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Study Your Bible (1)





'Open my eyes, that I may see wondrous things from Your law.' Psalm 119:18 NKJV

Let’s consider some practical suggestions for getting more out of your Bible study: Schedule it. If you don’t, it won’t happen. Learn to say no to unimportant things. For many of us the biggest obstacle to studying the Bible is television; the average person watches over four hours every day. Do the maths: that’s sixty–one days a year—two months! By the age of eighteen, the average person has seen 200,000 acts of violence, including 16,000 murders. And by the age of sixty–five they’ve spent about nine–and–a–half years watching TV.

By contrast, if you went to Sunday school regularly from birth until the age of sixty–five, you’d only have had a total of four months of Bible teaching. No wonder we struggle spiritually. Discipline yourself by setting aside a specific time each day to study your Bible—and let nothing get in the way. And do it when you’re at your best physically, emotionally, and intellectually, not when you’re distracted and hurried. You know if you’re ‘a day person’ or a ‘night person’, so pick the time when you’re most alert.

The spirit may be willing but the flesh is weak, so if you don’t want your study time to turn into ‘snore time’, don’t try to study when you’re tired, or right after a big meal. Keep a notebook to jot down your observations and keep track of what God is saying to you. Writing does three things: it clarifies, reinforces and personalises. Also, ask yourself, ‘What can I take away from this passage?’ It will help to fix God’s Word firmly in your mind and jog your memory regarding what you’re supposed to do about it.


SoulFood: Jer 25-27, Luke 23:1-12, Ps 72:1-11, Prov 9:1-6


This is The Word For Today

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Study Your Bible (2)





'I have rejoiced in your decrees as much as in riches.' Psalm 119:14 NLT


Spend time in prayer before you study the Bible. Ask the Lord to cleanse you from all known sin and fill you with the Holy Spirit so that you’ll be in fellowship with Him during your study time. Again, the purpose of Bible study isn’t to get new revelations and new rules; it’s to build a relationship with the Author of the Bible. The Psalmist said, ‘How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed [of] Your Word.’ (Psalm 119:9 NKJV) Sin doesn’t cancel your relationship with Christ, but it hinders your fellowship with Him. You have to be in fellowship with Him to understand and apply His Word.

So before you search the Scriptures, ask God to search your heart. Paul says, ‘A person who isn’t spiritual doesn’t accept the teachings of God’s Spirit… He can’t understand them because a person must be spiritual to evaluate them. “Who has known the mind of the Lord so that he can teach Him?” However, we have the mind of Christ.’ (1 Corinthians 2:14–16 GWT) It’s possible to read the same portion of Scripture many times, yet fail to see what God wants you to see until He ‘opens’ your eyes. Once that happens, your attitude toward Bible study will be transformed.

Like a hungry person at a table overflowing with good food, you’ll relish God’s Word and your faith will grow. As Paul said: ‘…“No one has ever imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” But God has shown us these things through the Spirit.’ (1 Corinthians 2:9–10 NCV)


SoulFood: Jer 28-30, Luke 23:13-25, Ps 72:12-20, Prov 9:7-9


This is The Word For Today

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Facing Death Without Fear





'...O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy...!' Isaiah 26:19 NRS



Aristotle called death the thing to be feared most because ‘it appears to be the end of everything.’
Jean–Paul Sartre said that death ‘removes all meaning from life.’
Robert Green Ingersoll, one of America’s most outspoken agnostics, unable to offer any words of hope at his brother’s funeral, said, ‘Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights.’
The last words of French humanist François Rabelais were: ‘I go to seek “a Great Perhaps”.’
In Hamlet, Shakespeare describes the afterlife as: ‘The dread of something after death, the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns.’

Clearly, unbelief isn’t just a miserable way to live; it’s a tragic way to die. A comedian once quipped, ‘I intend to live forever…so far, so good.’ But what if death is different from how the philosophers thought of it? Not just a curse, but a passageway? Instead of a crisis to be avoided, a corner to be turned? What if the cemetery isn’t the domain of the Grim Reaper, but the dominion of the Soul–Keeper who’ll someday soon announce, ‘O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy’?

Paul writes: ‘If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most pitiable. But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.’ (1 Corinthians 15:19–21 NKJV) Death isn’t the ‘great perhaps’. No, your last day on earth will herald the best of all your days!


