When Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome arrive at Jesus’s tomb, they were alarmed to see the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. They discovered an angel sitting in the tomb who said to them,
“Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”
Mark 16:6-7 ESV
This week in my study of Joshua for Community Bible Study, I’ve been thinking a lot about telling the truth. That led me to thinking about God and His Word being 100% true and trustworthy. And like my March 17 post, here we have it again, Jesus tells the truth. He is trustworthy. He isn’t like Lucy with Charlie Brown and a football, saying one thing, only to change His mind a minute later. If God said it, you can believe it.
“Every word of God proves true.” (Proverbs 30:5a)
If you want to have your faith strengthened, take a little time today to watch this video titled “Jericho Unearthed” from Expedition Bible about the archaeological findings at Jericho.
Heavenly Father, You have told us what is true. You have given us Your Word that we might know You and follow You by faith, being fully convinced of what we cannot see. You are trustworthy and Your Word is true. Strengthen us to believe You and obey You, even when it’s hard and even when it’s scary. We pray in the Name of Jesus Christ who is the truth, the life, and the only way to You. Amen.
My son has three big windows in his bedroom. During the day, when the curtains are pulled back, light streams into his room. We have to cover them with 2″ wooden blinds as well as thick room-darkening blinds so that he can sleep past sunrise.
The Most Holy Place in the temple was separated by a 40 foot long curtain which was miraculously torn from top to bottom at the moment of the death of Jesus Christ.
And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last.
And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
Mark 15:37-38 ESV
The book of Hebrews explains more about the significance of this event.
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
Hebrews 9:11-15 ESV
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith…
Hebrews 10:19-22a ESV
Are you refusing to come into the light and be saved, wanting to keep the curtains closed, though they’ve been torn?
Do you want to keep sleeping, though the Savior is calling, “Arise, my love, arise’?
Listen, friend, the time has come to wake up, to step into the light, to put off the deeds of darkness and be clothed in the light of Christ. Come to Jesus today!
Arise, my Love
Softly and Tenderly
Heavenly Father, Thank You for sending Your Only Begotten Son to make a way back to You, to be my Mediator and Redeemer and Savior. Please, Father, draw all men to Yourself. Take the blinders from their eyes. Open their ears. Soften their hearts. For the glory of Your Name in all the earth. Amen.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help me God.
Jesus always and only told the truth.
If He said one of the twelve disciples was going to betray Him, it was so. If He said He would not drink of the vine until He drank it again in the kingdom of God, it was so. If He said, “See, my betrayer is at hand,” it was so.
But Jesus didn’t only speak the truth prophetically. Jesus spoke the truth personally, without exaggeration or hype or grandstanding or posing. He simply spoke truth. The whole truth. And sometimes He simply held His tongue and didn’t say a thing.
I want to be more like Jesus, telling the truth without exaggerating, without twisting or shaping it to make it look nicer, or to make me look better. How about you?
Heavenly Father, Your Word is truth. Every word of Your Word is true. If You said it, we can believe it. We never have to question or doubt what You said. You never exaggerate. You never tried to make Yourself into something You’re not. Please, Father, I want to be more like You. Help me to be content in my weakness, knowing that my weakness glorifies Your immense, almighty, perfect power. Help me to not hide from You, for I trust that You already know all of me. Keep me from the fear of man. Keep me from wanting to show off and win the praise and approval of man. I want to live for Your praise and approval, not theirs. In the Name of Jesus Christ, my Savior, my Lord, my Judge, and my Friend. Amen.
Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come.
Mark 13:33 ESV
When I was little, my parents would sometimes get a babysitter and go out for a late night by themselves. I would try so hard to stay awake in bed until they got home, but I was usually unsuccessful. The following morning, I’d wake up disappointed that I’d missed hearing them come home.
In more recent years, I’ve had a similar, but opposite struggle, trying to stay awake until my teenage children come home. I usually just head to bed and my husband does “staying awake duty” for us both. Like the disciples Peter, James, and John in the garden of Gethsemane, I just can’t seem to stay up for my eyes are so very heavy.
