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A Living Hope

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Scripture: 1 Peter 1:3 (NIV) Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. Devotion: Peter, in this verse, proclaims the source of our hope in this life. That Jesus not only died to take the guilt and stain of our sin away, but that He was raised to new and everlasting life in heaven with the Father. Here, Peter, the apostle, lifts our eyes to the very heart of the Christian faith. He blesses God not out of habit or ritual, but because something has happened—something so decisive, so world‑altering, that nothing can ever be the same again. God, in His great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Peter wants us to understand that our hope is not built on sentiment or wishful thinking. It is anchored in an event th...
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Serve Others

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  Scripture: Matthew 20:25-28 (NIV) Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Devotion: How counter-cultural these words of Jesus must have seemed to the first disciples. They lived in a time when there was no thought of equality among persons. Even today, in our culture, we still have vestiges of the notion that some people are better than others. Think of what it would mean if the President of the United States were to think of themselves as a servant of all the people. In my opinion, we have had very few presidents who have thought of themselves in this way. We see throughout the gospels, Jesus serving others. From the ...
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How God Shows Love

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Scripture: 1 John 4:9-10 (NIV) This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Devotion: These words from the Apostle John show us the depth of God’s love for us. In His grace, He sent Jesus to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. We do well to ponder that statement. God shows us love in a way that we, for the most part, are unable to show to others in any self-sacrificial way. We are always selfish, loving others for our own purposes. God’s love is selfless, always giving Himself away for sinners. This scripture before us today clearly states that we have a relationship with God, not through any merit of our own, but through the self-giving love of the Father. The Father loved the Son so much that He could part with the Son only for our salvation. We are truly in debt to God because He paid a ...
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We Are Like Sheep

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  Scripture: Isaiah 53:6 (NIV) We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Devotion: These words of Isaiah are part of what is known as the servant songs. These are verses whose immediate application in Isaiah’s time is unknown. However, the Christian church has claimed them, or parts of them, as prophecies of Christ’s passion. They certainly seem to fit this application. We, as Christians, marvel at these words written centuries in advance of our Lord’s death, which seem to describe the scene in great detail. As we approach our text for today, we are reminded that we are not like proud lions or other strong animals. We, in fact, are told that we are like the lowly, and somewhat stupid, sheep who constantly wander from our shepherd. The Spirit was speaking through the prophet to us today. Our society has wandered far from God. We no longer seek to know what God thinks about a controversy;...
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The Book of Revelation: A Summary for the Church*

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How Not to Read This Book Revelation has suffered more at the hands of speculative interpreters than almost any other book of Scripture. Newsstand prophecy charts have taught us to read it as a coded newspaper, a puzzle to be solved by matching beasts and bowls to this week's headlines. But that is not how the book announces itself. Revelation calls itself an apokalypsis — an unveiling — given to strengthen suffering churches by showing them that the slain Lamb, not Caesar, sits on the throne. It is a pastoral book before it is a predictive one. Reading It as Symbol, Not Timetable I read Revelation as what scholars call an idealist, or symbolic. That means the visions are not chiefly a forecast of specific future events, nor merely a record of first-century persecution, nor a code for successive centuries of church history. Rather, John's symbols depict recurring realities that mark the entire age between Christ's first and second comings: the church's sufferin...
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Love For Our Enemies

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Scripture: Matthew 5:43-45 (NIV) “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Devotion: With these words, Jesus throws down a challenge to our human nature. We naturally don’t love those who oppose us; we tend to dislike or hate them, depending on our mood. Jesus challenges us to transcend our natural reactions, ask God to bless them, and pray for them. We so often plan to resist or argue with those who oppose us. Jesus challenges us to go beyond reaction to action in loving all of our neighbors, not just those who agree with us. Here, Jesus takes the common understanding of love and turns it on its head. The people of His day had heard, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy,” a sentiment that fits neatly into the insti...
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King Nebuchadnezzar Praises God

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  Scripture: Daniel 4:1-3 (NIV) King Nebuchadnezzar, To the nations and peoples of every language, who live in all the earth: May you prosper greatly! It is my pleasure to tell you about the miraculous signs and wonders that the Most High God has performed for me. How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an eternal kingdom; his dominion endures from generation to generation. Devotion: In this passage, the pagan King Nebuchadnezzar confesses that the God of Israel is the only true God. The king has just passed through a time of great mental illness from which he was delivered by confessing that God is God and he is not. In the chapter that follows these opening words, the king makes it clear that he now believes in God. He finally knows his place in the world and that there is a God who is in power and rules over everything. These verses stand as a remarkable testimony, not from a prophet or a priest, but from a man who once believed himself to be th...
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