What Is the Anointing? The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. […]
Why Silence? Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. ––1 […]
Struggling for Silence Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. –Luke 5:15-16 Every day our brains consume about 100,000 words’ worth of data. That’s about the length of […]
Ashamed of Nothing? What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person. ––Mark 7:20-23 Lately as I’ve engaged with […]
Carrying the Load Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light. ––Matthew 11:29-30 In our last reading we discussed the need to drop the baggage we carry around that is holding us back […]
Traveling Light Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. Calling the Twelve to him, he began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over impure spirits. These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra shirt. […]
Empowered When Jesus heard this, he said to [the wealthy ruler], “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it […]
Missionaries Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. ––Mark 16:15-16 Did you have any friends growing up who were hesitant to accept Jesus because they were afraid He would tell them to go […]
Faith by Increase If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it will obey you. ––Luke 17:6 We all love increase, especially when it pertains to our stuff. Things like savings account, influence, salary—increase is great! […]
Faith by Reduction And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. ––Philippians 1:9-10 Gideon often gets a bad rap as a kind […]
