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The Torah was so steeped in sacredness that the elders of Israel put a hedge of protection around it so that no man could misunderstand and break the Law. Then the next generation put a hedge around that hedge, and again another hedge around that hedge on down through the centuries until Tradition out weighed the Torah by 18 volumes of tiny type to one small volume held in one hand.

Deuteronomy 10:16 And you shall circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and you shall not harden your neck any more.

Always the outward symbol of the covenant with God was circumcision.…  ( Click for more )

And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, "Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" Matthew 9:11

The Pharisees asked the Disciples, not Jesus … Why?

But Jesus heard the question and replied "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick do. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."

The puffed up Pharisees may have thought that they were righteous and had no need for repentance. Jesus'…  ( Click for more )

A leper comes up to Jesus and says: Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.

Not “heal me” or “make me well.” We learn a lot from that Greek word used here. If we look closely at how it is used in a moral sense, we can get an excellent understanding what Jesus’ blood does for believers. The Greek word is katharizō. It means:

1) to make clean, cleanse

1a) from physical stains and dirt

1a1) utensils, food

1a2) a leper, to cleanse by curing

1a3) to remove by cleansing

1b) in a moral sense

1b1) to free from…  ( Click for more )

Centuries before Jesus was led to Golgotha, God provided a picture of that event, a promise to His chosen people in the form of the Passover. He said it was to be an ordinance forever. Even today, Jews have Passover Sedar and speak the Hagadah. All Christians should understand how completely Jesus fulfills the Passover. We remember Him when we take communion, but we need to understand that Jesus was promised for millenea before He was cut off, and that everything prophesied was fulfilled in Him.

The lighting…

The lighting of the candles... Only the woman of the…  ( Click for more )

Someone once pointed out to me that the notion of forgiving yourself was not a Biblical principle. I hunted and searched for hours trying to find something in the Bible about forgiving oneself. The closest I came was David’s Psalm 51 when he asked God to create in him a clean heart and to renew a right spirit within him. When you compare his Psalm 32 in verse 3 When I kept silence, then my bones became old, through my howling all day. We see the consequences of unconfessed sin. But that is different from forgiving one’s self for past transgressions which we have confessed…  ( Click for more )

I love spinach. Yes, I truly do. Well, the more accurate truth is that I like spinach very much. I don’t actually love spinach.

Adages saturate our lives: “You can’t help whom you love,” and “Love blossoms in strange places.”

But I rarely hear the truth about love. Satan has built a huge cult about infatuation and lust calling it true love. Things like “You don’t have a choice about whom you love,” and “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” One word describes those lies. Poppycock! …  ( Click for more )

Jesus uses the word mercy with the intent of compassion, kindness, or good will towards those who are miserable and afflicted. The Greek word is éleos. According to Vine’s it is the outward manifestation of pity and assumes the need of the one who receives it.

So when Jesus says, “The merciful will receive mercy,” that assumes the need of the one giving the mercy as well as the one the merciful bestows mercy upon. How fascinating! Oh, not that God receives mercy. No, God is rich in mercy (Ephesians 2:4), so what He pours out of the windows…  ( Click for more )

They that mourn are happy. What a conundrum. I was wondering how mourning and happiness being in the same person at the same time. I thought of all the weeping passages (well probably not all of them). There are so many different things that people in the Bible mourned over. Abraham mourned and wept when Sarah died. Joseph wept when his brothers came to him in Egypt. Jephthah made a foolish vow to God to sacrifice the first thing that came out of his door if He would vanquish his enemies for him. The first thing out the door was his beautiful daughter. It became a custom…  ( Click for more )

In my Thursday morning Bible study, we’re walking through Matthew. We’ve made it to Chapter 5. One of my ladies said she just zipped through the chapter, and another one said she found tons about it on the Internet. I was struck by the familiarity I have with the Beatitudes as well. It is so tempting to rely upon one’s existing knowledge when teaching something familiar. I am so glad that I dug deep, because I learned so much. I realized after three pages of notes that we would not make it through the whole chapter in one sitting. There is just too much…  ( Click for more )

Prejudice vilifying prejudice is the same as the pot calling the kettle black.

A man, former fire chief of Atlanta Kelvin Cochran, was fired from his job. He's black. He's a Christian. He wrote a book. Which one of those things do you think prompted the mayor to fire him?

Here in Mississippi a person can be fired for absolutely no reason at all. I know because I experienced that. Only God knows what the real reason was. I think it was because I was perceived as a threat to the passage of the sale of alcohol within the city limits (our county is a dry county). I stood…  ( Click for more )

One of the things that sets humans apart from the baser animal kingdom is self-control, deductive reasoning, and planning. To be promiscuous as well as indiscriminate, a person is living a risk-filled lifestyle with probability of STDs and pregnancy. Birth control merely opens the door wider for health risks, rather than preventive medicine. The only 100% effective birth control is abstinence which I taught both my daughters.

I'm talking about how society has cheapened the value of life.

The Institute of Medicine reports that free birth control such as pills, IUDs,…  ( Click for more )

Several years ago I wrote several stories , one for each part of the Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The story on goodness gave me pause. The idea of goodness is not foreign, but to define it was difficult for me. I’m talking about the biblical definition. If you recall, Jesus said, “There is only One good.” (Luke 18:19) What did He mean by that?

