Today’s Verse – 1 Corinthians 15:24
Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. —1 Corinthians 15:24 Thoughts on Today’s Verse… Closing time! That’s when everything is counted, the doors are locked, and the final tally is made. Jesus is LORD of closing time. Even though he won the victory over death and sin while on the cross and with the empty tomb (Colossians 2:12-15), we’re still waiting to get swept up into his victory march. That day is coming. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess Jesus’ power, glory, and reign (Philippians 2:10-11). Every evil power will face destruction. However, the hearts that are yielded to God will be placed into his loving and mighty hands forever and share in his glory (Colossians 3:3-4). Our LORD reigns! My Prayer… Almighty God, Father of grace and mercy, I appreciate your tenderness and patience with me. However, Father, I am also comforted to know your power and might will exert itself fully upon the earth and against the powers of hell. I am heartened to know that Jesus will assert his rule and destroy everything false, malicious, evil, and wicked. Maranatha!* May that day, and our LORD Jesus Christ, come soon! In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen. * In 1 Corinthians 16:22, Paul uses the Aramaic phrase Maranatha, which is translated, “Come, Lord!”All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.
16 Apr 2025
Growth comes partly from revelation. May the Lord reveal Himself to us over and over again. May we be increasingly acquainted with Him and be transformed to be more like Him. Genesis 35:6-15.
Cruciformed #3: Listen to Him!
In a world full of noisy distractions and competing messages, how do we know which voice we should obey and which sign we should follow? I thought to myself, “I will count the signs I see as I exit the freeway and drive the four blocks to the church building.” I was thinking about using the number of signs as an illustration of the many distractions we face in our daily lives. Distractions can derail the most simple of trips, processes, and errands. For someone like me who lives on the ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) side of the street, these distractions easily become a ricochet of focus. We forget our purpose, our mission, and our to-do lists regularly because of the flood of competing messages and tantalizing opportunities. Before I made it half-way through my four blocks, I lost count. I was somewhere over the two-hundred mark. If I hoped to get close to the accurate number, I was going to have to slowly re-walk the short trip. Even going very slowly, there were too many signs to count. Well over four hundred signs were vying for my attention. They bombarded me with all sorts of messages. How do we choose which voice to hear or which sign to follow? In a world full of noisy distractions and competing messages, how do we know which voice we should obey and which sign we should follow? When it comes to the purpose of each of our own lives, who or what are we going to let set our agenda? Whose truth will we believe? Whose message will we heed? As Jesus moved closer to Jerusalem for the final time, God made his answer clear. For the Lord’s closest three disciples, an incredible experience on the mountain became the tuning fork for their future: Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters — one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.) Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” (Mark 9:2-7). We could spend a lot of time talking about how Moses and Elijah were God’s greatest teachers, leaders, prophets, and representatives in Jewish history. All that is true. The respect Moses and Elijah rightfully had was warranted. Still, the voice from heaven declared a re-orienting truth with absolute certainty. As important as Moses and Elijah may have been, those heroes of the past didn’t compare to Jesus. Peter, James, and John must not allow anyone or anything to distract them: This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him! In a world of competing voices, whose voice am I going to choose? Which message will I use to orient my life and set my trajectory for the future? With so many messengers and authorities vying for my attention, where will I find my truth? Of the many intriguing teachers, Which one will I choose to set the direction for my life? Jesus is God’s ultimate message to me (John 1:1-18). No matter how or through whom God spoke in the past, in these days, he still speaks through Jesus (Hebrews 1:1-3). God’s message on the mountain to the three closest disciples of Jesus still speaks through the centuries to remind me: This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him! Will I listen? Will I choose to make his example and teaching my source of truth, my guide for the future, and my hope in the storms of life? Will Jesus be more than my religious mascot? Will his truth shape my life or will I try to redefine what he taught by what I want, feel, and believe? With so many competing visions for my life, just saying that I follow Jesus isn’t enough. His story in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John must be the dominant voice I choose to hear. His life must be the example that re-engineers my own. His cross must be the imprint on my heart that re-shapes my character and inspires my compassion. Anything else, or anyone else, is less. We must not settle for less than Jesus. As God said: This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him! Special thanks for the use of the Jesus images in Phil’s blog, “The Jesus Window,” to Free Bible Images and the The Lumo Project. About the author: Phil Ware has authored 11 years of daily devotionals, including VerseoftheDay.com, read by 500,000 people a day. He works with churches in transition with Interim Ministry Partners and for the past 21+ years, he has been editor and president of HEARTLIGHT Magazine, author of VerseoftheDay.com, God’s Holy Fire (on the Holy Spirit), and aYearwithJesus.com. Phil has also authored four books, daily devotionals on each of the four gospels.