SoulFood (Good Friday): Luke 23:26-49, Ps 22, Is 53


This is The Word For Today

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You Will Be Raised from the Dead

‘…Thanks be to God, Who gives us the victory [over death] through our Lord Jesus.’ 1 Corinthians 15:57

Jesus promised what no other religious leader could: that He’d return from the dead, and also resurrect His followers from the grave. And He has already made a good-faith deposit on that promise. When He died, ‘…Graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised…they went into the holy city and appeared to many’ (Matthew 27:52-53 NKJV). And the day is fast approaching when Jesus will fulfil His promise completely. ‘…In Christ all shall be made alive…each one in his own order: Christ the first-fruits, afterwards those who are Christ’s at His coming’ (1 Corinthians 15:22-23 NKJV).  Note the word ‘afterwards.’ The date of Jesus’ return is classified information, but His resurrection guarantees ours. Traditional Judaism was divided on this topic. The Sadducees said, ‘There is no resurrection’ (Acts 23:8 NKJV). They saw the grave as a one-way trip to Sheol with no escape and no hope, while the Pharisees envisioned a resurrection that was spiritual, not physical. The Greeks believed the soul of the deceased was ferried across the River Styx and released into a sunless afterlife of spirits, shades and shadows. Then Jesus, ‘…the first-fruits of them that slept’ (1 Corinthians 15:20 KJV), entered this world of superstition and darkness and turned on the light. The word ‘first-fruits’ can literally be translated ‘prototype’. Jesus was the first off the resurrection assembly line, and the rest of us who follow will look just like Him. It’s a message that dries our tears, calms our fears and assures us that our best days are yet to come.



Joshua 7-9, John 1:29-51

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Rejoice, He’s Coming for You!

‘…I will come and get you...’ John 14:3

Jesus said, ‘…I am going to prepare a place for you…When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am’ (vv. 2-3 NLT). This was a groom-to-bride promise. In Christ’s day, when a couple received permission from both their families to marry, the groom would return to his father’s home and build a house for his bride. And by promising to do the same for us, Jesus elevated funerals to the same level of hope as weddings. From His perspective, the trip to the cemetery and the walk down the aisle warrant identical excitement. Both celebrate a new era, a new name, and a new home. Rejoice, your heavenly Bridegroom is coming to take you away on His arm! Does that sound too good to be true? Check the record. If you can find one time in all the sixty-six books in the Bible where God made a promise He didn’t keep, you’ll have reason to doubt this one. Your final glimpse of life will trigger your first glimpse of Jesus. Because Christ’s tomb is empty—His promise isn’t. He made it two-thousand years ago, and He’s been working on your new home ever since. Can you imagine what it’ll be like? Living on a tiny, barren island called Patmos, John the Revelator wrote, ‘…There was no more sea’ (Revelation 21:1 NKJV). Every morning when John arose the sea was all around him; it was the barrier that separated him from his loved ones on the mainland. Think about it: in your heavenly home there’ll be no barriers, no separation, and no limitations.

 

Luke 6:27-49 , Psalm 35-36

Rejoice, He’s Coming for You!

‘…I will come and get you...’ John 14:3

Jesus said, ‘…I am going to prepare a place for you…When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am’ (vv. 2-3 NLT). This was a groom-to-bride promise. In Christ’s day, when a couple received permission from both their families to marry, the groom would return to his father’s home and build a house for his bride. And by promising to do the same for us, Jesus elevated funerals to the same level of hope as weddings. From His perspective, the trip to the cemetery and the walk down the aisle warrant identical excitement. Both celebrate a new era, a new name, and a new home. Rejoice, your heavenly Bridegroom is coming to take you away on His arm! Does that sound too good to be true? Check the record. If you can find one time in all the sixty-six books in the Bible where God made a promise He didn’t keep, you’ll have reason to doubt this one. Your final glimpse of life will trigger your first glimpse of Jesus. Because Christ’s tomb is empty—His promise isn’t. He made it two-thousand years ago, and He’s been working on your new home ever since. Can you imagine what it’ll be like? Living on a tiny, barren island called Patmos, John the Revelator wrote, ‘…There was no more sea’ (Revelation 21:1 NKJV). Every morning when John arose the sea was all around him; it was the barrier that separated him from his loved ones on the mainland. Think about it: in your heavenly home there’ll be no barriers, no separation, and no limitations.

 

Luke 6:27-49 , Psalm 35-36

Rejoice, He’s Coming for You!

