Daily Meditations on the Bible
Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.
— John 3: 14-15
I’ve written about this passage before in “Complications” but it deserves a second look as an affirmation verse.
Salvation isn’t complicated. The people who were saved from the venomous snakes in the wilderness were saved from death if they simply looked upon the bronze snake.
Continue reading “Affirmation Monday – Easy to Believe”
So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you
— Luke 11: 9
I was looking for a verse to use as an affirmation for today’s post and I happened across this one. Jesus had just finished praying when one of his disciples asked him to teach them about prayer. Jesus teaches the disciples what we know as the “Lord’s Prayer” and then he tells them a story about persistence. He says, in essence, that we should ask God for what we need boldly. Jesus also tells us to be persistent. Then he gives this assurance:
“Ask and it will be given you…”
He doesn’t say we should hang around and wait to see what God is going to do. He says, “ask.” Then he adds:
Continue reading “Affirmation Monday – Doors”
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
— Colossians 3:1
What do we do when our heart is breaking? Is there any pain as great?
We live in bodies that are obsessed with our own needs and wants. Our emotional vision is short-sighted. We see what we think is right, what we need, what we want. But our vision is earthbound. Only God knows what is best.
Because of this myopic condition we sometimes take great risks. In our need for an emotional connection we tend to entrust our hearts to people instead of God.
Continue reading “Affirmation Monday – One Foot In Heaven”
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
— Philippians 4:6
One affirmation everyone likes to hear is that everything is going to be okay. I know I do. Especially when I’m in a tough spot.
It is easy to be happy when everything is going well. It is when things go bad that we become anxious. Like when you suddenly realize that the car to your right that was supposed to stop at the stop sign is still moving. That gets people’s adrenaline up! Another fun event is being called into the boss’s office without warning. They usually don’t do that to pat someone on the back.
Continue reading “Affirmation Monday – Keeping Up”
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit
— Romans 15:13
If you look at any United States coin, written on the front are the words, “In God We Trust.” Over the years I have come to marvel at the implications of what it means to trust in God.
In Paul’s letter to the Romans, he ties together trust, hope, joy, and peace. All this is by the power of the Holy Spirit. Without God, we do not have access to that power.
So what? So what if we don’t have trust?
Continue reading “Affirmation Monday – In God We Trust”
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
— Romans 10:9
Do you want to be saved?
One day I took a small sailboat out on a large lake. I had not sailed on this lake before and I did not know its tricks and traps. My sailboat ride started very pleasantly. The sky was blue and the sun was bright and warm. I had sailed perhaps a mile from the park where I had launched the boat when I noticed the wind was picking up. It was blowing me away from the boat launch so I turned the boat around and started sailing into the wind.
Continue reading “Affirmation Monday – Happy Ending”
… being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Confidence
In the opening lines of Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi, he shares an eternal truth: God is not a quitter.
Think about the persistence of God. Before he created the earth and the stars he created the angels. One of them went bad. Then this bad egg, Satan, enticed many of God’s angels to follow him.
When God created the universe and all that is in it, he understood the risk. He had already seen corruption in his creation of the angels. When he created the earth and all that we know, he was not surprised when Satan corrupted his creation again.
Continue reading “Affirmation Monday – Philippians 1: 6”
Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
A Child’s View
There are moments when life seems simple. They are moments when everything comes into focus at once and makes sense. I wish those moments could last forever. Of course, someday they will.
For now, in this life, we are consigned to a complicated world. Sometimes even trying to reconcile the Word of God with itself can seem complicated. How are we to understand the Old Testament? How do we understand the New Testament? How do we even begin to get our minds around the concept of Creation or God himself?
Continue reading “Affirmation Monday – John 1:12”
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Whose Rules?
Yesterday, Psalm Sunday’s post generated some interesting discussion on what it means to be wicked and righteous. From God’s point of view, we are all unrighteous in a practical sense.
What I mean by that is that a practical righteousness would be sufficient to allow a person into heaven without any help from God. In effect, such a person would be as good as God himself. The Pharisees in Jesus’ time measured their righteousness by their compliance with the laws of Moses. Unbeknownst to them, there was a little flaw in their measurement system. Because they wrote most of the rules, they were a bit blind to how well they fulfilled them.
Imagine that you want to play baseball. You make the rules so that the pitcher can only pitch balls to you that you can hit. Then you demand that the umpire is a member of your team. Better yet, the umpire has to be a relative and a member of your team. When you hit the ball nobody on the other team is allowed to touch it until you have made it safely to home plate. Sound like a fun game? It is if you are on the right team.
Continue reading “Affirmation Monday – Romans 5: 8”
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
The Greatest Gift
Today is Monday, December 23rd. We are only hours away from the commemoration of the greatest affirmation of God’s love ever given; the birth of his son, Jesus. Every year at this time we are reminded of an amazing fact. About two thousand years ago a poor, young Jewish girl, engaged but not married, became pregnant and gave birth to a boy child. Her betrothed accepted the mother and child as his own and before the child was born took them with him to Bethlehem to be counted in the census. The child would grow to become a man, and the man would become famous throughout the land as a healer and a teacher. He was someone who might be the long-promised Messiah.
Continue reading “Affirmation Monday – John 3: 17”