Today’s Verse – 1 Corinthians 15:20
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. —1 Corinthians 15:20 Thoughts on Today’s Verse… The angels at the empty tomb of Jesus asked the women (Luke 24:5), “Why do you look for the living among the dead?” These words are also the angels’ words to us. Jesus is risen, and one day, so will we be raised from the dead: Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (1 Corinthians 15:20, 23). He guarantees that God’s harvest of all people will one day occur. He is our assurance as believers and disciples that we, too, will be raised from death and death will no longer have a hold on us! We are God’s eternal children, and death cannot separate us from his presence or love (Romans 8:37-39). My Prayer… Father God, I praise you for your redeeming grace. I rejoice in your conquest over Satan and over his power to wound and destroy through death. I thank you for your power over the grave. Thank you for raising Jesus from the dead and giving me the assurance of life forever with you. Please bless me, dear Father, with a life that reflects the power that you have now working in me. In Jesus’ name, I pray this. Amen. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.
15 Apr 2025
My expectation is to grow in knowing God and my life reflecting Him in all areas. May the Lord help me to reflect Him always. I may be in a similar environment with others, but I pray that my life will stand out for His glory. Matthew 14:22-33.
Cruciformed #2: Beyond Our Blurry Vision
As we journey with Jesus down his way of the cross, something grabs our hearts. That drawing power reaches through the centuries. When our kids were small, they were both avid TV learners. Our daughter loved Mr. Rogers. She would answer him when he asked questions. She would say, “Goodbye, Mistuh Wojuhs!” at the end of the show and tears would roll down her cheeks. Our son was the Sesame Street kid, for sure. One of the segments that he loved when he was very young had a song that would stick in your brain all day — sometimes to the point of wanting to beat your head against the wall because it became the incessant background noise of the day. That segment? “One of these things is not like the others…” (Yes, I bet some of you can hear that song now and will for the rest of the day!) In that “not like the others” segment, kids were supposed to figure out which one of the objects on the screen was not like the other ones — notice the controversial example below, as the comments on YouTube emphasize some of the higher reasoning needed to make this distinction. If you cannot see the above video, check it out online. At the first turning point in the Gospel of Mark, he tells us about a miracle of Jesus that was not like any other. NONE of the other three gospels has an account of it. Mark chose this miracle to emphasize what he was doing in his story of Jesus. See if you can determine what makes this miracle so perplexingly unique: They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.” Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Jesus sent him home, saying, “Don’t even go into the village” (Mark 8:22-26). Did you catch the way this miracle is different? This man’s blindness required a double-dose of Jesus’ healing power! What? Why was a double-dose of Jesus’ healing power required? What was going on in this miracle? Mark wasn’t worried that we might think Jesus couldn’t do the miracle. He had stilled storms and calmed raging winds. Jesus had cast out a legion of demons. He had raised the dead, restored sight to the blind, helped the lame to walk, cleansed those in advance stages of leprosy, restored shriveled arms, and fed the multitudes. The issue wasn’t Jesus’ power, but something that Jesus wanted to teach his closest disciples. Mark also saw that this lesson would be indispensable for us, too. Jesus chose to do the miracle in two moves to alert us to our need for deeper healing of our out-of-focus wrong-sighted view of him as our Savior. The previous interactions of Jesus with his apostles and the crowds showed that they were not “getting him”: they had trouble understanding what Jesus did, why he did it, what he was about, and what he wanted them to learn. The episode that follows Mark’s account of the blind man’s healing is Peter’s confession. Peter confessed Jesus’ rightful identity (Mark 8:29), but he did not understand (or would not believe) that Jesus’ role as Messiah and Son of God required him to die on a cross (Mark 8:31-33). Peter only partially saw Jesus! Like the rest of the apostles and the crowd that followed Jesus, Peter desired the all-powerful and liberating Jesus. He yearned for a Messiah who could do anything for him and the people. He wasn’t ready for nor did he want God’s Messiah, the one who would submit himself to death on a Roman cross as a ransom for all people (Mark 10:45). Peter, the other apostles, and the crowds wanted Jesus as the triumphant and all-powerful Savior; they didn’t want him as the Suffering Servant for all people (Isaiah 53:1-12). They sure didn’t want Jesus to be the Lord who called them to follow him in the way of the cross and sacrificial service to others (Mark 8:34-38; 9:33-37; 10:35-45). Like the blind man, Jesus’ followers needed a double-dose of healing to see completely. Mark wanted all of us to recognize that “one of these things is not like the others”! Jesus’ definition of the Messiah, Son of God, is different from every other human definition. Mark wanted us to realize that this blind man and his story of a double-dose of healing is about us — about you and me and our persistently confused ways of seeing. What followed this healing is a series of episodes in Jesus’ ministry where he repeatedly spoke about the necessity of being rejected (betrayals and trials), reviled (crucified and mocked), and resurrected on the third day (Mark 8:31-32; 9:30-32; 10:32-34). All along the way, the disciples of Jesus said and did things that showed they still needed this second dose of healing. They refused to accept the way of the cross and sacrificial service. They argued over who would occupy the places of prominence. So, they had to journey with Jesus. They had to endure watching him being rejected, reviled, and resurrected before they could begin to see clearly. Jesus’ way of coming as Messiah, Son of God, and Savior, meant that he lived as the one who was not like any others. He refused to be defined by the shallow human definitions of titles. Jesus chose to redefine these titles by what he did and what he sacrificed as he journeyed to the cross and through the empty tomb. As we journey with Jesus down his way of the cross, something grabs our hearts.
Today’s Verse – Proverbs 10:2
Ill-gotten treasures are of no value, but righteousness delivers from death. —Proverbs 10:2 Thoughts on Today’s Verse… Wealth, especially wealth gotten through greedy and wicked means, proves to be of no lasting value. This rancid kind of wealth rots the heart of the one who gets it. Even when we have this rotten wealth, it cannot save us from our ultimate demise. Righteousness, however, is a far more precious treasure. True righteousness comes from God as his gift to us from his grace we received through faith in Christ Jesus. This righteousness transcends our mortality, is greater than any financial wealth we could accumulate, and saves our souls from death. My Prayer… Holy and Righteous Father, thank you for making me righteous in your sight through Jesus’ sacrifice and your grace. I want my enduring legacy to be my righteous character — character and righteousness you have given me — not my status, achievement, or wealth. I know my accomplishments will be forgotten after my earthly life is over, but I am fully convinced that the righteousness you develop in me will be a blessing and an influence for generations after I am gone and will be my accompanying treasure when I share with you in your glory. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.
14 Apr 2025
The Redeemer of the children of God is in our midst. What is your expectation? If you lived when He walked on the earth, what would you have expected of Him? Mark 3:7-12.
CRUCIFORMED!
