All for your consideration.
In his death Jesus embodied humility for you. You want to think about success in terms of power or wealth or influence? No one’s got more of that than God! But Jesus was willing to lay all of that down, to face the failure and defeat of the cross in your place, taking all the penalty of sin upon himself, so that you might share in the victory of his life.
Jesus stepped in between you and the enemy of your soul. See the lengths to which Jesus went to save you! Jesus, God himself, came from the spiritual to the material—the Word took on flesh. He came from the glory of heaven to the last place on earth you’d expect to meet a pure and holy God: a cradle in a manger, a cross on a hill, and he’d go to another cemetery to rescue you.
The goal of all evil creatures is to pull creation down as much as possible toward nonexistence. But the task is futile. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” God’s creatures did not create themselves or each other. In the end, they cannot uncreate.
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:31–32)
When Jesus was crucified, He was hung between two convicted criminals, one of his left and one on his right. And do you know what they had been convicted of? Robbery. Jesus was crucified between two thieves. But, as one person has pointed out, as far as justice goes, there were really three thieves on the cross that day. Two died for their own crimes. One died for ours.
At last, one comes who claims to be the fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy. He is not merely a new Solomon or Ezra, come to embark on a new building project. He himself is the prophesied temple.
What do ancient boundary markers have to do with modern property laws? The Bible shows us God’s wisdom and passion for justice when it comes to the land we live in.
Jesus teaches us that he brings a new kind of religion—one that is rooted in mercy and celebration.
Christ established the foundation of his church through the definitive work of the apostles, who then set up a structure of overseers who would steward the apostolic foundation. Apostolicity, then, is defined by our faithfulness to the apostolic doctrine, structure, and mission.
The Bible speaks both of heaven as a paradise where God dwells and where his people go at death, and of the new heavens and new earth as God’s ultimate plan for creation. What’s the relationship between the two?
Take Note Of This 