There are two Greek words for good. Agathos (ag-ath-os’), a primary word meaning intrinsic benefit or well; kalos (kal-os'),…  ( Click for more )

Several years ago I wrote several stories , one for each part of the Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The story on goodness gave me pause. The idea of goodness is not foreign, but to define it was difficult for me. I’m talking about the biblical definition. If you recall, Jesus said, “There is only One good.” (Luke 18:19) What did He mean by that?

There are two Greek words for good. Agathos (ag-ath-os’), a primary word meaning intrinsic benefit or well; kalos (kal-os'),…  ( Click for more )

In my house this year, we had a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. You know, rather small and insignificant looking with only 70 lights and a few red bells for decoration. It is a live tree, though, green and straight, not leaning over, or withered looking. We were just too sick this year to drag out all the decorations or to do much shopping. However, in your living room or somewhere in your house there may be a green tree standing tall and draped with beautiful, tinkling jewels of light and glory.

I didn’t hear much conversation this year about Holiday tree versus Christmas…  ( Click for more )

I was concentrating so hard on my work that I never noticed it was getting harder for me to breathe. I rose to grab a cup of coffee and was shocked that my head swam so much I staggered. Suddenly chills ran over me and I knew that the bug going around was not satisfied with just taking up residence in my chest, but had to have my head, too.

I didn’t have time to get sick. So many things had to be done, work had to be fed into the pipeline so others could do their job. So I sucked it up and kept plodding along. Never mind that it took twice as long to do what I…  ( Click for more )

Little, sweet baby feet. Mary will soon cover them with her hand, warming them against the night chill. She has treasured in her heart all the words spoken about her first born Son. Things like, "The angel was so glorious, shouting out praises to God on High and the Good News! The Messiah is born! Our long awaited Savior, the Lord, is born!" And word went out publically, through the bright streets of Bethelehem. The star shining down on the child. The little feet, toes curled against the chill, wiggled in His mother's hand. Eight day old, tiny feet with…  ( Click for more )

Something I had not thought about before is those wicked kings that show up in Jesus’ lineage. Matthew Henry points out that grace does not run in the blood. Here’s what he says:

Some observe what a mixture there was of good and bad in the succession of these kings; as for instance (Matthew 1:7-8), wicked Roboam begat wicked Abia; wicked Abia begat good Asa; good Asa begat good Josaphat; good Josaphat begat wicked Joram. Grace does not run in the blood, neither does reigning sin. God's grace is his own, and he gives or withholds it as he pleases.

Often…  ( Click for more )

But let all who put their trust in You rejoice; let them shout for joy forever, because You cover them. And let those who love Your name be joyful in You. Psalm 5:11

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

Jesus said to him, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes." Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" Mark 9:23-24

The Psalm was written and sung long after God had performed many miracles: …  ( Click for more )

...I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking with me, saying, "Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this." 2Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. 3And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald. (Revelation 4:1-3)

Then a voice like a trumpet called out, “Come up here!”

I ask you, who…  ( Click for more )

Luke 15:8 Or what woman having ten drachmas, if she loses one drachma does not light a lamp and sweep the house, and look carefully until she finds it? 9 And finding it, she calls together the friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma which I lost.

The drachmas, in Jesus time, was equivalent to the Roman denarii and was worth about 18 cents, so ten coins was worth about $2 or approximately ten days wages. James Merritt told his congregation back in March of 2002 that these ten coins this woman possessed were her engagement ring and…  ( Click for more )

GOD smelled the sweet fragrance and thought to himself, "I'll never again curse the ground because of people. I know they have this bent toward evil from an early age, but I'll never again kill off everything living as I've just done. (Genesis href="http://www.studylight.org/desk/index.cgi?q1=Gen+8:21&t1=_msg">Genesis 8:21 MSG)

Noah was offering the sacrifices that God had told him to bring with him into the ark. Not only were there two of every kind of unclean animal and creepy crawlies in the ark, but there were also seven pairs of clean animals and creepers …  ( Click for more )

There was a story told long ago about a certain wealthy man. He had so much wealth he struggled to remain alive because he did not want to leave behind his wealth when he died. When that fatal day finally came, the angels came for him, and he begged and pleaded to bring at least some of his gold with him to Heaven. The angel tried to explain to him that naked he came into the world and naked he would leave. But, his gold had never let him down. He had always been able to open locked doors with it and to build bridges to foreign lands with it. So after vigorous pleading,…  ( Click for more )

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive” (Scott, 1808).

Frankly, we are all guilty. (James 2:10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.) The question remains though: Should public officials, pastors, and ministerial staff be held to a higher standard? Is there any lie that is okay for any of these guys to tell?

Let’s take a look at a few examples…

Corrie Ten Boom tells of a family who were hiding Jews from the Nazis. The grandmother of the household was so nervous…  ( Click for more )

I always know when the music swells and the snow starts falling the movie is over, and the couple, entwined in each other’s arms will live happily ever after. However, for the two hours (or hour and a half depending on commercials) before this special moment the couple have waged a battle of the sexes or have montage-d through a breathy song or two to fall in love. They look deeply into each other’s eyes and suddenly realize that life is unbearable if the other is not around. They seem to know this because we need another montage and breathy song to tell us they…  ( Click for more )