For us to be ‘cruciformed’ means that we offer our hearts to be reshaped to be like Jesus’ heart. It means we offer ourselves to be used by God to bless and serve others. “Do it again, Phil! That is so cool!” my brother, Byron, excitedly yelled. I slapped another sheet of plastic into the frame, then flipped it over the heating element. While the plastic warmed, I put my chosen shape onto the vacuum bed. When the plastic began to sag, I flipped the pliable sheet of plastic on top of the mold, then pumped the vacuum lever like a wild man. The suction drew the soft plastic tightly over the shape on the vacuum bed. I held the plastic in place until it began to cool. I removed the plastic sheet, separated it from the mold, and then trimmed the excess plastic from the newly formed object. I glued this newly formed piece (the top side of a tugboat) to the previously formed piece (the hull). I had made a floating toy boat to get my brother out of my hair. He quickly filled the sink with water and sudsy shampoo to play with his new toy. I then began making some neat stuff for myself! What a blast! Nothing like heat, melting plastic, levers, a vacuum pump, and old caustic plastic cement in the hands of a little boy! Which is probably why I haven’t seen one of those Vac-U-Forms advertised in decades. However, I won’t forget what happens when warmed plastic is pulled over a mold and is sucked tight to it. That plastic is re-formed, or maybe better, transformed into something new. Paul described this process in spiritual terms to the Corinthians. He first spoke of the finished work of a person transformed to be like Jesus: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17). Notice the next phrase Paul wrote, as well: “All this is from God…”! The Corinthians’ transformation was not something that they pulled off for themselves. Only God could do this kind of work. True transformation is something far beyond our human ability to achieve. We can no more “re-form” or transform ourselves into a new creation than the plastic sheet could make itself into a toy. However, we do have a part to play in this process of transformation. Just as the plastic must be heated and give up its shape and become pliable to be re-formed, so must we. We must offer our wills to be re-created by God. Our hearts must be willing to be “de-formed” to be transformed by the Holy Spirit into the likeness of Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:18). So, what can make our wills pliable? Why would we offer our hearts to be “de-formed” so we could be transformed? Paul suggests it’s the power in Jesus’ self-sacrifice on the cross: God made him [Jesus] who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). While Jesus’ death on the cross may appear to be a ridiculous way to reach the hearts of a lost world, Paul knew the great power of Jesus’ self-giving death on the cross to draw people to him (1 Corinthians 1:20-25; cf. John 12:27-34). Mark broke his gospel story of Jesus into three parts, centering his message on the importance of the cross.[ONE] Today’s message is a glimpse of this story so that we can see our goal that lies at our stories goal. In Mark’s key central section on discipleship, Jesus repeatedly told his closest followers that he would go to Jerusalem, be killed, and then rise from the dead on the third day (Mark 8:31-32; 9:30-32; 10:32-34). They could not grasp what he was saying. In fact, the first time Jesus told them, Peter rebuked the Lord for saying he was going to die in Jerusalem (Mark 8:32). Because Jesus’ disciples could not — or perhaps, WOULD not — understand his going to the cross, they misunderstood what the Lord was calling them to do with their lives. He emphasized their need to follow his example of self-giving love to serve others (Mark 10:45). For them to follow Jesus as their Lord, however, they would have to be “cruciformed”! They must be reshaped by the cross of Christ so that the Holy Spirit could transform them into Jesus’ likeness. They must be “cruciformed”! And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:34-35). For us to be “cruciformed” means that we offer our hearts to be reshaped to be like Jesus’ heart. It means we offer ourselves to be used by God to bless and serve others, not seek special recognition for ourselves. Each of us must die to our selfish will and walk with Jesus in the way of the cross, choosing that God’s will, not our will, be done in our lives. Being conformed to Jesus through the cross is one of the reasons that baptism was more emphasized in the early church than it is in many groups today.[TWO] More than something they did — remember, baptism is a passive verb, an act of grace that someone else does to the believer — baptism was a time when early disciples shared in Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection while declaring their faith in him as their Savior (Romans 6:3-14; Colossians 2:11-12; 3:1-4). They offered themselves to be “re-formed” into the likeness of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. They voluntarily gave themselves to God to be “cruciformed” — to be transformed by Christ and to be clothed with Christ (Galatians 3:26-27).
Today’s Verse – Philippians 4:19
And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. —Philippians 4:19 Thoughts on Today’s Verse… Throughout Scripture, God reminds us that as we trust him and share his blessings with others, he will ensure we have all we need and have even more so that we can help others. Notice what Paul told the Corinthians: Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God (2 Corinthians 9:10-11). How can we be sure? Look at Jesus — his ministry, his life, and his provision. My Prayer… Dear Father, please forgive me for trying to find my security and hope in things other than you. I know there is no other source of hope, freedom, and security than you. Help me tear down every idol I may have erected that dilutes or distorts my trust in you. Open my heart to recognize places and times where I trust more in my efforts and resources rather than fully trusting in you and your graciousness. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.