Category Archives: New Testament

Palm Sunday 2020

Posted on April 5, 2020 | Leave a comment

Matthew 21:8 A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David!”  “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”  “Hosanna in the highest heaven!” [NIV]

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Today is Palm Sunday.  I know many of us will have the opportunity to hear the message of Christ provided by our Pastor’s via the internet. That’s a blessing.  We are living in a new reality where dependence on community worship is restricted.  We won’t be surrounded by a crowd of like minded people gathering together to remember this day as the moment of triumph when Jesus begins His final journey to the day of our salvation.  We won’t be hearing other voices raised with our own as we shout Hosanna!  There are no waving palm branches to prompt our memory of the past.  

The pomp and circumstance of public celebrations has been temporarily swept aside but Coronavirus can’t deprive you of your Hosannas, “help” or “save, I pray!”  Today we are the ones who must prepare the way for Jesus to enter into the midst of our exile.  “Hosanna to the Son of David!”  “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” Blessed is he who comes to complete His identity in you right there in your own home and offers you the opportunity to complete your identity in Him through a different kind of personal experience.  Today Palm Sunday worship is up to you.

“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

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Posted in Matthew, New Testament, Palm Sunday

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Plans

Posted on March 25, 2020 | Leave a comment

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

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I found the sermon on Jeremiah 29 by C.H. Spurgeon last week [http://www.spurgeongems.org/sermon/chs1965.pdf]. I feel like I stumbled onto something very special.  It was delivered in 1887 but it’s wisdom has stood the test of time.  It’s long and I keep rereading it because it has more ideas than I can absorb in one reading.  “These people in captivity were likely to fear that their God had forgotten them; hence the Lord repeats His words in this place, and speaks of thoughts and thinking three times.”  Plans, plans, plans.

Plans are the tricky part for humans because we trust what we know and we just don’t know it all. So here we are in this time of Coronavirus faced with the conflict of who’s plans to believe and what actions to take.  Consider this second truth from Spurgeon “Unbelief misinterprets the ways of God; hasty judgment jumps at wrong conclusions about them, but the Lord knows His own thoughts.  We are doubtful where we ought to be sure, and we are sure where we have no ground for certainty, thus we are always in the wrong.”  

Pay attention today to the plans for dealing with Coronavirus, take every action based on their limited wisdom and act in an abundance of caution on the knowledge of men you don’t know AND then put your trust and hope in the plans of the God you do…”plans to give you hope and a future.”

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Posted in Jeremiah, New Testament, Wednesday

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Life-Saving

Posted on March 18, 2020 | Leave a comment

Colossians 4:5 Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. 6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

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Could there be a more timely message for all of us today?  Harsh and divisive language and behavior have invaded our culture to the point it’s expected, if not accepted.  Recognizing the wisdom of opportunity, words and behavior matter now more than ever.  Most of us are embarrassingly aware there is a distance between our willingness to share the Gospel truth freely and how we live our daily lives.  There’s a reason for that.  It’s reminiscent of the dynamic that happened way-back-when in the Garden of Eden when a clever snake successfully confused those first two messengers by questioning the clarity of God’s truth.  

We are the messengers today and unfortunately we’ve taken a bite out of that apple of deceit.  We are reluctant to “make the most of every opportunity” because that same clever deceit has left us believing consideration and tolerance are in conflict with the broad outreach of the life-saving Gospel: that wisdom and conversation can be “full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”  

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Peace from Colossae

Posted on March 11, 2020 | Leave a comment

Colossians 3:15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

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Whose peace are we called to?  Re-read the verses above, then take a deep breath and give thanks to God that the “peace of Christ” is the gold standard we’re expected to live by, not our own.

We are confronted with novel circumstances in our world right now that impact our lives enough to alert us to remember, that is truth.  And this is reality: all our riches, and peace, dwell “among” [in the company of] “the message of Christ” that lives in our hearts.  Our hearts are where the groundswell of gratitude reveals our understanding of the vast truth of what His peace really means to us.

“In the company” of your hearts and daily lives “the message of Christ” is completed by the simple recognition of this absolutely timeless truth that makes peace possible:  

❤️Christ holds your heart in His own❤️

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Designer Wardrobe

Posted on March 3, 2020 | Leave a comment

Colossians 3:12 As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Click to Enlarge

My first thought was Colossians 3:12 sounded like the Designer version of the armor of God.  A new wardrobe filled with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, forgiveness, love, peace, thankfulness, wisdom and gratitude.  This is not the armor of medieval times.  It has the same complete coverage as the heavy metal version but it looks quite different.  This wardrobe honors the qualities the Designer Himself has chosen to display what His impenetrable protection looks like.  It covers every vital thing necessary to win over the opposition at the same time it reveals Love is the thrust of outreach that makes this “armor” a thing of beauty that still wins ❤️s.

