“The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.” (Psalm 138:8) Verse eight follows verse seven, where the psalmist says to god, “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life. You stretch out  your hand against the wrath of my enemies, and your right hand delivers me.” We all have times when trouble surrounds us on every side, where the heat is on, angry voices mock and scorn us. Sometimes the enemy works through people, sometimes it’s a voice inside our heads. Either way, it is allRead More →

“As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.” (Psalm 103:13) Sadly, some of us can’t relate to this verse. Our fathers weren’t compassionate, and we certainly didn’t associate the fear our fathers produced leading to him being gentle, kind, and loving toward us. Verses six through twelve give us insight into what this creature called a compassionate father is supposed to be like, however. Elsewhere we learn God’s people are also the bride of his son, and the son does what he sees his father doing, hence all of this applies to husband-wife relationship, too. TheRead More →

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13) Jesus asks us in the preceding verses which of us would deliberately give their child something harmful and poisonous when their child asks their parent to meet a basic need the child has to sustain life. Sadly, in our day, we can imagine, if not understand, people who would deliberately and knowingly kill their own child. The fact still remains, all but the heartless sociopath and the selfish narcissist at least have a desireRead More →

“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:17-19) Today we are handed a fragment of a prayer that begins in verse fourteen and we learn the purpose of it from verse thirteen: So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. For this reason I bowRead More →

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:17) The most famous passage in the bible, John 3:15-18,  tells us Christ was lifted up on the cross so all who believe in him would have eternal life, that God loved us so much, he gave us his only son so that no one who believes in Christ should perish. Today’s verse asserts at this point that God’s goal was not to condemn everyone else, but to save the world.  Verse eighteen adds sadly, however, that those whoRead More →