Reflective Bible Study

As we continue our year focusing in on Luke’s gospel, it seems a little odd in my mind to jump into the Christmas story, especially since last month, we both likely heard and were reminded of this amazing event. However, Luke’s gospel shares more about Jesus’ birth and childhood than any of the other three gospels, and some of these details are only included in Luke.

While I know it might seem redundant being reminded again of events in the Christmas story, especially when everything built up to our Christmas’ celebrating last month, I’ve found it is fascinating looking at many of the Christmas-time passages outside of the Christmas season. Looking at Jesus’ birth not during Christmas helps us see this event with new eyes, and new insights often stand out when we break out of our cultural routines.

With that said, our passage for this episode leads in to the birth of John the Baptist, who was Jesus’ forerunner in ministry. Let’s read from Luke’s gospel, chapter 1, using the New International Version. Starting in verse 5, Luke tells us that:

⁵ In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron. ⁶ Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. ⁷ But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.

Pausing briefly here, I think it is valuable for us to realize that Zechariah and Elizabeth were both righteous in the sight of God, they were obedient to God’s commands, but they were both childless. In the culture they lived, having children was one of the primary ways that God showed His blessing on a couple, and it seemed that Zechariah and Elizabeth, while being obedient and righteous, appeared to be punished by God because of their lack of children.

This didn’t just happen over a few years. Luke describes both spouses as being very old. This couple’s childlessness had lasted for decades, and they may have even resigned themselves to dying childless.

However, God had not forgotten them. Even when it looked as though God had forgotten them, He was actually setting the stage for something big He was getting ready to do. In our own lives, even though it may seem at times like God has forgotten us, it is possible He is really setting the stage for something big He is getting ready to do.

Continuing reading in verse 8, Luke then tells us:

⁸ Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, ⁹ he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. ¹⁰ And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.

¹¹ Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. ¹² When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. ¹³ But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. ¹⁴ He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, ¹⁵ for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. ¹⁶ He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. ¹⁷ And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

¹⁸ Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

¹⁹ The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. ²⁰ And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”

²¹ Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering why he stayed so long in the temple. ²² When he came out, he could not speak to them. They realized he had seen a vision in the temple, for he kept making signs to them but remained unable to speak.

²³ When his time of service was completed, he returned home. ²⁴ After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion. ²⁵ “The Lord has done this for me,” she said. “In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people.”

In this event, three big things stood out in my mind, and we could also draw two conclusions about John’s life that we don’t often think of.

First, Luke’s gospel describes the very first way that God decided to step back into history. For centuries before this, it had seemed as though God was silent, and with Gabriel’s visit to Zechariah, God’s silence ended. It is powerful in my mind that the first person God chose to break His silence with was a priest serving in the inner room of the temple. While this wasn’t in the Most Holy Place in the temple, it would have been right outside the Most Holy Place, and Zechariah’s task was to burn incense on the alter that was just outside the curtain leading into the Most Holy Place.

While we often think that the first people God breaks the silence to after several centuries are the shepherds in the field on the night of Jesus’ birth, Luke tells us that there is more back story that is worth paying attention to, because the story really begins with John the Baptist.

Also in this event, it is worth noting that Zechariah doubted Gabriel’s message. Perhaps Zechariah simply wanted some additional assurance that this promise would be kept, or maybe Zechariah had hoped for a child for so long that he didn’t want to share the promise with Elizabeth and then be disappointed when something didn’t happen again.

While we often give Zechariah a bad reputation for doubting God, I don’t think it is unreasonable to have some reservations after it appeared as though God had said no to a child for decades of their lives.

The sign that Gabriel gave Zechariah seems like a punishment for Zechariah’s lack of belief, but I wonder if in this sign, we have the seeds of something amazing. After God had been silent for hundreds of years, we see a priest being struck silent for not immediately believing God’s promise. While Zechariah’s silence likely lasted less than a full year, it served as an amazing symbol for God being silent, before stepping into history in a big way through John the Baptist and ultimately through Jesus.

