Weekly Bible Readings

Mark 15:15-20

Hello everyone!

Hope you all are having a great week.  Tomorrow we will be reading together Mark 15:15-20. 

“So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. And the soldiers led him away inside the palace (that is, the governor's headquarters), and they called together the whole battalion. And they clothed him in a purple cloak, and twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on him. And they began to salute him, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’ And they were striking his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling down in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the purple cloak and put his own clothes on him. And they led him out to crucify him.” 

Here we read about the Creator being beaten by his own creation for us, taking upon himself the penalty for sin that was due us, so that we might be reconciled to himself.  Not because we deserved it or earned it, but only because God is rich in mercy and grace.  It was we who deserved to be beaten and flogged, yet God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him (2 Cor 5:21).  Looking forward to tomorrow!

Blessings,

Hexon

John 11:25-26, 38-39, 43-44

Hi peeps!

Hope everyone is having a great week.  For tomorrow’s Creation to Consummation scripture text, we will be reading together John 11:25-26, 38-39, 43-44. 

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’… Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.  Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’…When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out.’  The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’ 

In this passage we have a living parable.  On the one hand, Jesus is telling Martha for those who believe in Christ, though they may die physically, their soul will live eternally with Christ, and someday their soul will be reunited with their body and they will live eternally with Christ upon the new earth.  Yet on the other hand, he is about to prove to her that what he is saying is true and that both physical life and spiritual life are sovereign works of God alone.  Just as Lazarus contributed nothing to being given physical life, so also we contribute nothing to being given spiritual life and the new birth.  God’s word tells us we were given new birth because “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him” (Eph. 2:4-6).  When the Bible speaks about salvation, it speaks of dead people being raised to life by the sovereign power of God. 

Looking forward to worshipping with you tomorrow!

Blessings,

Hexon