“I will lift up my eyes to the hills – From whence comes my help?” (Psalm 121:1). The KJV places a period at the end of this verse, but six other versions I have looked at place a question mark. Looking at it from that angle, the Psalmist recognizes that the hills and mountains in […]
The basis for this meditation comes from 1 Corinthians 15:53-58. Living in a broken world, we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that “it is appointed for men to die once…” (Hebrews 9:27). Death is so cruel, so cold, and appears to be so permanent; even having been redeemed from the curse of sin and death our […]
Peter, in the midst of portraying to his readers the inheritance that is reserved for them in heaven, points out that they too, like the inheritance, are being kept (guarded over) by the power of God, for that day when salvation will be fully disclosed, 1 Peter 1:5-6. Peter says we are being “kept […]
In 1 Peter 1:3-5 we are told that “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven […]
The disciples were going to have to face life without the physical presence of Jesus in the near future. This was very devastating to Peter, and likely to the other disciples as well. Facing life and the world without His physical presence would be difficult indeed. The same hostilities that He had sustained them […]
Isaiah 33:2 begins by saying, “O Lord, be gracious to us; we have waited for You”. The Amplified Bible says “waited [expectantly]”. What does it mean to “wait” on the Lord? The Hebrew word here is exactly the same one used in Isaiah 40:31, “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; […]
God assures us in Jeremiah 29:11-13 that He is thinking about us, and His thoughts are to give us peace and hope; in other words, He wants us to be safe, well, happy, and to have His favor. His thoughts toward us are not for evil; that is He does not want to afflict us […]
Lamentations, though not identifying the writer, is widely attributed to Jeremiah. The people of God had declined morally in spite of prophetic warnings as recorded in both 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles; this decline led to their being defeated and carried into captivity. On behalf of the nation the prophet sees himself in their seemingly […]
In 1 John 2:25, 28 God has made a promise, this could be translated as “an announcement with the special sense of promise”. This promise is to all those who receive Jesus as both Savior and Lord, and it is the promise of eternal life. Verse 28 gives us three words that guarantee who will […]
Looking again at the promise of joy we find a classical verse in Nehemiah 8:10, where the returnees from captivity assemble in the open square and Ezra the priest reads extensively from the law of God with a group of Levites meticulously explaining the meaning. This apparently produced sorrow for breaking the law, and repentance, […]