There are two places in the New Testament where God explicitly tells us to “resist” the devil. You may think of James 4:7, as that one seems to be a little more familiar. The second place is in 1 Peter 5:9. Both verbs are imperatives and mean to “set oneself against, oppose, resist.” There are a number of similarities between these two passages in James…

The following is a true story. The names were changed to protect the innocent. There was a young lady in the church who was working two jobs—one during the week and the other on the weekend. The weekend job continually scheduled her to work the entire day on Sunday, and she could not attend worship. So, in order to be able to get to worship on…

I will admit that singing William W. Walford’s “Sweet Hour of Prayer” in worship as a kid was not my favorite song. Praying for a whole hour didn’t sound “sweet” in a little kid’s mind. Over the years (and with a little seasoning of maturity and better understanding of figurative language), the words have much more meaning. For example, when you insert the word “opportunity”…

We have recorded three separate instances in the life of Jesus when He predicted specific details about His impending death. Slowly read these. Consider that He knew all of this ahead of time, and yet He still came, He stayed and He endured it all…for you…and me. Jesus Himself said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders…

It is fun to run across gems in studying the Bible, and when one finds a statement of Jesus tucked away deep inside the book of Acts, it ought to make one pause and process it. Paul gave us this quote from Jesus in Acts 20:35, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” The word “blessed” is the same word found…

Have you ever had your password declined and you could not access a computer, or a website, or an app? Have you ever, perhaps, even forgotten a password and tried several different passwords that you thought might work, but without success? That can be rather frustrating! Can you imagine if prayer worked like that? What if you forgot the “password” for prayer and your access…

Think about the practice of “writing a check” in relationship to Christ’s death. The Bible depicts the death of Christ as a payment that was made on our behalf. Consider this for a moment.  When writing a check, you must put a date on it. When Christ wrote the date, He said, “The hour has come” (John 17:1). For “Pay to the Order of,” He was…

The apostle John wrote the two shortest letters in the New Testament—what we call Second John and Third John. They may be short, but they are mighty and loaded with many golden nuggets, such as the way he closes both books. He said to both the elect lady and Gaius, “I have many things to write to you. I did not wish to do so…