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This past week flew! I looked at the reading plan this morning and saw that we have a free day tomorrow and only have 26 days left until we are done with the New Testament! That means summer is just around the corner! Fun!! We just got done reading some letters Paul sent to his proteges that are starting new churches. Those letters were chuck full of practical information! However, before Paul gets started on the practical instructions, he encourages both of them in their faith. I loved how Paul starts his letter to Titus by reminding him of the reason he is doing what he is doing. (It’s a good reminder for us today as well!) “Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect and the acknowledgement of the truth which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began…” (Titus 1:1-2) In one sentence, Paul summed up the life of a Christian! We have faith in God, we acknowledge (verbally- Matt. 10:33) the truth found in Christ, we live out our faith (actions) in godliness, and have the hope of eternal life. Boom! That’s it! Paul summed up perfectly why we do what we do. The goal for Paul, Timothy and Titus, was to share the hope they had with everyone they met. That should be our goal too! By reading the Bible everyday you are equipping yourself with “the truth” and you are learning how to live a godly life and you are being reminded of the hope of eternal life with Jesus. You have 26 days left before you are an expert! 😉. Joking aside, you have WAY more knowledge than Timothy and Titus had by reading the New Testament this year! So, now, I challenge you to get out there and share what you know; the hope for eternal life!😃

We are whipping through the letters now! We are already done with 2 Thessalonians! A verse stood out to me in a new way this week because of a reference made to it by a Bible teacher I heard recently who was reviewing Romans. (We read that a month ago!) Romans 12:10, “Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love….” Do you remember reading that? The Bible teacher asked the audience, “How does one do that when another person can just bug the heck out of you?” When you think about it,….sometimes it can be really hard to be “kindly affectionate”! I actually think it could be harder than the command to “love one another”. Let me explain. As a Christian, we have been taught to love everyone, including strangers. We can do that because love is a choice. One can choose to give another their coat, give up one’s rights, serve people, etc. These actions demonstrate love, but they can be done without being emotionally invested. The “brotherly love’ thing is loving on a different level. It’s not just choice to act. An emotion is connected to this type of love. You gotta be nice, friendly, enjoy the company of the other and “be kindly affectionate”. So…..how do you do that if you get totally bugged by a person? This is when the teacher turned to what we read this week in Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy- meditate on these things.” I always applied that verse to the things I was filling my brain with such as books, movies, news, talk with friends, etc. , trying to fill my mind with good thins, not bad stuff. However, this teacher applied the verse to how one should think when with the person who bugs. Look for the good in him/her. Every person has some sort of good virtue! Look for that in the person and don’t dwell on his bad traits. Look for something praiseworthy in the person. Meditate, or think on, the good qualities you can find. Then when the time comes, you can be kindly affectionate to him with brotherly love. Ah ha! I love reading verses in a new way! Have you ever read Philippians 4 like that before? I am going to remember that! What a great tool to use next time I am with the little bugger! 😉

I went to Good Friday service last night. It is so good for me to be reminded of the horrible agony and shame Jesus went through on my behalf! I love how the pastor reminded us, just before leaving the service, “We know how this story ends, Sunday is coming!” So true!! So, as we wait to celebrate our risen Lord tomorrow, I thought I would send out the blog today to remind you that we finish Ephesians today and have a free day tomorrow as we celebrate Easter. One verse in particular stood out to me in Ephesians that I thought I would highlight for you. Paul is praying this for the Ephesians and it is my prayer for you as well: “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.” (1:17) As we read God’s word, the Holy Spirit reveals new things to us all the time! No matter how many times you read His word, He will teach you something new so that, with his wisdom, you can apply it to your life. I would love for you to share with me something new that the Holy Spirit revealed to you while we are going through this reading plan! May God give you a blessed Easter with family and friends, while remembering his glorious resurrection!

