DEATH IS DEAD!

1 CORINTHIANS 15:50-58 Medical researchers work tirelessly to find ways to defeat a range of debilitating diseases. But what if you wake up to the headlines saying death is dead! Would you believe it? The New Testament proclaims that for those who believe in Christ, death is annihilated, reduced to inaction, and incapable of doing what it … [Read more…]

FREE FOOD!

JOHN 6:25-41 Money is tight and feeding is difficult. So when there is free food, people show up anytime, anywhere. When a church, corporation, or even politician wants to attract people to a programme, presentation, or rally, they offer free food. People visit occasion after occasion just for food. Food seems to be more important in … [Read more…]

BREATHTAKING MOMENTS

ECCLESIASTES 2:1-11 Some people believe that life is not calculated by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. I think this thinking is misleading.  If we measure life with mind-boggling moments, we lose the wonder of ordinary moments. Eating, sleeping and breathing seem “common” in the sense that … [Read more…]

DANGEROUS TASK

MATTHEW 1:18-25 Joseph – the father of Jesus. After the stories of the nativity, we do not hear much about him. If we did not know him better, we would think he was an insignificant passer-by, or at most a mere necessity, to support Jesus’ claim to the throne of David. But in fact, the role played … [Read more…]

MAKE A WISH

1 KINGS 3:1-9 The “three wish stories” are said to be repeated in almost all cultures and they all follow a similar theme: a benefactor appears and offers an unsuspecting recipient the opportunity to make three wishes. The fact that these stories are so common suggests that we all want something that we cannot achieve on … [Read more…]

A SKETCH

1 CORINTHIANS 13:8-12 In the 1941 publication, “The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses” by C.S. Lewis, he tells the story of a woman who gave birth to a son while imprisoned in a dungeon. Since he had never seen the world outside the prison, his mother tried to describe it with pencil drawings. When … [Read more…]

ERRONEOUS WORSHIP

ACTS 19:23-41 If you really want to piss people off, threaten their economy. An ugly economic image can lead people to vote out politicians, and the threat of a recession almost drove the apostle Paul out of Ephesus. Because Paul was so successful in getting people to understand that there is only one true God, many Ephesians stopped … [Read more…]

ADVENT OF PEACE

COLOSSIANS 1:19-29 In English, the word peace usually means something like “the absence of war or conflict.” While the biblical concept of shalom encompasses this type of peace, it is only part of what God promised His people in the days leading up to the first coming of Jesus Christ. Peace was lost in the days of … [Read more…]

THE COMPASS

JEREMIAH 29:4-14 On every journey we need a compass to make sure we are going in the right direction. When natural landmarks like stars and planets are obscure, we depend on a device which was probably first invented by the Chinese. The compass is a device that indicates direction for navigation and geographic orientation. It usually consists … [Read more…]

DO NOT FRET

PSALM 37:1-11 Does it surprise you how much attention today’s culture pays to people who stand up for all bad things? Many people become stars and make headlines when they embrace immoral philosophies in their actions (for example: their music, films or shows). While in this dark and cheesy world it is right to be salt and … [Read more…]