In Ecclesiastes 8 & 9, Solomon continues his evaluation of life under the sun by evaluating the value of wisdom and the problem of evil in the world. When viewing the world through God's lens, and seeing things in their proper perspective, Solomon concludes that fallen man has helped create evil and problems of one kind or another. God's greatest judgment is to let us have our own way. The day is coming when wickedness will be judged and evil will not escape. We are to cling to Jesus, humbly...
Sep 30, 2024•13 min
In Ecclesiastes 6 & 7, Solomon further explores the meaning of life under the sun. He sees the futility of wealth without purpose. When we love the gift, but not the Giver - we are walking in idolatry. All our provisions come from God and when we steward every resource given with a desire to glorifying God through it and expanding His Kingdom - wealth finds its purpose. Solomon comes to the conclusion that anything under the sun is meaningless without THE Son. We may not always understand ev...
Sep 25, 2024•14 min
In Ecclesiastes 4 & 5, Solomon takes time to study and evaluate how people live and what they experience in the judicial system, their daily work, as well as in the Temple. He discovered that unless we are working for the Lord and have peace in and with Him, following His lead, His will and worshiping Him heart and soul, it is all futile and meaningless. Money will never satisfy. There will always be more to attain in this world, but just when you attain one thing, your eyes get set on somet...
Sep 24, 2024•12 min
(John 20:19-23; Luke 24:36-49) When we entrust our lives to Jesus, He replaces our fears with faith. Jesus has overcome death and gives us His offer of eternal peace in and through Him. God gave us His exhale and Jesus give us His Life. Where fear paralyzes, the power and peace of Jesus gives us purpose.
Sep 21, 2024•14 min
In Ecclesiastes 3, Solomon evaluates time and seasons of life. Do you ever think to yourself, "If I can just get through this season of life, then it will be better?" Or maybe, I can't wait until I'm at that level." The thing is, there's always going to be another level and another season. God wants us to be present where He has placed us in the here and now. He wants us to experience Him fully now - on earth. He wants us to pursue Him, heart and soul. We walk through different seasons in life s...
Sep 20, 2024•12 min
In Ecclesiastes 2, Solomon continues evaluating life and the meaning of life. He experimented with one thing after the other applying the wisdom God had poured into him. In this chapter, he evaluates the pleasures of life as well as life's work. Solomon had anything he could ever want at his disposal. No matter how much entertainment, wine, or fleshly pleasures he indulged in - it all left him empty. He built great buildings, cities, vineyards, and orchards. He loved projects. But even in work, ...
Sep 19, 2024•13 min
In Ecclesiastes 1, Solomon explores life, and the meaning of life under the sun. If we don't go beyond the sun to the Son, life under the sun is futile. Jesus is the meaning of life and He is the One who gives us purpose and reason. He is the One who fills our lungs with the air we breath. He is the One who brings life to Life, while we are on earth as well as for all eternity. When you know Jesus personally, and live for Him faithfully, you will experience Him fully. All the wealth, possessions...
Sep 18, 2024•13 min
Proverbs 29, 30, & 31 wrap up the Book of Proverbs. God promises His Word is pure. He is a shield for those who take refuge in Him, for those who abide in Jesus. We can choose to hide yourself in Jesus and surrender to His will. We can depend on Him through every season and every aspect of life. We can let Him lead and guide us. I am not self-confident, I am God-confident. My confidence is absent without God. I am only confident in Him. I need Jesus. We all need Jesus. I'm eternally thankful...
Sep 17, 2024•16 min
In Proverbs 26, 27, & 28, we learn the differences between living a foolish live verses living under the wise direction, counsel, and guidance of the Lord. Who we surround ourselves with through life matters because we start to become like the company we keep. We need to seek the Lord and His wisdom on who is to be allowed in our inner circles of life. People who pursue Jesus heart and soul belong in our inner circles. People who challenge and oppose God and His terms do not. Iron sharpens i...
Sep 16, 2024•14 min
(Luke 24:13-35) The Walk to Emmaus: A Journey of Hope. Jesus enters into our brokenness and disappointments by walking alongside us within our everyday lives. He is with us. He is present. At times our expectations of what we think should be blinds us to the full reality of who Jesus is, what He's doing within us and in our lives, and that He's truly with us through it all. Trust in Jesus. Don't give up. Don't lose hope. Cling to Jesus with all your guts and don't let go. Don't ever let go....