Oh, but I don’t want to miss the return of Jesus! I want to be found watching and waiting with eyes wide open with eager expectation! I want to be on my guard like a watchman in the midst of a fierce battle. My brothers and sisters, my King, and my children, need me – and you – to stay awake. Let us not grow weary of well doing, knowing that in due season we will reap a bountiful harvest, if we do not give up! (Galatians 6:9)
Heavenly Father, Forgive us, please. Too many of Your children have fallen asleep on the job. We have forgotten that we’re in a battle. We have left our battle stations. We have quit watching for our King’s return. We have given up our posts and gone home to our warm beds. Forgive us for falling prey to our adversary’s schemes and temptations. Wake us up, Lord! Your army needs to be shaken awake! We need to hear the trumpet call crying, “I am coming soon! Make way for the return of Your King! Herald the good news to every corner of creation! Make straight the way of the Lord! Put on your armor and take up Your swords and shields, for the battle has already begun!” For Your glory and fame we pray this in the Name of King Jesus! Amen.
I’m trying to look at this chapter as a sum, a whole, a complete thought with an unbroken red thread running through it, rather than a bunch of little unrelated vignettes.
First, Jesus tells a parable about the owner of the vineyard who will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others, for the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and this was the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in His eyes.
And Jesus said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
And then Jesus said to some others, “Have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God told Moses, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”
And then a scribe asked Jesus, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” And after Jesus answered him, the scribe said, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that He is one, and there is no other besides Him. And to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
Jesus saw that the scribe had answered wisely, yet later Jesus said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
And the chapter ends with Jesus praising a poor widow who gave everything she had to live on more than the rich who give large sums out of their abundance.
I see condemnation of pride and self-sufficiency, and praise of humility and trust in God. I see praise of love for God and others and condemnation of love of self. I see God wooing His people who come by faith and condemning those who come by pretense.
I want to come to the Lord on my knees, in humble gratitude for His mercy to me.
Heavenly Father, You are worth my all. Everything I have is from You. I want to give it all back to You. None of it belongs to me. None of it is mine. It’s all Yours. You are the eternal God, the God of the past, the present, and the future. I want to love You with my all and love others the way You have loved me. By Your power and strength and grace at work in me, I give myself back to You. In the Name of Jesus Christ my Savior and my God, I pray. Amen
And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”
Mark 11:25 ESV
Heavenly Father, Thank You for Your grace and mercy and forgiveness. You have forgiven me, not because I deserve it, not because I’ll never do it again, but because of the blood of Jesus shed on my behalf. Help me to trust You more, to trust that You are good and faithful, that You are sovereign Lord over heaven and earth. And as I trust You, help me to forgive others, to lay them once and for all at Your feet, to stop punishing them myself and let Your justice be enough. In the Name of Jesus Christ, my Savior and Judge and Ruler, I pray. Amen.
And as [Jesus] was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.
But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Mark 10:46b-48 ESV
Oh, Heavenly Father, give me faith like Bartimaeus. I want to want YOU more than I want the approval of man. I want to trust You so much that I would willingly embarrass myself to do Your will. I want to cling to You with every ounce of my being. In the Name of Jesus Christ, my Savior and Lord I pray 🙏🏼 Amen.
And [Jesus and His disciples] came to Capernaum. And when [Jesus] was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?”
But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the twelve.
And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”
And he took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”
Mark 9:33-37 ESV
For as much as I love teaching and writing for adults, I think my true calling is to teach children. They have my heart. There is something so special about the childlike faith of a child, their wonder and interest in learning new things, that really gets me excited.
I’m afraid that in the past I preferred focusing my energies on adults because it was a straighter path to becoming “known,” to garnering a larger audience. Like Jesus’s disciples who were arguing about which of them was the greatest, I fear that I was looking for fame, rather than simply being faithful to the Lord’s call.
Which reminds me of the lesson I taught this morning to the 5th-12th graders at my local Community Bible Study class. Here’s an excerpt from the lesson I shared after our study on Joshua 1-5. I hope it blesses you.
So, this week we began our study of the book of Joshua. This year we have already studied Ruth, 1st and 2nd Kings, and Job. These five books feature some of the most famous people in the Bible, people like Ruth, King Saul, King David, Job, and now Joshua.
But what about the two spies whom Rahab hid… Their names were not recorded for us in the scriptures, but they were still vitally important to God. Those two men’s faith was just as valuable as Rahab’s. Or what about the priests who carried the ark of the covenant, or the 12 men who carried the stones, across the Jordan – was their faith any less remarkable?
What about the parents who circumcised their children by faith? Or all those Israelites who kept the Passover by faith?
According to Statista.com, in a 2021 survey, 3,670 American teens between the ages of 13-17 were asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
What do you think these top 5 professions have in common?
Our culture is way too focused on being famous and way too lax about being faithful, simply doing the next thing that God has called us to. We are chasing after “fame and fortune,” instead of “God and goodness.”
