Got Liturgy?

More from Jesus on hypocrites and the rewards they desire. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. Do you […]

Your Right Hand

Going to finish this section today, leading up to the Lord’s Prayer. I started yesterday and didn’t make it beyond verse one. So, we will start in verse two. Funny how that works… “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the […]

Audience of One

No messages the past two days, these two days have possibly been my two worst since beginning my walk with the Lord about 2 1/2 years ago. I began to write this particular message Tuesday morning, and the passage was just screaming at me. I could not write. My spirit was (and really still is) […]

The Bible Says…

We are getting to the jump off point now for many would be Christians. We are at the hard points of the teachings of Jesus, the points where even those who want to follow find it too unwise, too risky, too hard. Just as many of Jesus’ early disciples turned away and left, we still […]

Who We Are.

And now it’s time for something completely different. I’m still in the sermon on the mount, but we’ve come to the last two sections of Matthew 5, the sections on retaliation and the section on loving (and praying) for our enemies. Nobody else in history, before or after, taught his or her followers to turn […]

Whose Will be Done?

A fourth contrast used by Jesus, comparing the old letter-of-the-law righteousness with the righteousness of the kingdom hearted person living for God. Once again, it can be pretty convicting for us modern day people with just the general practices of how we relate to each other. Again you have heard that it was said to […]

My First Neighbor

I’m going to upset some people today, but sometimes there’s no way to it but to go right through it. I’m going back to the sermon on the mount, we have a long way to go with this. But the subject we’ve come to now is a sticky subject: Jesus’ teaching about divorce. But, we’ve […]

No Doubt

I’ve been offline for a week, enjoying beautiful, sunny Fort Lauderdale with my wife for a few days, now back home in Maryland preparing for a potential winter storm. Fort Lauderdale , home of white sandy beaches and more yachts per square inch than any other place in the world (unofficially), certainly seems better. But […]

Seeing Our Sin

John 3:16. The most famous scripture in the New Testament, maybe the entire bible. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. God loved the world, the whole world. He so loved the world that he gave his only […]

Your Bloody Stump

Some of us love to follow rules. We can be really good at following rules. We like to know exactly where the line in the sand is. Some of us want to know exactly how far over that line they can go before they meet some opposing force that’s going to let them know for […]