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The Spirit is restoring the life and blessing of Eden to the people of Jesus. But these people aren’t priests, they’re merchants and fishermen, soldiers and slaves, tax collectors and the poor, they work in the world, not in temples. And yet, they talked and behaved as if they were priests, they...

Matthew 22:12, now the king speaks, hetaire, how did you get in here without a wedding garment? The English language says friend, the Greek says something profoundly different, hetaire is not philos, philos is the warm word for a beloved friend. Jesus uses philos in John 15, when he tells his...

Adam and Eve forfeited their calling as the Royal Priesthood, but God promised that one of their descendants would be an even better priest, who will defeat evil and intervene on their behalf to restore the blessings of Eden. This descendant would be a Royal Priest like Melchizedek, that Abraham...

Matthew 22:12, the Greek word is ephimothe, it comes from the Greek verb phimoo and phimoo does not mean to be silent, it does not mean to be at a loss for words, it means to muzzle, to close the mouth with a physical restraint, to gag, every major Greek lexicon confirms the primary definition...

A spiritual condition of the heart, you know you’re saved, but you constantly feel like you’re outside the room, you believe God tolerates you more than he delights in you. You perform to earn his attention, you carry a low-grade fear of abandonment, even with God. Romans 8:15, but when the...

Romans 7:19, for the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do, these words expose the inner tension that every believer knows, but often feels ashamed to admit. The desire to do good exists, yet the pull of the flesh continues to fight back, Paul did not hide this...

The true unspeakable horror is the multitude the adversary convinced to become the darkness for him, they were thrown from a mountain in the land of Eden through the gates of hell, for thousands of years, the people of Bashan believed this region was a gateway to the supernatural realm, Caesarea...

God’s inviting everyone to be priests, like Adam and Eve were priests in Eden. But, it turns out the people are afraid of God, and they don’t want to come close to God’s presence and so, Moses goes alone up to the top of Mount Sinai. Moses famously gets the Ten Commandments, the first two being...

Is God merciful or vengeful? In Genesis, God chooses one family, the Israelites, from among the nations, he promises that he’s going to rescue the whole world through this family. But Genesis ends with the family of Abraham in Egypt. Exodus chapters 1-18, God rescues Israel from slavery in...

You don’t face mindless monsters or chaotic shadows, but organized, intelligent and deliberate principalities, each with a purpose and each with a specific assignment to corrupt the sons of men. The enemy you face today, an enemy that slips into your lives through the cracks of your character...

Matthew 15:21-28, to understand what happens in this story, you have to understand what happened the day before it, Matthew 15:1-2 opens not with a quiet teaching on a hillside, but with a confrontation. A delegation of Pharisees and scribes has traveled from Jerusalem specifically to challenge...

The word “whoever” still echoes today, it stands as an open door, not a pressure tactic, God does not force belief, love invites and belief becomes the point, where divine grace meets human response. Jesus speaks of perishing, a word many prefer to skip, redefine or ignore, but Jesus did not...

Belief admits that effort cannot save, knowledge cannot redeem and morality cannot restore what sin has broken, belief is an act of humility before it is an act of faith. John 3:16, this may be one reason Jesus did not say whoever behaves or whoever achieves, he said believes. Faith is the only...

John 3:16, God gave his only son, the cost behind the love, love is proven not by words, but by what it is willing to give. Jesus did not say God felt love, he said God gave and what he gave was not excess, not convenience, not something replaceable, he gave his only son. These words carry a...

Temptation is not sin, but its sin’s sedative hallway and hallways were never made for standing still. If you linger in that hallway long enough, your feet will move and when they do, it’s rarely toward holiness. The end of the world is not the collapse of God’s plan, it is the moment when the...

Matthew 15:24, I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. You cannot avoid this, it is too important, because it is not just a test script line that Jesus is running through before revealing his real position, it is, or at least it appears to be, a genuine statement about the scope of his...

Luke 15:11-32, there is one more layer that ties this entire parable to the biggest story in the Bible, the parable has three characters, a father and two sons, one son who left and came back, one son who stayed, but was lost. The Bible has the same structure, humanity left the father, walked...

Exodus 34:6, “Gracious,” the Hebrew word is “khanun,” which is related to the Hebrew noun “khen.” This word “khen” is often translated as “grace” or “favor.” One meaning of khen is delightful or favorable, Psalms 45:1-2, a skilled poet is said to have lips of khen, that is, he can craft...

Grace is not a divine permission for us to continue living as we did before, it is the power of God that empowers us to live differently. Some people take this glorious message and turn it into something that God never intended, if God is so merciful and always forgives us, why should we strive...

Ephesians 2:8-9, this truth has freed millions of people, people who lived crushed by the weight of guilt, trying to please God through rituals and human efforts, finally understood that salvation is a gift, it does not need to be earned, because it never could be. But understanding grace...