I want to point out that there are three chapters to read, instead of two, today. That way we finish 2 Corinthians and start the new week in a new book. How did you like 2 Corinthians? Did anything stand out? I would love to hear. The very first sentence of chapter 7 got me to ponder. “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” The promises refered to are listed in the sentence before: “I will be a Father to you, and you should be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” (6:18) So, out of fear of God (honor, respect, reverence and yes, fear) I am to cleanse myself (I am already clean from what Jesus has done for me, but I need to stay clean) from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. That reminds me of the time Jesus was washing the disciples feet. When Jesus told Peter he couldn’t have a part of Jesus if he didn’t let Jesus wash his feet, Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” The answer Jesus gave always intrigued me, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean.” What did Jesus mean when saying we have to wash our feet? I always thought it meant I needed to keep asking forgiveness for things I have done (as instructed in the Lord’s prayer).  But the reference Paul uses in 2 Corinthians to “cleanse ourselves” gave the words of Jesus some more insight to what he was saying. Jesus wants us to keep our feet clean! How to do that, I think, can be tricky in our current culture. However, Paul gave suuupper  clear instructions in chapter 6! “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers…. what part has a believer with an unbeliever” (6:16) These are such concrete instructions on how to keep clean! But,....how many Christians follow them? To be clear, unequally yoked is not just specific to marriage, as most teachings on the topic imply. Marriage may be the easiest yoking to identify, there are other “yokings”: business partners, psychologist/patient, teacher/student, close friends. I can’t tell you how many times lately I have heard Christian friends defend going to a secular counselor for their problems. What would Paul say about that in light of chapter 6? It can be so easy to read a chapter a day to get through a reading plan, but it can be a lot harder applying what is read to our daily life! Praise God, Jesus has washed us clean! Yet, Lord, please help us also learn how to keep our feet clean!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!☘ I love that America still venerates a Christian saint! Yes, some may have highjacked the day in order to drink too much and eat green food, but even so, it’s hard to miss the name of the day! If one gave it even a simple thought, he/she would know it is a day that celebrates a saint, one who was completely devoted to Jesus Christ! Patrick lived his life between the years 400-490 AD. He was born in Britain, way back when that area was under Roman rule. His writings describe that at age 16 he was kidnapped (by pirates) from his family’s home and brought to Ireland to be a slave. In his writings he also says he was not a believer prior to the capture, but while working as a shepherd in Ireland, his prayer life and faith deepened. After 6 years of captivity, he escaped his slave master, got passage on a boat back to Britain, and eventually made his way back to his family home. He spent time learning more about Christianity and eventually traveled to Europe to be ordained into the priesthood. Acting on a vision from God, he actually returned to Ireland, where he had been enslaved, to bring the gospel message to that country. Reportedly, under his teaching, 1000’s were baptized into the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. Coins that were minted in the 1680’s depict Patrick holding a shamrock. This was in tribute to his use of the three leafed plant to illustrate the Holy Trinity. So, how cool is that, to celebrate the evangelism Patrick did for the Kingdom?! I love it!! ☘ On another note, how is your reading going? 1Corinthians got me to take some deep dives on a couple topics. One in particular was the issue about ladies wearing head coverings while praying or prophesying in church (1 Cor. 11:1-16). I didn't dive into the topic because i was worried I was breaking some religious code. Particularly because I don’t stand up to pray or prophesy in my church. 😜 But if I did, would I need to don a scarf or hat out of respect from my husband? I wrestled a little bit with this topic because it is one of things you gotta ask yourself, is this a cultural or a timeless truth? After a quick dive on the subject I came to a conclusion that I thought I would share. I am really glad that at the end of that section, Paul threw in, “But if anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God. (11:16). Right there, we can see this was a custom/culture issue. That means head coverings are not a timeless truth that needs to be adhered to today, since our culture does not use head coverings as a sign of submission. However, there is a timeless truth here!!! Women are still to be honoring to their husbands! We can "slightly" use our wedding rings as an example. I would not want to take off my wedding ring in a room full of single men. That wouldn’t be respectful to my husband. I am married and my ring symbolizes that union. Taking it off would indicate, "I am available"! Now, I say that we can “slightly” use the ring analogy because it’s not easily applied to the context of praying or prophesying in church. But, you get the gist of what I am saying if you think of head coverings as showing honor to their husbands (like our ring symbolism in our culture). Paul is pointing out that the women, not wearing their head covering were showing that they were not under their husbands authority. They may have been flaunting their new found freedom in Christ (like Paul was describing in Ch. 8), but this knowledge was “puffing them up” (8:1). The culture around them didn't understand why they would feel so "free" in a culture that used head coverings. Here is the timeless truth one is to get out of these instructions. Taking off the head covering was not sinful in itself, but it was dishonoring to the husbands in that culture. That dishonor resulted in shame for both husband and wife. That is sin! “Wives, honor your husbands” (Proverbs 12:4, Eph. 5:33, Col 3:18, Titus 2:4 & 1 Pet. 3:1). Well, there you go. That was my deep dive for the week. Did you do a deep dive on anything in the reading? I would love to hear about it!! Don't forget you have a free day in the reading plan tomorrow. Have a great week!

