February 6 In Matthew 6, Jesus provides a stark contrast between the attitudes of the Jewish leaders and His own. He speaks of giving, praying, and fasting on one hand, then possessions and anxiety about provisions on the other. But, if we boil down the entire chapter, we immediately see the division: self-centeredness and God-centeredness. In…
January 26 John 20 records Thomas’ first encounter with Jesus after His resurrection. The other disciples had already seen Jesus, but Thomas wasn’t there. When they said they had seen Jesus, Thomas scoffed, “If I don’t see the mark of the nails in His hands, put my finger into the mark of the nails, and…
John 6 Did you know that the feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle that occurs in all four Gospels? Jesus feeds five thousand men with only five barley loaves and two fish, which at that time was a poor man’s meal. (Wheat bread was the food of the wealthy.) As the scene…
January 4 We expect that Jesus would minister to God’s covenant people—the Jews. However, we rarely think about Jesus’ ministry outside of the Jewish household of faith. John 4 records Jesus’ outreach to both Samaritans and Gentiles, giving us an early glimpse of the Gospel’s universal reach and God’s ultimate plan. Jesus Ministers to a…
January 3 John 3 is probably one of the most familiar chapters in the Bible. A big reason for this is that John 3:16 is the most familiar verse in the Bible. Unfortunately, most Bible translations don’t render this verse as accurately as they could for today’s readers. This leads to misunderstanding and misapplication of…
In today’s Bible reading*, we see two things that are called, “awe-inspiring”: an awe-inspiring sign in heaven (v. 1) and the awe-inspiring works of God (v. 3). Awe is a word that is foreign to many Believers. We just don’t see things as being “awe-inspiring”. The things of God tend to be, quite frankly, normal. Boring….
