Daily Devotional 11-10-2021
1Co 4:9-13 For I think God has displayed us, the apostles, in last place, like men condemned to die: We have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to people. (10) We are fools for Christ, but you are wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are dishonored! (11) Up to the present hour we are both hungry and thirsty; we are poorly clothed, roughly treated, homeless; (12) we labor, working with our own hands. When we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; (13) when we are slandered, we respond graciously. Even now, we are like the scum of the earth, like everyone’s garbage. Paul was no fool. He did not like suffering. He wished they were right. But they weren’t. The apostles followed the path of Christ’s humiliation. As He marched a parade…
Daily Devotional 8-20-2021
1Pe 3:18 For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, One of the shortest and simplest, and yet one of the richest summaries given in the New Testament of the meaning of the Cross of Jesus. Christ died for sins. However, once for all is clearly a contrast with the Old Testament yearly sacrifice on the Day of Atonement and declares the complete sufficiency of Christ’s death. The substitutionary nature of Christ’s death is indicated by the phrase the righteous for the unrighteous. Christ, the “righteous One, uniquely qualified to die as the substitute for the “unrighteous ones”. The divine purpose for Christ’s sacrificial death was man’s reconciliation, to bring people to God. Peter concluded his summary of Christ’s redemptive work by referring…
Daily Devotional 8-18-2021
2Ti 2:8 Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead and descended from David, according to my gospel, Jesus is an example of suffering followed by glory. Remember that Jesus Christ, of the seed of David, was raised from the dead according to Paul’s gospel. The thought is not that Timothy is to remember certain things about the Lord Jesus, but rather that he is to remember the Person Himself, alive from the dead. In one sense, this verse is a brief summary of the gospel which Paul preached. The crucial point in that gospel is the resurrection of the Savior. Hiebert writes: “Not the vision of a crucified Jesus but the vision of a risen Lord is held up before Timothy.” The expression of the seed of David is a simple statement that Jesus is the Christ, the descendant of David, in whom the Messianic promises of God are fulfilled.…