Hello there, fellow New Testament readers! I don’t know if you noticed, but I forgot to put into the reading plan March 9th. That means you get a free day! I hope that helped you if you were a little behind. So, we finished Romans! I mentioned before that I like this letter. I like it because Paul talks a lot about theology in the first part. (And I like theology!)In other words, he taught the Romans what to believe regarding sin, forgiveness of sin through Christ and how we can be free from sin. However, he also goes into some really practical ways to behave as a Christian. And I love getting practical tools on how to be “Christ like”! What was a practical tool you came away with after reading Romans? I was listening to a pastor speak on the idea of submitting to the government (13:1-7). He had a take on those verses that I hadn’t heard before, but his points helped me in my understanding of those passages. After all, who hasn’t read those verse and thought, “Yeah, but what about when bad people are in control? What then? How do you submit to a tyrant?” Well this is what Paul wrote to the Romans: “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinances of God, and those who resist will bring judgement on themselves.” (13:1-2) “...for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.” (13:4b) It helps to also read 1 Peter to see how Peter talked about submitting to the governing authorities: “Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good.” (1 Peter 2:13) Both these guys (Paul & Peter) wrote these words during the time of a very wicked ruler, Nero. How could they write that Christians should submit to such a wicked ruler? Well, let’s look at their statements closely. Paul says the ruler is to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Peter said the rulers were to punish evil doers and praise those who do good. Both are in agreement that the governing authorities are put in place by God to punish the wicked. They are to uphold justice. This is the role of government in society, to punish evil doers, praise those who do good and enforce justice. Also notice that Paul said that the government is the avenger. Just 6 verses earlier (even though there is a chapter break, it is still in the same train of thought), Paul said, “Beloved, do not avenge yourself, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.” Says the Lord (12:19). So, putting these verses together, in the same train of thought, the government is God’s tool to avenge, that is what the government has been appointed to do. Authorities exist and are appointed by God for this sole purpose. If you resist a police officer who is arresting you for doing wrong, you are literally resisting God himself!!! With all that, I have come to the new way of understanding 13:1, “For there is no authority except from God,...” meaning, except for the authority given by God, (to avenge evil, enforce justice), there is no authority. In other words, if law enforcement goes beyond punishing evil, i.e., telling you how to raise your children, or forcing abortions as in China, they are not working under the authority God gave them. They are working under the authority man gave them, not the authoriy God gave them. They have no authority other than what God gives. Have you ever read it that way? Wow!! That was new to me! Anything beyond avenging evil goes beyond what God gave them authority to do. We in America give our law makers authority to create more laws, but those laws are not necessarily under the authority God gave the government to do. Aha, it is so clear to me now on how to understand chapter 13. I always struggled with that chapter when thinking how Christians should act under evil governments, like Nero or Hitler. Paul and Peter were acknowledging what power the tyrant has and what power he does not have. Got it! I love learning new things!!

We are now in Romans. I love this letter! We just got finished reading how the the church got it’s start and also how Paul got his start evangelizing to the Gentiles. With that in mind, we are reading a letter that Paul wrote before he was arrested in Jerusalem, and held by Felix for two years in Caesarea. Paul hadn’t been to Rome yet, but he apparently got some news about them that he felt he needed to address since he was an apostle to the Gentiles (as he calls himself in 11:13). So, I was barely getting started in the letter, when I paused on the words Paul used in the very first sentence! “Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” (1:1-4) The part that caught my attention was, “declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead” The proof that Jesus is the Son of God is that he resurrected himself from the dead! That is THE key!! Learn that! Know that! Stick to that! If anyone asks you who Jesus is or why you believe Jesus is the Son of God….go to that point! Jesus said he was the Christ and he proved it (declared it) by rising from the dead. I just took a class on Islam. I learned that Muslims go to great lengths to deny this fact! (Because they know that this is a very important fact!) They will say that Jesus did not die on the cross, he actually swooned. Or, they may say it was actually Judas who was killed on the cross, or it was someone that looked a lot like Jesus so everyone was tricked into thinking it was Jesus. Muslims know that it is this point that proves Jesus is who he said he was, so they need to deny this one particular point. I think Christians can forget how simple it is to defend their faith in Jesus as being the Son of God. Paul was so good at defending the faith, he was able to squeezed this point quickly and easily into the very first line of the introduction to his letter! It is simple, to the point, and essential for the defense of the faith to stick with this basic point. Jesus declared himself to be the Son of God by raising from the dead! It is also one of the easiest points to defend. Historically speaking it is a fact among anyone who calls themselves a historian, that a real, historical figure named Jesus was killed on a cross and placed in a tomb. Other historical sources outside the Bible attest to this event. It is also a known fact that the body was never located after the reports that Jesus was no longer in the tomb. If you want good talking points to back up these historical facts, I highly recommend Cold Case Christianity by JW Wallace. It is easy reading with great material to use when defending uour faith. I like the saying, “Keep the main thing the main thing”. Paul kept ti the main thing and was sure to say it quickly in his letter. And what is the main thing? Jesus declared to be the Son of God, with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead! Woohoo!!! 🙌🏻 Jesus is the Son of God!