If you have been born again, then you have been given the gift of the indwelling of the Holy spirit. The Holy Spirit of God dwells in you. Think about that.
And now He is calling you to just do the next thing, do the next deed of faith.
That may be as simple as reading your Bible and completing your Bible study lesson and then coming here and sharing with your classmates what God taught you that week. That may be as simple as sitting next to or striking up a conversation with someone you don’t know very well. That may be as simple as telling the truth when you want to lie.
Whatever it is, I want you to listen to the Holy Spirit and follow Him. He will never lead you astray.
He might ask you to step out in faith someday, to follow the example of Rahab and hide a fellow believer who is being persecuted for their faith.
He might ask you to step out into your own Jordan River in sharing the gospel with someone, whether a stranger or a friend, trusting that He will keep His promises to be with You as you take that first step.
Your name may never appear on any timeline or any top 10 of anything. You may never be a world-famous athlete or gamer or musician. You may never be a social media influencer or have a YouTube channel with millions of followers and you may never invent anything world-changing.
But, oh think of it, think of this, your name, YOUR name, can be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life! And if your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, you can KNOW beyond any doubt that He has a good plan and purpose for you!
Heavenly Father, I pray that You will raise up more parents and more teachers who will invest their lives in training up children in the way that they should go so that the next generation will place their trust in You. Please, Father, stop us from this crazy pursuit of becoming rich and famous, and help us instead to be faithful to do the next thing. By Your grace and for Your glory. Amen.
Mark 7 ends with Jesus healing a deaf man with a speech impediment, followed in Mark 8 with Jesus feeding a crowd of 4,000 people with only seven loaves of bread and a few fish, and then Jesus healing a blind man.
And right in the middle of all these miracles, Jesus’s own disciples are concerned that they don’t have enough bread to which Jesus says,
“Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear?And do you not remember? When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?”
They said to him, “Twelve.”
“And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?”
And they said to him, “Seven.”
And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”
(Mark 8:17-21)
Heavenly Father, Thank you for giving me eyes to see the beauty of creation, sunrises and sunsets, flowering trees and birds of every color, puffy white clouds and stars in night skies. But even more than that, thank You for opening my eyes to see You. I see You in creation, and I see You in the Scriptures, and I see You in my life. Thank You for giving me ears to hear the music of creation. Falling rain and rumbling thunder, singing birds and babbling babies, roaring lions and bleating lambs, they all sing your praises. But even more I thank You for giving me ears to hear Your voice. I hear You speak by Your Spirit in my heart, and I hear You speak by Your Word on the page. I hear You, Lord. Thank You. Now, please, help me, Father, to understand and remember what You have spoken and what You have revealed. Help me to fix my mind on the things that are above, the truth of who You are, Your goodness and power and faithfulness, Your wisdom and love. For the glory of Your Name and the good of Your people. Amen.
Let’s just look at just yesterday, a regular day in my life. To start off the day, I turned off my alarm and stayed in bed much later than I should’ve, then found myself hurrying through my time in the Word. At lunch I burned a small bowl of diced carrots in the microwave. Carrots? Yes, carrots. Who does that? Then, in the afternoon, I started cleaning out my office so my daughter could use it as her bedroom, but I got distracted and ended up spending two hours going through a tub of memorabilia that I found in the closet. In the evening, I was grumpy and short-tempered with my husband for no good reason at all. And I’m sure this list doesn’t cover a tenth of all the decidedly un-well things I thought, said, or did yesterday.
But God. God does ALL things well. All things. Well. He does all things WELL.
And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”
Mark 7:37 ESV
And because He does all things WELL, I have nothing to fear as I trust in Him.
He Maketh No Mistake
My Father’s way may twist and turn My heart may throb and ache, But in my soul I’m glad to know, He maketh no mistake.
My cherished plans may go astray, My hopes may fade away, But still I’ll trust my Lord to lead, For He doth know the way.
Tho’ night be dark and it may seem That day will never break, I’ll pin my faith, my all, in Him, He maketh no mistake.
There’s so much now I cannot see, My eyesight’s far too dim, But come what may, I’ll simply trust and leave it all to Him.
For by and by the mist will lift, And plain it all He’ll make, Through all the way, tho’ dark to me, He made not one mistake.
Heavenly Father, all Your ways are perfect and right and just and wise. I have nothing to fear for You are always with me, guiding me and helping me. Day after day, You lead me and take care of me for I am Your little lamb and You are my good shepherd. You do all things well. In the Name of Jesus Christ my Savior and Lord I pray. Amen.
Teach What is Good 
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