Zechariah’s silence also served as a sign for everyone present that God was doing something in their midst. Knowing Zechariah’s muteness was a sign leading forward to the birth of John, this should have been enough for those present to take note that John the Baptist would be a significant person in history.

Zechariah’s silence also gave Zechariah a clear, easy reminder that the angel Gabriel’s visit actually happened. Often times, it is easy for our brain to trick us into rationalizing or belittling something amazing or special that happens in our lives, and the clear temptation for Zechariah would have been to rationalize this away as a dream or a vision rather than a clear visit with a promise. The sign of muteness served as a reminder to Zechariah that God’s promise to him was real!

I believe God had planned for John to have older parents. With older parents, John may have begun his ministry after both his parents had died. This doesn’t seem very positive, but this detail frees John up to live in the desert and share a more challenging message about repentance than if John’s parents were alive. John’s parents being older and likely having died before John’s ministry also saves them the emotional anguish of their son being imprisoned and beheaded by Herod.

Everything in this event draws our attention onto the amazing truth that God has not forgotten His people, and that God keeps His promises and His Word!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, continue seeking God first in your life. Choose to accept and believe His promises and His Word. While we don’t always know when God’s promises will happen, we can be certain that they will come to pass.

Also, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself to learn God’s truth and to grow closer to Him. Through prayer and study, we are able to open our hearts to God and learn the truths He has promised for His children in the world today!

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or abandon where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we step forward in our year podcasting prophecies of Jesus, we come to a prophecy that was given to David through Nathan the prophet, and then this prophecy was referenced leading up to Jesus’ arrival in this world. From this prophecy, we get a big overview picture of who Jesus is, and we also see within this prophecy one reason why the religious leaders in the first century believed the Messiah would not die.

Let’s read what Nathan told David and discover how this shapes the understanding of the Messiah in the first century. This passage and prophecy is found in 2 Samuel, chapter 7, and we will read it using the New American Standard Bible translation. Starting in verse 8, God tells Nathan:

⁸ “Now therefore, thus you shall say to My servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, “I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be ruler over My people Israel. ⁹ I have been with you wherever you have gone and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make you a great name, like the names of the great men who are on the earth. ¹⁰ I will also appoint a place for My people Israel and will plant them, that they may live in their own place and not be disturbed again, nor will the wicked afflict them any more as formerly, ¹¹ even from the day that I commanded judges to be over My people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. The Lord also declares to you that the Lord will make a house for you. ¹² When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³ He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. ¹⁴ I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men, ¹⁵ but My lovingkindness shall not depart from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. ¹⁶ Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.”’” ¹⁷ In accordance with all these words and all this vision, so Nathan spoke to David.

Within this prophecy, we discover God promising that the Messiah would be David’s descendant, and that God would establish His kingdom that would last forever. One level of this prophecy is that Solomon, David’s immediate descendant, would build the temple. The next level of this prophecy is that a future descendant would ultimately be the Messiah.

On its surface, this prophecy as it relates to God’s Messiah, taken out of the context of other prophecies that describe suffering and temporary death for the Messiah, suggests that God’s Messiah would usher in an earthly kingdom that would last forever. From this foundation, it is a small leap to then believe that this earthly kingdom would militarily overthrow any occupying nation because it had been set up by God.

In contrast, the kingdom Jesus ultimately established could best be described as a spiritual kingdom, and this kingdom would exist on a different level than the earthly kingdoms of that era. While sounding a little idealistic, this hasn’t stopped people from Jesus’ kingdom from seeking political power, or from trying to blend His spiritual kingdom with any of many earthly kingdoms.

However, taking a step back, how can we know that this prophecy relates to Jesus, and not a different messiah figure?

Jumping into the New Testament, into the gospel of Luke, we uncover an amazing reference back to this prophecy in an angel’s visit to a young engaged woman. Reading from Luke, chapter 1, starting in verse 26, Luke tells us that:

²⁶ Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ And coming in, he said to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” ²⁹ But she was very perplexed at this statement, and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was. ³⁰ The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; ³³ and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.”

Jumping out of the passage here, it is amazing in my mind how Gabriel references back to the prophecy Nathan gave David, while also expanding on it. Gabriel’s message to Mary is that Jesus would be given the throne of David, and that His kingdom would have no end.