Sep 14, 2024•15 min
In Proverbs 23, 24, & 25, God pours out more truths for wise living while we are on this temporary earth. Follow His guide, His lead, and trust His wisdom, heart and soul. Honey often symbolizes the Word of God in Scriptures. Just as honey sooths, heals, nourishes, and protects our bodies, the Word of God does all that and more for our bodies, minds, and spirits. Honey is the only food that includes all the substances necessary to sustain life including enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and water...
Sep 13, 2024•16 min
In Proverbs 20, 21, & 22, We learn to trust the Lord for literally everything. We need to take our hands off the wheel, stop trying to control the rudder of our lives, and pray. Prayer is the fuel for the jet engine of life. Seek the Lord. Listen to the Lord. Follow His instruction and direction. Let Him lead and guide and trust that He truly is moving in the wait. Don't stop praying. Trust His wisdom and power. Don't let the enemy discourage you. Keep praying for that miracle. Keep praying ...
Sep 12, 2024•14 min
In Proverbs 17, 18, & 19, we are reminded that isolation is not good. We are created by God for God and for community and relationship. Isolation leads to pursuing selfish desires, sin and ultimately destruction. We are told repeatedly to watch our words withing those relationships and communities. We all tend to have too many words and need to be intentional about following Jesus and the lead of the Holy Spirit in everything - especially our words. Words are to encourage and build up, not t...
Sep 11, 2024•15 min
In Proverbs 15 & 16, the emphasis is again on our words. Our words matter and how we say our words matters. Pride, arrogance, and harshness only stirs up more and more anger and division. A gentle, softer, kinder, loving word of encouragement turns away anger and division. How we respond to life matters. God knows how and why we are using our tongues and the heart and motives behind our words. Are we encouraging others to pursue Jesus and magnifying the love, kindness, mercy, grace, and forg...
Sep 10, 2024•13 min
In Proverbs 12, 13, & 14, we are shown the difference in life between being foolish or wise and wicked or loving. A lot of emphasis is put on the words we speak because it's of our hearts that words are spoken. If we squeeze toothpaste out of the tube, you cannot get it back in the tube. It's out for good. The same goes for our words. We need to be yielded to Jesus and let the Holy Spirit lead and move in every area of our lives, especially the words we speak. We need to be intentional to no...
Sep 09, 2024•13 min
(John 20:1-18) Jesus shouted through the folded linen left in the empty tomb: "I'm coming back! I'm not finished!" John, Peter, and Mary got the message loud and clear and Jesus desperately hopes we do as well and that our hearts are humble and prepared for His return.
Sep 07, 2024•14 min
In Proverbs 10 & 11, we are taught the difference between the wise, the foolish and the lazy. We are shown what it is to be faithfully generous before the Lord rather than greedily wicked. Wise people listen to God's Word and pursue His holiness. Wise people spend intentional time with God letting His presence saturation your entire being. Wise people fear the Lord with reverent awe and worship of His glory and who He is. Wise people only allow others who are passionately pursuing Jesus and ...
Sep 06, 2024•14 min
Proverbs 7, 8, & 9 offer us an invitation to join Wisdom, join Jesus, and eat with Him at His table. We have to choose to join Jesus at His table and consume His Word every single day. We need to be intentional and remain in continual prayer letting Him guide our steps every single day. If we miss a day with Jesus, we will get hungry and temptations for sin will rise up. It's just like missing a day of food - all the sudden those M&M's look like even better. They might even have a glow. ...
Sep 05, 2024•14 min
In Proverbs 4, 5, & 6, we are shown there is great wisdom in running away from sin and temptations. Whether the temptations come from Satan, our own fleshly desires, or the world around us - we need to run away. Resisting temptation is a lot less difficult if the temptation is no where near us. Like Joseph, run away with all you've got. If you have repented from sin and submitted your heart and life to Jesus, His Holy Spirit resides in you. You have the power to say no to sin and temptations...
Sep 04, 2024•17 min
In Proverbs 2 & 3, the benefits of seeking the wisdom of the Lord in everything we do and say are revealed. Wisdom protects your path with the Lord. The only way to end up at the right destination is to choose the right road. Scripture continually encourages us to choose God's path and follow Him, heart and soul. We all have to pick a road in life and there is no "middle" road available. When you lean against a tree, you are trusting in the tree's ability and strength to hold you up. You bel...
