Tag: God

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1 Peter 2:20 — What the Child Saw

Yes… I changed the picture. 🙂 JE

But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. 

English is a wonderful language. It is rich in history, flexible, adaptable, and functional. There is a reason why people around the world choose to learn English if they want to communicate internationally. Even so, when compared to the Hebrew and Greek languages, English sometimes feels … inadequate. 

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Peace – John 14: 27a

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.

When do you need God’s peace most?

Sometimes when I am awake in the middle of the night, my mind churns over the problems of the day. Sometimes Satan seems to use these lonely times to remind me of my shortcomings. The lack of peace can be excruciating.

When I come to my senses, I remember what Jesus says in today’s verse. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.”

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Judged? – John 12: 47

If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.

Sometimes it feels like the pace of this blog could be picked up a bit. After all, how much detail can you expect from one verse? Well, quite a bit as it turns out.

Today’s verse turns the picture of God as JUDGE OF THE UNIVERSE upside down. Instead of threatening plagues or floods, Jesus says he is not here to judge. What?

Is this the same God we read about in the Old Testament?

Well, yes.

It turns out that God had a plan to save the world from the very beginning. (Genesis 3: 15) Jesus could have come in chapter 4 of Genesis, but who would have crucified him and why? There needed to be an understanding established. God needed to explain what righteousness is, and what the cost of sin is. The animal sacrifices conducted by the early Jews demonstrated the messy, bloody, deadly price required for sin. The priesthood established by God acted as an intercessor between God and man. Both sacrifice and intercessor are needed.

Finally, the time was right, and Jesus entered the world. His job: Not to judge the world, but to save it.

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WYSIWYG – John 12: 44-45

Then Jesus cried out, ”Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me.”

In the early days of personal computing (This would have been late 80’s or early 90’s in my world) computers were sort of a glorified typewriter. Getting a paper printout that looked like a professionally typeset page was next to impossible. Even if the software you had was good enough, there was another level of frustration waiting in getting a printer to print what you wanted.

Then some genius came up with WYSIWYG. This stands for “What You See Is What You Get.” It was the beginning of being able to print what you saw on your computer screen and have it look exactly the same way on the printed page.

People in Jesus’ day were used to hearing what righteousness was supposed to be about. They just never seemed to see it in real life. Until Jesus. When Jesus started His ministry, people caught a glimpse of the Real Deal. God incarnate talked the talk and walked the walk. He forgave sins, he healed infirmities, he cast out demons and he confronted the phony-baloney establishment.

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