However, tucked within Gabriel’s words is an interesting idea that is easy to overlook. Gabriel describes Jesus, the Messiah, as reigning over the “house of Jacob”. In my own mind, I am fascinated at this designation, since a case could be made for any number of other individuals to be included here, such as Adam, Abraham, Judah, or even David himself. It is also interesting that Gabriel calls Jacob by that name, rather than Israel, which was the name God gave him for the last part of his life.

Every part of this message, while having a literal component to it, has a spiritual truth. If God had told Gabriel to say Adam, this would symbolize that Jesus came for the entire human race. While there is an aspect of truth to this idea, Jesus didn’t come for those in humanity who would reject him. By not saying Adam, God makes the distinction that a part of humanity will ultimately reject Jesus.

Instead, God could have prompted Gabriel to say Abraham. However, while God had promised Abraham that he would become a great nation, from the choices Abraham and his wife made trying to help bring about God’s plan, multiple nations were formed, and not all of these nations were equally God fearing.

While I could go on with potential names Gabriel could have included, I think you get the picture.

It is amazing in my mind that Jesus came for the subset of humanity that was the house of Jacob, which included the twelve tribes of Israel, even when the history between Jacob and Jesus was filled with countless failures.

On its surface, it might appear as though Jesus came only for a specific ethnicity or nationality of people, but from reading the gospels, and how Jesus interacted with people, it is more likely that Jesus came for people who were interested in allying with the spiritual house of Jacob, which might be different than the literal group of descendants. Jesus talks about God cutting away parts of His vine that don’t produce fruit, pruning the parts that do, and grafting in parts that want to be connected with Him.

This means that whatever your past happens to be, we can choose today to ally with Jesus and be connected with His Kingdom that God has promised will last forever!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always challenge you to do, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to ally your life with Him. Choose to invite Jesus into your heart and life and let God graft you into His family.

Also, as I regularly challenge you, continue to pray and study the Bible for yourself to grow your personal relationship with God. While other people have interesting ideas, always filter what God wants to teach you through the truth found in His Word.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or deviate away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we start this new year off, we turn our attention onto Luke’s gospel. Luke’s gospel is one of my favorite gospels, Luke’s gospel also happens to be the longest of the four gospels, and Luke’s gospel is written with a skeptic in mind. Unlike the other three gospels, Luke’s account of Jesus’ life appears to be written for one specific person who is deciding what to make of all that he is hearing about this person named Jesus. The first four verses of Luke’s gospel describe why he wrote this gospel, and these verses give context for not only Luke’s gospel, but also the angle Luke is writing his gospel from.

It is worth noting that some skeptics and scholars have challenged the idea that Luke’s gospel was written by an early follower named Luke. However, for the purposes of our time in this gospel, we will assume it was written by someone named Luke, whether or not it was the Luke that many people believe or don’t believe was the author.

Let’s read Luke’s opening words and unpack what we can learn about why Luke wrote this gospel, and what we can take and use as a foundation for our year focusing in on Luke’s gospel. Our passage is found at the very beginning of Luke’s gospel, which is chapter 1, and we will read from the God’s Word translation. Starting in verse 1, Luke begins by writing:

¹ Many have attempted to write about what had taken place among us. ² They received their information from those who had been eyewitnesses and servants of God’s word from the beginning, and they passed it on to us. ³ I, too, have followed everything closely from the beginning. So I thought it would be a good idea to write an orderly account for Your Excellency, Theophilus. ⁴ In this way you will know that what you’ve been told is true.

In these four verses, there is a lot of information that is useful for us to focus in on, but one question many people ask that doesn’t have a great answer is who was Theophilus? Many theories are present, but as I did a quick bit of research, none seemed to stand out more significantly in my mind.

The name Theophilus means “friend of God” or “beloved by God” which I thought was interesting, and this meaning has prompted one theory that Theophilus wasn’t a specific person but a generic term Luke used to direct his gospel at all friends of God.