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She Said…

Posted on March 1, 2020 | Leave a comment

2 Samuel 14:13 …“Why don’t you do as much for the people of God as you have promised to do for me? You have convicted yourself in making this decision, because you have refused to bring home your own banished son. 14 All of us must die eventually. Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God does not just sweep life away; instead, he devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him. NLT

Joab enlisted a wise woman to confront the king about his reluctance to reunite with his own son.  The two things that informed my thoughts about this passage are the importance of, and the difficulty of, personal confrontation.  My own go-to plan is to avoid it.  It’s a ridiculous plan when I logically think about it because confrontation has played a very real part in my own life of faith but in the heat of the moment my response is just like the king’s – try to ignore and escape the situation and the other person involved as well.  It’s not a pretty picture but it’s a human response the Lord of Mercy has a plan for.   I’ve named it “the wisdom of mortality.”  

The wisdom of mortality is exactly what the woman of Tekoa  spoke. “Our lives are like water spilled out on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again.”  Life doesn’t last forever and that wisdom has made a big difference to me.   God has confronted us with our separation from Him through His son, Jesus.  The twists, turns and turmoil of life are the proof that we have cracks in our hearts of stone.  [v14b] “God does not just sweep life away; instead, he devises ways to bring us back when we have been separated from him.”  The wisdom of mortality is that it’s Christ Jesus that is our critical and visible evidence that we’ve been reunited with God.

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Wednesday at Colossae – Raised Up

Posted on February 26, 2020 | Leave a comment

Colossians 3:1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. [NKJV]

We’ve been duped by our own wisdom to depend on personal strength of character and our “bootstrap” mentality as the secret to a successful life of faith…and everything else.  Paul’s reality for us is very different from that human wisdom.  I jotted sets of keywords as I often do and distilled them into this: 

You were raised with Christ to seek those things where Christ is.  Set your mind on things above with Christ in God who is your life.  When He appears you also will appear with Him in glory.

The words I’d reassembled from Colossians became what reminded me of another variation of Paul’s wisdom from Henry Blackaby’s workbook “Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God.”  “Find out where God is at work and join Him there.” 

“You were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is…”  Join Him there!

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Mystery at Colossae

Posted on February 19, 2020 | Leave a comment

Colossians 1:25 …I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26  the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. [ESV]

Paul is quite clever in choosing the concept of “mystery” for his presentation of
the Gospel.  Our interest is piqued by the elements of a mystery; who, what, where,
when and why.  The Word has now been “revealed to his saints.“  That solution has made known “the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is…”

Christ [the who] in you [the where], the hope of glory [the what]
now revealed [the when]
that we may present everyone mature in Christ [the why]

The puzzle pieces are all there in the Gospel. They’re the same for every believer. The blessing of the mystery is revealed in the process of assembling the pieces.  The shapes are similar because they’re designed to engage the heart, mind, soul and strength to discover the right piece that fits in the right place at the right time knowing the completed puzzle holds the reality of this promise…

Christ IN YOU, the hope of glory

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Wednesday in Colossae

Posted on February 12, 2020 | Leave a comment

The last couple of weeks I’ve been juggling studying Colossians with one group and 2 Samuel with another.  It finally occurred to me I could combine each of these studies for my weekly blog posts.  The blog is the priority of my heart and the contrast of those two studies is an either/or struggle for my brain.  I hope dedicating more study time to each of them will allow me to discover connections between them that can change the perspective of my heart and brain into the reality of unity.  So here goes…this Wednesday in Colossae.

Colossians is the work of a man who’s intent on not letting physical separation keep him from revealing the reality of Jesus Christ as God’s provision for the people of a culture he’s not really a part of that he’s never met in a city he’s never visited from a prison cell 1200+ miles away.

THAT is a run-on sentence Paul would admire.  It also emphasizes his passion for Christ is all about perspective that doesn’t stop despite the piled-on nature of his own circumstances.  He wrote Colossians to remind us that “perspective” can be our application.  “You received Christ Jesus, the master; now live him.”  The circumstances of life do not have to be a barrier to living the life we’ve received from Him.

Colossians 2:6 & 7 My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving. [MSG]

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Tree of Life

Posted on February 9, 2020 | Leave a comment

Ephesians 4:3 Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. 4 For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future.  5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all. [NLT]

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[Jesus] called you by His freedom of relationship act to show the world the reality of your “gratitude to God for your salvation with all humility [forsaking self-righteousness], and gentleness [maintaining self-control], with patience, bearing with one another in [unselfish] love.

Humility is the
carryover word from Ephesians 4:2 and
my last post that led me to this quote.  “Christians
did not invent humility as a virtue ― it is there
in the Hebrew scriptures already ― but Christian
scripture and subsequent Christian thought put humility at
the centre of the moral life in an unprecedented
way.  Jesus apparently thought of humility as the best
measure of a person’s kingdom-readiness.” 
Virtue that can unite us ”in the Spirit” and bind
”together with peace” only comes through
One body
One Spirit
One glorious hope
One Lord
One faith
One Baptism
One God and Father
– OF ALL – OVER ALL – IN ALL – LIVING THROUGH ALL –

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Posted in Ephesians, New Testament, Sunday

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