4. Dear Lord, I enter Your gates with thanksgiving. I sing Your name with joy. I am thankful for Your love and forgiveness. Amen.5. Father, I come before You now with a humble heart and thanksgiving. Your mercies are new each day. Thank You, Father. In the name of Your Son, Amen.6. God of creation, I enter Your gates with thanksgiving. Thank You fo

3. By living holyLiving a life of holiness will please the Lord. Without holiness being evident in our lives, we will not be prepared for the Lord’s second arrival. Holiness must become a lifestyle for us to live out in our everyday lives if we are to live and reign with Christ.4. By keeping our focus on the LordOur focus must be on the Lord if we

In spite of the beautiful metal crosses we wear, the real thing — the real cross — was ugly and violent. Nigerian spoken-word poet Fragile Dogubo knocks down the modern, romanticized version of the cross in her recitation, “Gucci Cross.” She says, “Jesus was not crucified on a Gucci cross. He did not have on a crown of Versace thorns, or Nike shoes

Somewhere along the way, Simon the Zealot saw Jesus for who He really was, having been transformed by Christ’s love and mission of grace in contrast to his former life of violence, political activism, and extremism.It’s also worth noting that Matthew, a former tax collector, was included among the Twelve.To the Zealots, tax collectors, who collecte

Wives also are not immune from their own sinful nature, which makes it difficult for many women to properly submit to their husband’s leadership.As God told Eve in the Garden of Eden, “your desire will be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Genesis 3:16). Similar verbiage is used to describe the way sin sought to “rule over Cain” and how

After you ask you must believe. While it doesn’t take great faith as we mentioned earlier, it does take some faith because God does not respond to no faith. In other words, if you ask but don’t expect God to move then you won’t see God move. Sometimes your faith will require actions that demonstrate you believe. The Bible is full of stories of peop

The Burial Cloths When a body was prepared for burial, it was first cleaned and anointed, then wrapped in strips of linen mingled with spices. Layer upon layer, like a kind of paper mâché, they’d carefully wrap the body in preparation for burial. And the more important the person had been, the more spices and linens were used to wrap around the bod

Some think it means we can just sit back and do nothing, but wait for God to do everything for us. Many take it to mean that God will always make things work out the way we want. And others think it means that God will always do something right away, or at least on our timetable.But Scriptures tell us over and over again that God’s Ways and timing

Needless to say, the tearing of the temple curtain/veil in two was significant in the message God was sending to everyone.What Did the Temple Curtain Tearing Mean?The abovementioned verses reveal that the temple curtain was torn completely in half, which means there wouldn’t be any way back to this separation of God from His people. Jesus died taki

Job – Job 1:5: Job prayed for his children lest they sinned.Cornelius – Acts 10:2, 33: Cornelius was a devout man who feared God along with his whole household (family).Lydia – Acts 16:15: Lydia was a hospitable believer whose whole family knew Jesus as Savior.Lois and Eunice – 2 Timothy 1:5: They lived their faith so Timothy learned through them.W

1. Let Them Grow One of the first things I planted was grapes. We had a chicken run that was built like Fort Knox, but it was a bit of an eyesore. So, I planned to grow grapes over the run. One grapevine grew nicely right where I expected it. Another did not. It kept growing away from the run, with its viny arm reaching out into nothingness. I woul

What Does the Bible Say about Fools? There are different ways the Bible describes a fool. I am going to take much of what the Bible says about fools and define it by three things.1. A Fool Denies the Existence of God“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, their deeds are vile; there is no one who does good” (Psalm 14:1).Th

2 Timothy chronicles more of Paul’s parting thoughts and teachings, as he was in Rome awaiting his execution. He shared about staying strong in grace, being faithful in spreading the gospel, and being aware of false teachers and doctrines. In this letter, Paul also shares his wish for Timothy to travel to Rome and support him as he prepare for his

Sometimes you may need to demonstrate self-control when everything around you is screaming not to do it. In these moments, self-control helps you focus on the greater purpose.Consider for a moment what Jesus endured. Think of the self-control it took for Jesus when he was before Pilate or when he was hanging on the cross. At any moment he could hav

Is There Any Significance to the Order of the Commandments?The commandments are not named in order of importance. All the commandments are God-given and vital to our spiritual health. Ideally, they should all be part of our moral code. But it’s interesting to note that the Laws seem to fall into loose categories.Commandments 1 through 4 tell us to

“For this is contained in Scripture: ‘BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A CHOICE STONE, A PRECIOUS CORNER stone, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED’” (1 Peter 2:6).How Does the Bible Say We Should Treat Others in this Earthly Home?As citizens of Heaven, how we view this temporary world matters. What we think and believe about our nation determ

Elijah prays: “LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.” (1 Kings 18:37)God listened (1 King

The Lord is merciful and compassionate, not desiring any to perish but all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). He is the God of second chances. Phew, that’s lucky, isn’t it? Actually, luck has no part to play at all. None of this was random. The Lord had a purpose and a plan from the very beginning to save His people. He chose us before the founda

You can say no.No is not a four-letter word, yet somehow, we treat it that way. Sometimes you say no because you don’t have the capacity to do it. Other times you say no because you don’t have the gifting to do it, or you recognize what they are asking is outside of your calling. I am not telling you to say no if they ask you to pitch in and help o

Time continues to march forward, and people live their lives as they please, and many will be unprepared when He comes again, just like people had been warned, but were unprepared, when the flood came during Noah’s lifetime.Are Wars Today a Sign of the End Times?In a technical sense, the end times began when Jesus ascended to Heaven. When the Lord