Hebrews 12:4-11; Jesus made it very clear in the ‘Parable of the Ten Minas’ that He expected His servants to be trustworthy and productive until His return. The fate of the unfaithful servant challenges all Christians to be fruitful with the time and talents given by the Lord. But what about those who are not […]
Luke 19:11-27; Having established the biblical foundations of fruitfulness as a follower of Christ, week five unpacked a parable of Jesus contrasting those who obey His oommands and those who do not. In the Parable of the Ten Minas, Jesus affirms His eventual return to earth with a word picture of ten sevants who are […]
Romans 12:3-8; Similar to message 3 in this series, we again consulted the instruction of the Apostle Paul in regards to defining Christian frut. Last week in Galatians 5, we unpacked the “Fruit of the Spirit”, which results from yielding to the indwelling Spirit of Christ to allow inner transformation. In Romans 12, Paul details […]
Galatians 5:16-26; Those who receive Jesus as Lord and Savior through the gift of faith and grace of God have two competing inner natures. The old sin nature that every human being inherited from Adam, and the “new man” that is empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit. The Apostle Paul refers to behavior controlled by […]
John 15:5-8; After defining His relatioship to the Father and developing the metaphor of grape vines for His followers in v.1-4, Jesus continues by restating the vital necessity of remaining in Him. Christ promises to remain in those who remain in Him, so they can bear “much fruit”. However branches that apart from Christ are […]
Colossians 1:15-23
John 15:1-4; During his “Upper Room Discourse” of John 13-16, Jesus instruceted His inner circle of disciples on many key truths to shape their upcoming future in active ministry. Christ transitions to an agricultural metaphor in John 15, self-identifying as “the true vine”, while His Father was “The gardener”. Followers of Jesus are the “branch” […]
Numbers 36:1-13 The book of Numbers concludes by revisiting a prior issue that was brought to Moses and the leaders of israel. A man from the tribe of Manasseh had five daughters, but no sons to inherit his precious land gift from the LORD. Zelophehad’s daughers brought the issue before Moses and Yahweh-God ruled in […]
Numbers 35:22-34; Yahweh-God continued with instruction for Israel through Moses concerning accidental death in the community. Those who unintentionally took the life of another person were to flee immediately to a city of refuge, where they would be summonsed to stant trial for the unfortunate situation. If found guilty of murder on the testimony of […]