Acts is a fun book to read! The author, Luke, takes the time to tell us how the Church (AKA, the Body of Christ, as we will read in 1 Cor.12) got it’s start. When persecution broke out against the Christians in Jerusalem, they scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. I could NOT find a map that showed the area I wanted to talk about so I had to make my own. Excuse how it is not entirely accurate, but you get the gist. The lines and words in green are what I added to a map I found related to Saul’s journey when converted. Look for Jerusalem (down near the bottom). I sandwiched that with two green boarders. That area is Judea. The neighboring area to the north, again with green boarders, is Samaria. So, the Jewish Christians (except the original 12) scattered throughout those areas (8:1). However, we also read that they went further than those areas (11:19). For that reason, Saul wanted to go up to Damascus to apprehend Christians who had gone thus far (Acts 9). Did you know that Damascus is in modern day Syria? (Note my green lines to mark the Syrian boarder. Those Jerusalem Christians actually went even farther!! We read how there were Christians all the way up in Antioch (that’s modern day Turkey). From the map, we can see that “Saul from Tarsus” (Acts 9:11) was from Turkey! I always thought that all the devoted Jews, like Saul, were from somewhere in the territory of Israel. But that is not the case! Because of the “diaspora” (Jewish dispersion), Jews were everywhere, including Turkey. Lately, I have been very interested in Turkey, partly because I have been watching TV shows made there and partly because I just traveled there last summer. I was VERY sad to hear about the earthquake that hit the southern part of Turkey a year ago this month (Feb. 6, 2023). Did you know that the confirmed total deaths in Turkey was nearly 54,000 people!!! That is not including the additional 6-8,000 people in Syria. Rounded, that is 60,000 people, mostly Muslim, who went to meet their maker. 😱 Why am I telling you this? Well, I thought it was interesting to read that Saul and Barnabas had a very successful ministry while living in Antioch for a year. It was in that town where the term “Christian” was first used to describe Christ followers. Antioch was a huge town! One of the top three largerst cities boardering the Mediterranean Sea. It rivaled Rome, Italy and Alexandria, Egypt. Antioch was a happening place!! Sadly, in 526 AD, an earthquake hit the area killing 250,000 people, wiping out the city. (That was a lot of people!!) There are scarce ancient ruins left to prove such a large city existed due to the destruction. However, in time the Byzantines built up the city again (never to rival the other big cities). The Ottoman’s (Muslims) took it over from them, but, once again, the buildings were destroyed by an earthquake in 1872. Now, back to modern times, notice on my map where Antioch is situated....right next to the epicenter of the deadly earthquake in 2023! (The red circles eminating from the city of Gaziantep). History is interesting! Think of all the people that have passed through Antioch over the millennia. God cared about the people there enough to scatter Christians, having some travel to Antioch. Paul and Barnabas followed, to strengthen those Christians. However, the spiritual battle for souls is real and Satan didn’t want to give up that territory. Though that region has been dominated by the Muslim religion since 540 AD, God still loves the people. They just need to hear about Jesus again, just as those first people needed to hear the good news when the Christians arrived on the scene in 40 AD. Reading Acts and hearing of Antioch has reminded me that I need to pray for the people in Turkey. I pray their needs can be met by Christian’s ministering during this time of crisis. Immediately following Turkey’s call for international help last year, more than 141,000 people from 94 countries joined in the rescue effort. I pray that there were some modern day Paul’s and Barnabas’s in that number who not only met the physical needs of the Turks, but stayed a year longer (like Paul and Barney did) to preach and teach the good news of Jesus! Pray with me for those who are ministering to the Muslims. They NEED to hear about Jesus!

