Blog Posts containing "Sin"

Matthew 26:14-27:66: “Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, Lema sabachthani?", that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. There are Christians who are confused with the death of Jesus and some angry and fearful that God would do such a thing to His Son. How can anyone understand this? This scripture is one of the most difficult to understand in a worldly way. It must be understood spiritually, in a godly way. We are rationally looking at the same thing in the same way. To understand it, we must look spiritually at the same thing in a spiritual way. We need to spiritually wonder what difference the death of Jesus on the cross makes when we are out of the Love of His Spirit and when we are in the Love of His Spirit.  Read more

John 9:1-41 “Open wide the eyes of my soul.” John got grace. Now, all of us got grace in the eyes of the Lord. Our issue is to let grace get us. John got grace spiritually. He also “got” grace rationally; that is, he understood the difference being in or out of grace makes in our life by moving from the rational physical to the conscious spiritual. This chapter is one of the best of his exercises. It is tricky in that for the first thirty nine verses we are talking about physical blindness, then in the last three verses he jumps into writing about spiritual blindness. The purpose is to find out if the reader can make the shift. It is good practice to see if you can get the Grace.  Read more

“All sins shall be forgiven and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.” Mark 3:28-29 Those seeking a literal answer ask, “What is the unforgivable sin?”  Read more

Did you catch the point of this story? Granted there are many minor points. There is the healing of the lepers, the one who came back to give thanks. There is Jesus telling him that his Faith has made him whole. What is the big point? Did you miss it?  Read more

Pentecost. The need to witness today is the same as it was in the time of the first disciples. How we witness must be updated. We have computers, cell phones, Facebook, Twitter. How do we utilize them to witness? We need to make a paradigm shift. It is called DISCIPLE‑SHIFT. The DISCIPLE‑SHIFT offers an inventive way to grow spiritually and to witness to others about the grace of God within us all.  Read more

Jesus loved being human. His greatest joy was being with people. That is why the sinners gathered around Him. He was non judgmental, loving but best of all they all had a good time. The Pharisees did not interrupt Jesus and His group. They preferred to murmur away from them but loud enough so their griping could be heard by all. "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." Jesus then leaves His group and calmly walks over to the Pharisees and tells the familiar story we call the “Prodigal Son.”  Read more

Jesus tells the parable of a tree that has been given one chance after another by the gardener. The master is tired of waiting for it to produce fruit. Chop it down. The gardener replies, give me one more chance and I will fertilize it and perhaps it will start to produce. Alright, one more chance. We never know what happens to the tree. That is because Jesus wants to leave what happens to it up to us. We are the tree. Repenting in a worldly way is to confess our sins because that is what we did. The emphasis in the parable is on the sin, not sins. Sin is separation from God. Apart from God, we can do nothing. There is no fruit. John 15:5   Read more

Luke 23:33-43. On Christ the King Sunday the scripture used is "They crucified Jesus." Oops, that must be the wrong one. It is all about the crucifixion, the darkest day in the Life of Christ. Why in the world would anyone use that scripture?  Read more

John was the one who proclaimed Jesus to be the Lamb of God who took away the Sin of the World. John did not say "sins" but "Sin". Many miss this New Testament definition of "Sin". "Sin" is missing the mark. It is separation from God. It is the cause of all "sins". Sins are symptoms of this separation. When in the Presence of the Love of God, one does not want to commit "sins". We need to stop spending time on trying to take away the sins of the World. We need to have disciples who know that the Power of being in the Grace Presence is God's way of bringing Peace on the earth.  Read more

The Seven Last Words of Jesus on the Cross  Read more