Sep 03, 2024•12 min
The nails did not keep Jesus on the cross. His passionate love for each and every one of us did. No one can force us to love Jesus. It's up to us to choose to pursue Him and His holiness every day He gives us. It's up to us to humbly submit our hearts, lives, and wills to Jesus with all our guts. It's up to us to put our trust in Him, heart and soul. Radical-sacrificial-risk-taking obedience to Jesus is driven by love.
Aug 31, 2024•15 min
In Proverbs 1, we are introduced to the Book of wisdom. The Book that God wrote through King Solomon, who was given great wisdom by God Himself. We are given comparisons between common, concrete images and life's most profound truths. Through God's Word, we learn the fundamentals of how to live out His Word in our everyday daily lives and follow His path and plan for our lives. Everyday we wake up and throughout our days, we have a choice to make. Are you going to follow God's way? Or the way of...
Aug 30, 2024•11 min
In Psalm 148, 149, & 150, the emphasis of the psalmist is on praising and worshiping the Lord with everything in us - our entire being - heart and soul. All of creation praises the Lord and worships the Lord simply by doing what God commands. We are created in God's very image and yet we struggle the most with humbly submitting ourselves to the Lord and honoring and glorifying Him in all we do and say. All the earth praises the Lord and God calls us to praise Him too. The best remedy for a d...
Aug 29, 2024•11 min
In Psalms 144, 145, 146, & 147, the psalmists encourage us to to praise the Lord and worship Him heart and soul. God is mighty and delivers us victoriously. He cares for us personally and graciously blesses us, even though we truly don't deserve it. No matter what is going on around us, we can choose to praise the Lord. He is all-wise, infinite, sovereign, holy, omniscient, faithful, unchanging, eternal, self-sufficient, self-existent, omnipresent, omnipotent, good, just, merciful, loving, h...
Aug 28, 2024•13 min
In Psalm 140, 141, 142, & 143, David brings every heart-cry, every emotion, every fear, every detail of every situation straight to the Throne of God. God wants to hear from us. He wants a real, true, honest, and sincere relationship with us. He knows us more intimately than we will every know anyone on earth and He wants us to know and experience Him as well. He is a good, loving Father and He wants us to go to Him for everything, not the world. Our prayers rise to the Throne of God like in...
Aug 27, 2024•15 min
In Psalm 137, 138, & 139, the psalmists long for God and His presence and seek His face in every moment of the day. God loves us and hates sin because sin hurts us in every way. He is a loving Father who will discipline us and yell from the heavens to get our attention and turn our paths back to His. He has a perfect plan and purpose for each of our lives to carry His baton of glory forth in the time and space He has placed us in. He needs us passionately pursuing the holiness of Jesus with ...
Aug 26, 2024•14 min
(Lue 22:39-71) Even while preparing for the biggest, most crushing sacrifice of the cosmos, Jesus cared for others and showed His love, compassion, and concern. Jesus wants to bring us to our best in Him while Satan wants to bring us to our worst by pushing us away from Him. It's up to us to choose to stand stubbornly firm in unwavering faith - clinging to Jesus with all our guts, heart and soul.
Aug 24, 2024•18 min
In Psalm 133, 134, 135, & 136, the psalmists encourage unity in praise and worship to the Lord. The Spirit of God joins us together and in love and unity, we glorify Jesus. We are to join together in love and unity and worship and praise our Almighty God. We come before Him humbly with thankful hearts for all He continually pours out for our lives. He is good and His faithful love endures forever. God's love is eternal and trustworthy. His Name endures forever. Every knee will bow before Jes...
Aug 23, 2024•12 min
In Psalms 129, 130, 131, & 132, the psalmists reflect on how to cope with things we go through in life, how to stand firm in faith through suffering and persecution, and how to worship and praise God - looking up - through every storm that comes. As they make their way to Jerusalem to join together in united worship and praise to the Lord, they sing. They sing songs of praise, songs of reflection, songs of encouragement, and songs of worship. They sing together, walk together, and encourage ...
Aug 22, 2024•15 min
Psalms 124, 125, 126, 127, & 128 are Psalms of song and praise to the Lord as they ascend to Jerusalem and gather together to worship the Lord in love and unity. No matter what challenges we may face, we turn to the Lord and trust His mighty hand and His victorious deliverance. God wants to be invited into the battles we face in life. When we humble ourselves, repent, and let God in to lead and guide us - He shows up in big ways. There is joy that is found in the freedom God brings us to. Wh...
Aug 21, 2024•14 min