I hope you noticed that you had the day off today from the reading. Also, I hope you had a fun Valentines Day this past Wednesday. I had some dear friends that went to a party I wasn’t able to attend. The five of us went to coffee afterward and I asked for details about the party. I wanted to know what I missed out on by not going to the event. Each told me, in detail, about the party from their perspective. By the end of the conversation, I had a pretty good idea what occurred at the party. It felt like I was there! That is the feeling that I have now that we have finished reading the four gospel accounts. I have a pretty good idea what happened during the last three years of the life of Jesus. I nodded with understanding when I read John saying, at the end of his book, that he wrote it so that, “you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” (20: 31) What also stood out to me near the end of his book was the prayer Jesus said for himself, his disciples and for us. He prayed, “Now they have known that all things which You have given Me are from You. For I have given to them the words which You have given Me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came forth from You; and they have believed that You sent Me.” (John 17:8) So, the disciples heard words from God given to Jesus. They wrote them down so that we too could hear (read) words from God and believe the same thing that Jesus wanted his disciples to believe. And what was that vital message? That we may know God, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom (He) sent. (17:3) So, how do we know that we have the right words written down from the disciples to be deemed “God’s Word?”. There seems to be debate on that subject by those who don’t believe Jesus is the Son of God. Both Muslims and Mormons say their books are God’s true words and the Christian Bible has been corrupted. Meaning, the words the disciples wrote down have been twisted over time from what they originally wrote. Is that true? Well, it is true that there are no original writings penned by the original authors. Yet, the originals were meticulously and copiously copied. Scholars have painstakingly, over the centuries, studied ever bit and piece of old fragments and documents that are copies in order to piece together the original words. • How old are they? Well, some of those bits and piece date anywhere from as early as 50AD (found in the Dead Sea scrolls) to 130-200 AD (found in Egypt and elsewhere). • How many pieces, bits and wholes are there? There is an overwhelming amount of ancient New Testament manuscripts! There are 5,000 Greek writings, 10,000 Latin and 9,000 other copies in many different languages. That equals 24,000 copies! • To give some perspective, the runner up on the most amount of copies to an original work that no longer exists is Homer’s, Iliad. There are 1900 copies that exist. The earliest copy dating to around 450 years after the original. In contrast, the complete N. T. dates within 300 years. It's notable that no one puts the Iliad text under the scrutiny that has been placed on the New Testament for accuracy, but that is understandable. The New Testament is unique in that it is claims to be the word of God. So scholars want to make sure it is a close to the original as possible. With all those N.T. copies, scholars with great scrutiny, have reconstructed the text with an accuracy of 99.5% to the original. One scholar, William F. Albright writes, “Thanks to the Qumran discoveries, the New Testament proves to be in fact what it was formerly believed to be: the teaching of Christ and his immediate followers circ. 25 and circa. 80 AD.” So, if a Mormon or Muslim ever says to you that the N.T. has been corrupted, you can answer with a resounding, “No it hasn’t!” We can be confident that we have in our hand is what Jesus said, according to the eyewitnesses, so that we could “know God, the only true God, and Jesus whom he sent.” Yay!! I love that!!

