Daily Meditations on the Bible
— that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Summary: This meditation takes an unusual turn. When Paul talks about us being “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God,” we have to wonder, “What does that leave room for?”
Continue reading “Ephesians 3:19b – Making Room”But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Summary: Paul’s words in this passage are unusually clear and direct. Enjoy them!
Continue reading “Ephesians 2:13 – A Simple Picture”…but deliver us from the evil one.
Summary: We need deliverance from the evil one every day. If we don’t understand why, we need understanding, too.
Continue reading “Matthew 6:13 – What is the Bullseye?”But now, please forgive their sin …
Summary: The Hebrew word for “forgive” is a word that describes physically lifting a burden up and taking it away. This is a perfect description of what God does for us when we go to him for forgiveness.
Continue reading “Exodus 32:32 – Lifted Up”In this way the priest will make atonement for them before the Lord, and they will be forgiven for any of the things they did that made them guilty.
Summary: Looking back over the Old Testament, we see the foundation for the New.
Continue reading “Leviticus 6:7 – At One”You judge by human standards …
Summary: How we define “good” and “evil,” says a lot about our relationship with God. Using God’s definitions is a way of honoring our Creator.
Continue reading “John 8:15 – The Judge of All Things”Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.
Summary: In this meditation, we transition into a discussion of heaven. Interestingly, Jesus’ construction of the first two words of the prayer prepares us for understanding what heaven is all about.
Continue reading “1 John 3:4 — There is no “I” in heaven”
Jesus said, ‘’For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, ‘’What? Are we blind too?”
Jesus said, ‘’If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”
The prophet Isaiah quotes God as saying:
”As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9)
This verse comes to mind as I ponder the meaning of Jesus’ words. It seems to me he is speaking metaphorically about blindness and sight, but he has also just healed a blind man and so he illustrates his point literally.
Continue reading “Deep Thoughts – John 9: 39-41”
Do you ever wonder what God does with his spare time? I mean sure, He created the universe and all that is in it, and he keeps the whole thing running day in and day out. He also hears everyone’s prayers and keeps busy answering prayer and giving prophets things to say. All of these things tell us who God is and inform us about God. But does he do more?
Neither this man nor his parents sinned,’ said Jesus, ‘but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.’
Today we begin a new chapter in John’s gospel, and with the new chapter comes a new scene. When we left Jesus he was arguing with a crowd of indeterminate size. In this scene, he is walking with his disciples. In the last chapter, he may have been in the temple grounds. In this chapter we do not know where he is, but we know he is in a place with people and as the story unfolds we see that he is near the temple, so he is probably still in Jerusalem.
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
I wanted to stop the story here because I find the question that the disciples asked very interesting. They see a man born blind and they immediately conclude that the reason for his blindness was that someone sinned, either the man’s parents or somehow the blind man himself sinned. This was not a question in their minds, but a fact. The only question was whose sin caused the blindness.
Continue reading “Defects”