‘…I will come and get you...’ John 14:3

Jesus said, ‘…I am going to prepare a place for you…When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am’ (vv. 2-3 NLT). This was a groom-to-bride promise. In Christ’s day, when a couple received permission from both their families to marry, the groom would return to his father’s home and build a house for his bride. And by promising to do the same for us, Jesus elevated funerals to the same level of hope as weddings. From His perspective, the trip to the cemetery and the walk down the aisle warrant identical excitement. Both celebrate a new era, a new name, and a new home. Rejoice, your heavenly Bridegroom is coming to take you away on His arm! Does that sound too good to be true? Check the record. If you can find one time in all the sixty-six books in the Bible where God made a promise He didn’t keep, you’ll have reason to doubt this one. Your final glimpse of life will trigger your first glimpse of Jesus. Because Christ’s tomb is empty—His promise isn’t. He made it two-thousand years ago, and He’s been working on your new home ever since. Can you imagine what it’ll be like? Living on a tiny, barren island called Patmos, John the Revelator wrote, ‘…There was no more sea’ (Revelation 21:1 NKJV). Every morning when John arose the sea was all around him; it was the barrier that separated him from his loved ones on the mainland. Think about it: in your heavenly home there’ll be no barriers, no separation, and no limitations.

 

Luke 6:27-49 , Psalm 35-36

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THE BLESSED HOPE

‘Looking for the blessed hope...’ Titus 2:13 NKJV

The blessed hope of the resurrection isn’t like a lottery where only one person out of millions will hit the jackpot. And it’s not a wishful sentiment offered at gravesides to comfort the grieving. It’s a hope built on certainty. Jesus said, ‘…Because I live, you will live also’ (John 14:19 NKJV). Paul puts it this way: ‘…There is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when He comes back’ (1 Corinthians 15:23 NLT). Paul was writing to Corinthian Christians who’d been schooled in the Greek philosophy of a shadowy afterlife. Someone was trying to convince them that corpses couldn’t be raised, neither theirs nor Christ’s. And the apostle couldn’t bear such a thought. So with the brilliance of a great attorney in his closing argument, he reviews the facts: ‘…[Jesus] was raised from death on the third day…He presented himself alive to Peter…his closest followers…more than five hundred…James…the rest of those He commissioned…and…finally…to me’ (vv. 4-8 TM). How many witnesses were there? A handful? No, hundreds! And they didn’t just see a phantom or experience a sentiment. Graveside eulogies often include phrases like ‘She’ll live on forever in our hearts.’ This isn’t what Jesus’ followers were saying. They saw Him ‘in the flesh’. And if you’ve trusted Christ as your Saviour, one day you, too, will see Him in the flesh. At death, your spirit will go to be with Him, and at His return, your resurrected body will rise to meet Him in the air. ‘So shall we ever be with the Lord’ (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Awesome, absolutely awesome!

Jeremiah 31-32, Mk 1:29-34, Psalm 72: 12-20, Proverbs 9:7-9.

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GRANNY BRAND’ (1)

‘…Do it with all your might...’ Ecclesiastes 9:10 NIV

Evelyn Brand felt called by God to go to India. For a single woman in 1909, a calling like that required a lorry-load of faith. She married a young man named Jesse and together they began a ministry to the people in rural India, bringing education and medical supplies and building roads to reduce the isolation of the poor. For seven years they went without making a single convert to Christianity. But then a priest in a local tribal region developed a fever and grew deathly ill. No one else would go near him, but Evelyn and Jesse nursed him as he was dying. He said, ‘This God, Jesus, must be the true God because only Jesse and Evelyn will care for me in my dying.’ The priest gave his children to them to care for after he died—and that became a spiritual turning point in that part of the world. People began to examine the life and teachings of Jesus, and in increasing numbers began to follow Him. Evelyn and Jesse had thirteen years of productive service, then Jesse died. By this time, Evelyn was fifty years old, and everyone expected her to return to her home in England. But she wouldn’t do it. She was known and loved for miles around as ‘Granny Brand’, and she stayed another twenty years under the mission board she had served so faithfully. Her son, Paul, came over to see her when she was seventy years old, and this is what he said about his mum: ‘This is how to grow old. Allow everything else to fall away, until those around you see only love’
(1 Corinthians 13:1-2).

Galatians 5:22, Isaiah 61, Hebrew 12:2, Jas 1: 2-3.