When you are doing this reading of two chapters a day, do you ever read something and think, “What on earth does that mean?!”, but then, move on in order to check the box on the reading plan and get on with your day? I have.🙋 🤦 I am glad to say that I stopped myself from doing that this past week on a verse that I thought, “Whaaat? Why did Jesus say that?” So, I thought I would share what I learned when I took the time to investigate. I know we are past these chapters, but I thought I would share anyway in case the verses confused you as well. In chapter 9 of John, the disciples are assuming that the man born blind was that way because either he or his parents sinned. Jesus says it was neither, “but that the works of God should be revealed in him. I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” (9:4-5) I could have moved on in the reading.....I understood most of that....but...I did wonder why Jesus said, “the night is coming when no one can work”. What does that mean? Reading several commentaries most were in agreement that “night” means death. So I can read the above sentence as “I must work the works of God (the Father) while I am alive here. My death is coming soon, where I will not be doing this work. (Remember his words on the cross, “It is finished”. He did everything he was supposed to do, fulfill prophesy and “the works of God” that God wanted Him to do.) I am so glad I took the time to learn about this figurative language because Jesus used these terms the very next day in our reading!! Saturday we read how Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Before he headed to Bethany in the region of Judea he stayed a couple days longer “beyond the Jordan”. The closer Jesus would get to Jerusalem the greater danger he was facing from those that wanted him out of the picture. The disciples knew this and reminded him of the danger. Jesus responded, “Are there not 12 hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But, if one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” Ok, this was another time that I scratched my head thinking, what type of response is that to the disciples expressing concern for His life? Well, since Jesus is using the same terms, day and night as he did earlier, I took the meanings used earlier, “living” and “dead” and applied them to His response. It’s like Jesus is saying, "I have a set amount of hours to work here. Nothing is going to happen to me until I get all that work done. I have nothing to fear (no stumbling), I am still in those “12 hours” of work time." Since there was a set time Jesus would be betrayed, he knew he would not be harmed until then. There would be a day, when his work was done but not that was not the day. He did not need to worry about being killed prematurely. With this understanding, I came to really like the answer Jesus gave. He didn’t give an answer in first person which we would only apply to him. He gave his answer in a way that it can apply to us as well! We don’t need to worry for our life while we are doing the work set before us by God. He knows when our work is done. We just need to remember that while we live our daily life with Jesus directing us, we will not stumble! Until the day our work is done and God brings us to him, we don’t need to worry! I love that!!! I hope that helps you if you were confused on those verses. Bottom line, don't worry about your life if you have Jesus as your light and his light is in you! You have work to do (12 hours-a set time) until He brings you home. He knows what day that is so you don't have to worry about it! That may sound too simplistic, but, hey, Jesus said it, not me. 😉

My main reason for writing a blog each week is to encourage you to keep up with the reading.  I am hoping these post would work as a reminder for you that I am reading along with you.  If you want, you can read a short blurb as to what I got out of the reading. This one is a 6 minute read. The first day of our reading this week, chapter 11, we read the Lord’s prayer.  It stood out to me more than it did when we read it in Matthew 6  because of the context Luke gave as to why Jesus taught the prayer.  Luke explained that one of the disciples said to Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” (11:1)  “So He said to them, “When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.” Many commentaries describe the rest of the prayer as “a pattern” to pray.  My focus zoomed in on the first line, “Say, our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name.”  That is how Jesus wants us to start our prayers! As I was reflecting on that first line, I flashed back to a time that I was with a group of ladies that I had known for years.  These were professing Christians that had been in more Bible studies that one could count. The scene was a baby shower with cute decorations set at the table we were sitting around. The mother of the baby was not a believer, having rejected Christianity a couple years prior to this event.  One of the Christian ladies I was sitting with, explained that in her gift card she wrote, “May God bless you and may She give you an easy labor”. She explained that she wanted the young mom to know there was no reason to think of Christianity in the “stuffy old, religious way” that caused her to reject Christianity.  Another gal chimed in, agreeing full heartedly. Perhaps they got this idea from reading William Young’s version of God being represented by a woman in his book The Shack. Everyone at the table had read the book and loved it (except for me, I didn’t like certain things about it, God being a women, for one.) I sat stunned!  I was speechless!  What should I say to these Christian women? Right when I was about to say something, another friend shot out, “That’s blasphemy!”  The first responded, “Why?  God is spirit.  He is neither male or female.  Why do we need to stick with these restraints of earthly labels if God is neither male nor female? I am just trying to help this young mother see that God is not necessarily a dominant male character.” The one girl that refuted the first girl’s position held her ground and I did not find an opportunity to jump into the conversation before the subject changed.  Yet, that exchange has always bothered me.  What would I have said if I got the opportunity?  Instead of coming up with brilliant answers on the spot, I think about these things for years.🤔I don’t stop thinking about it until I  come up with something that works for me…something Biblical. This week it came to me!  It is that first line of the Lord’s prayer!! Jesus clearly told us how to address God. “Our Father in heaven”. AND, you better say that with respect! Father denotes a personal relationship like a child has with his parent.  We all can understand that.  But what does hallowed mean?  I looked the word up so I can give you a dictionary definition.🤓“To hallow is "to make holy or sacred, to sanctify or consecrate, to venerate". The adjective form hallowed, as used in The Lord's Prayer, means holy, consecrated, sacred, or revered.” Yes, we can call the omnipotent, omniscient and, omnipresent God, our heavenly Father, but we better remember to address him with reverence as well!!   So, how do you stay respectful to God when addressing him?  DO IT THE WAY JESUS TAUGHT! He told us exactly what we should call God,….Father!  NOT mother, not Bro, in fact…..Jesus didn’t tell us to pray to him! Not to the Son, but to the Father.  It is through the Son that we have access to pray straight to God the Father. Often people think that if they can make God a little bit more palatable, perhaps they can “win” people over to the Lord. But, here is the thing, to be a Christian means to be a Christ follower. You have to do what Jesus says to do! You can’t make up your own stuff, thinking God will like it. Just like you can’t be on a football team and run your own plays.  It doesn’t work! I think, if I would have been able to jump into the above conversation and throw my two cents in, I would have said something like this, “In the book of John, Jesus says a few times that we are to do what he says. (John 13:17, 14:15, & 15:14) Therefore, If Jesus says that when we pray we are to start the prayer by calling God “Father in heaven” and, do that with reverence, then personally,  that is what I am going to do! Because, I want to be the best Christ follower that I can be!”

