extraordinary ways! And we are all very ordinary before Him. But by His grace, and in His sovereignty, God has chosen to work through each of us. As the apostle Paul reminds us, God has created each of us uni...

As is my practice on occasion, the episode this week is a fictional first-person account as told by Zacchaeus about the events and circumstances of his life leading up to his encounter with Jesus. Though some of the characters and details contained in the story are fictional, you will find the truth conveyed to be very REAL!