The Final Act

When one was appointed a Prophet, God required them to act the part, literally. ‘At the time the Lord spoke through Isaiah son of Amoz. He said to him, ‘Take off the sackcloth from your body and the sandals from your feet.’ And he did so, going around stripped and barefoot’ (Isaiah 20:2). Why did …

Pilate: A Conflicted Man

‘From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, ‘If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar’ ~ John 19:12 When Pilate, the Roman Governor, meets an accused afflicted man, he becomes conflicted. At first, he wants …

A Leper and a Redeemed Woman

Some of the few people that Jesus met before His crucifixion were a leper and a redeemed woman. While many sought to take His life, He found solace with a leper and a previously sinful woman. As Jesus, ‘was reclining at the table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a …

Remember

‘I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago’ ~ Psalm 77:11 There seems to be a direct correlation between one’s ability to remember and their ability to endure in sufferings. When Asaph was in distress, so much that God kept his ‘eyes from closing; I was …

Doctrines of Devils

‘Now the Spirit speaks expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils’ ~ 1 Timothy 4:1 Doctrine, a set of beliefs or principles that are passed on. In this world, two broad principles govern every worldview – godly and devilish. In regard to …

Seek not Great Things

'Should you then seek great things for yourself? Seek them not’ ~ Jeremiah 45:5 This statement was said to Baruch amidst news of distress, disaster, and destruction. Baruch was a scribe who wrote down all what God said to Prophet Jeremiah. When Jeremiah received a word, he ‘dictated all the words the Lord had spoken …

Applying Whitewash: The Big Cover-up

One of the imageries that Jesus uses to describe Teachers of the Law and Pharisees is ‘whitewashed tombs’ (Matthew 23:27) which ‘look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean’ (v27). Jesus continues to explain that, ‘In the same way, on the outside you appear to …

Handed Over to Satan

Something unthinkable was happening at the Church in Corinth, something ‘that does not occur even among pagans’ (1 Corinthians 5:1). Paul gets reports that ‘there is sexual immorality among you’ (v1), and one of an advanced kind. ‘A man has his father’s wife’ (v1) and to top it all, ‘you are proud!’ (v2). So Paul …

Hold On

‘Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life’ ~ Proverbs 4:13 These words were spoken by God Himself to King Solomon ‘When I (he) was a boy in my father’s house, still tender, and an only child of my mother’ (Proverbs 4:4). A similar word was …