We have now read, for the third time, the story of the father bringing his demon possessed son to be healed by Jesus. We read it in Matthew 17 and Mark 9 as well. For some reason, after reading it for the third time, I got a new understanding of the response Jesus gave. To refresh your memory, Matthew’s version has the father calling it epilepsy and wanted the disciples to cure him, yet Matthew says Jesus “rebuked the demon” (17:18) (side point, that means it was a demon, not a disease). Mark’s version adds that the scribes were present and “disputing with them” (9:14), “them” being the 9 disciples that weren’t with Jesus up on the Mount of Transfiguration. So picture the scene, it was a “great multitude” of people! Luke’s version is the shortest, but included the words of Jesus that the other accounts told as well, “Oh faithless and perverse generation. How long should I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.” (9:41) I always assumed that Jesus directed that comment to the disciples because when they asked him why they couldn’t expel the demons, he said it was because of their unbelief. HOWEVER, that is not necessarily the case that He directed this comment to the 12!! I got a new understanding of the scene when I re-read Mark's version. (Sometimes chapter divisions or verse numbers and paragraph titles added by the Bible translators can keep me from seeing the natural flow of the story!) Let's back up a little. Jesus is talking with the three disciples that are with him as they are walking down the mountain. (Mark 9:9) They ask him why Elijah must come first. Jesus says Elijah, AKA John the Baptist, “must restore all things”. Meaning, turn people back to the ways of God, “preparing the way” (Luke 1:76) for Jesus. Jesus goes on to say in this conversation, “But I say to you that Elijah has also come, and they did to him whatever they wished, as it is written of him.” (Mark 9:13) THE VERY NEXT VERSE, verse 14 says, “And when he came to the disciples, (the other 9) he saw a great multitude, around scribes disputing with them.” So, fresh off that conversation where Jesus just said, "they did what they wished" (John was beheaded), he calls this multitude a faithless and preverse generation.  Jesus wasn’t saying that to his disciples! He was saying this to the multitude! Read what one commentary wrote about the scene: “This father was exceedingly faithless. And for this reason the demon did not depart from his child, the unbelief overcoming the power of the apostles. Even now the man brazenly displays his unbelief, approaching the Lord in the presence of all to accuse His disciples. But the Lord shows him that his unbelief caused the child not to be healed, and He in turn rebukes him in the presence of all, and not only him, but all the others with him as well. When He says, O faithless generation, He includes all the Jews.” That was Theophylact's explanation of the passage in Luke. He was one of the most famous Byzantine biblical scholars and exegete in 1100 AD. Cyril of Alexandria (c 376-444) and John Chrysostom (c 349-407) offer similar interpretations in their commentaries on Luke and Matthew, respectively. Interesting!!!  That makes the farher’s words so much more understandable! “Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24) So, what do we do with the fact that Jesus said the disciples had “unbelief” in Matthew’s version? Well, if we don’t think of that harsh statement of “preverse generation” being directed at the 9, than it almost seems to me like a fatherly encouragement session he had with them afterwards. “If you have faith…nothing will be impossible for you” He then sets them up to feel that boost of encouragement in Luke 10, which I am sure they needed after that episode! I loved reading how excited the 70 were when they got back from their little mission trip and reported to Jesus, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And ……”In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the spirit..” (Luke 10:21) I LOVE getting new insights like this in familiar stories!!! So fun! How about you? Have you ever read it that way before?