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GRANNY BRAND’ (2)

‘…We can certainly do it.’ Numbers 13:30 NIV

Here’s the rest of Evelyn Brand’s story. At age seventy she received word from her home mission office that they weren’t going to give her another five-year term. But she had Caleb’s ‘we can certainly do it’ attitude. A party was held to celebrate her time in India, and everyone there cheered her on. ‘Have a good trip back home,’ they all said. ‘I’ll tell you a little secret,’ she announced, ‘I’m not going back home. I’m staying in India.’ Evelyn had a little shack built with some resources that she had smuggled in. Then she bought a pony to get around the mountains, and this septuagenarian would ride from village to village on horseback to tell people about Jesus. She did that for five years on her own. One day, at seventy-five years old, she fell and broke her hip. Her son, Paul Brand, the eminent doctor, said to her, ‘Mum, you’ve had a great run. God’s used you. It’s time to give it up now. You can go back home.’ She replied, ‘I am not going back home.’ She spent another eighteen years travelling from one village to another on horseback. Falls, concussions, sicknesses, and ageing could not stop her. Finally, when she hit ninety-three years old, she could not ride a horse any more. So the men in these villages—because they loved Granny Brand so much—put her on a stretcher and carried her from one village to another. She lived two more years and gave those years as a gift, carried on a stretcher, to help the poorest of the poor. She died, but she never retired. She just graduated.

Jeremiah 33:1- 36:26, Mark 1:35-39, Psalm 32, Proverb 9:10-16

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SOMEONE IS ALWAYS WATCHING YOU

‘Let your light so shine before men...’ Matthew 5:16 NKJV

A reporter once said to Joe DiMaggio, the famous baseball player, ‘You always seem to play with the same intensity. You run out every grounder and race after every fly ball, even when the Yankees have a big lead in the pennant race and there’s nothing on the line. How come?’ DiMaggio replied, ‘I always remind myself that there might be someone in the stands who never saw me play before.’ That’s the kind of unselfish mindset you must maintain in order to influence others for good and for God. It takes energy and intentionality, whether one-on-one or in a group, but it pays dividends. Nicodemus, a Jewish leader, was drawn to Christ because he’d listened to His teachings and observed His works from afar. He may have come to Jesus at night to avoid ridicule, but the fact is, he came because he couldn’t stay away! (John 3:1-21). The Bible says you’re ‘…a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you…’ (2 Corinthians 3:2 TM). Today someone is watching how you handle problems; how you treat your family and your employees; how you act when the boss isn’t around; how you respond to criticism or temptation. Don’t disappoint them. Jesus said: ‘You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven’ (Matthew 5:14-16 NKJV).

Jeremiah 36:27 - 40:16, Mark 1:40-45, Psalm 25:1-7, Proverb 9: 17-18

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ARE YOU FLOURISHING? (2)

‘…They will flourish in the courts of our God.’ Psalms 92:13 NIV

Inside you there’s a battle between your flourishing self—the person you were created to be—and your languishing self. ‘What’s that?’ you ask. Your languishing self feels uneasy and discontent. You’re drawn to bad habits like mindlessly watching TV, drinking too much, misusing sex, excessive spending—things designed to temporarily anaesthetise pain. Your thoughts automatically drift in the direction of fear and anger. Learning doesn’t feel worthwhile. You think about yourself most of the time. Whereas flourishing [thriving, blossoming, and prospering] takes place: 1) In your spirit. You sense you’re beginning to receive ideas and energy from an outside source. And you are. You’re being empowered by God’s Spirit. We talk about being inspired, which literally means ‘God breathed’. God breathes into you; you come alive and feel like you’ve a purpose for living.
2) In your mind. Your thoughts are marked by joy and peace. You have a desire to love and to learn. You’re literally being transformed by ‘…the renewing of your mind…’ (Romans 12:2 NIV). 3) In your time. You wake each day with a sense of excitement, and you realise you’re never too young to flourish. Mozart was composing brilliant music when he was five. Paul told Timothy, ‘Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young…’ (1 Timothy 4:12 NIV). You also realise you’re never too old to flourish. Grandma Moses was sixty-nine when she took up painting, and artist Marc Chagall did some of his best work in his nineties. It’s humbling to acknowledge you can’t be anything you want. But once you accept that and seek to maximise what God created you to be, you start flourishing.

Jeremiah 45-48, Mark 2: 13-17, Psalm 25: 16-22, Proverb 10: 4-7