Other theories include that Theophilus was a Jew from Alexandria, that he was a Roman official, that he was Paul’s lawyer while Paul was in Rome, or even that he was a Jewish priest. While we don’t know definitively who Theophilus was or was not, Luke writes his gospel with skill and clarity to help people on the fence decide that Jesus is worth paying attention to and to clear up confusion regarding what people were hearing Jesus did verses what He did not do.

Verse 4 draws our attention to this detail when Luke tells Theophilus that “in this way you will know that what you’ve been told is true”.

However, before going too far forward with this assumption, we might want to ask ourselves if we can trust Luke?

In Luke’s gospel, we have a number of unique challenges, and while this question isn’t one that is pleasant to ask, it is one we should at least tackle briefly.

When I read this introduction, it is worth noting that Luke is not actually building a case for believing in Jesus. Instead, Luke frames this gospel as being more like a second witness in a case rather than the first. Following Matthew and Mark, as well as some other accounts that were lost in history, Luke steps in as an additional witness to confirm who Jesus was. Repeating verse 4, Luke writes, “in this way you will know that what you’ve been told is true”.

Luke writes his gospel to help confirm the truth about Jesus in the minds of people who were uncertain whether they should believe all they were hearing about Jesus, especially when much of what was being shared seemed hard to believe.

Another question for Luke is where he is coming from when he is writing this gospel, or in other words, what angle is Luke writing from? Is Luke an insider or an outsider when he is writing this gospel, as well as the book of Acts?

While answering this question might take more time than we have left for this episode, Luke steps into the story of the early church in the book of Acts and he is mentioned by Paul in several of Paul’s letters. There are several sections of Acts where the writer switches to using first person narration, while the bulk of Acts is written in the third person.

Some people believe Luke was a Greek convert to Christianity, while other people believe Luke was a Hellenistic Jew, which simply means that Luke was a Jew that had blended aspects of Greek culture and philosophy into his Jewish faith prior to becoming a Christ follower.

However, is Luke writing from the inside perspective, or from an outside perspective for this gospel?

The end of verse 1, Luke gives us a clue. Verse 1 says, “Many have attempted to write about what had taken place among us.” Luke uses the phrase among us, which tells me that Luke is writing this account as someone who is part of the early church. Luke then quantifies who he means when describing the group he is a part of in verse 2 by saying, “They received their information from those who had been eyewitnesses and servants of God’s word from the beginning, and they passed it on to us.”

While Luke is primarily describing the authors of other gospels focusing on Jesus, he also is subtly framing his own gospel about Jesus as he describes all gospel writers receiving information from eyewitnesses and servants of God’s word. However, instead of describing his gospel as being a several steps removed and being based on other author’s work, Luke describes his gospel as being a passion of his that he had followed early on. The first part of verse 3 describes this when Luke says, “I, too, have followed everything closely from the beginning.”

From this framing of Luke’s gospel, we see that Luke is interested in writing a parallel gospel to what was already written as a way of confirming the witness of the other writers. As we will see while moving through Luke’s gospel, many of the events Luke includes parallel the events in Matthew and Mark, but Luke often includes different subtle details, leading me to believe that Luke did his own research on the same events.

As we dive into Luke’s gospel, expect to be impacted by how Luke frames Jesus’ life and expect to be challenged along with me as we focus in on what Luke confirms happened during Jesus’ life and ministry in the first century!

As we come to the end of another podcast episode, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

Like I always challenge you to do, intentionally and purposefully seek God first in your life and open your heart and mind to what He wants to teach you through Jesus and through what the gospels describe Jesus to be. Jesus came not only to give His life as a sacrifice, but Jesus also came to show us what God is like. Luke helps confirm for us if we have doubts whether or not we should place our faith in Jesus.

Also, always pray and study the Bible for yourself. Don’t let a pastor, podcaster, author, or speaker determine the truth for you. Instead, use the multiple witnesses included in the Bible to make up your own mind. God has preserved and emphasized the four gospels as His record of Jesus’ life, and as we move through Luke’s gospel in our podcast episodes for this year, open your mind to what God wants to teach you through this amazing gospel.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or deviate away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!

As we begin our year focusing in on prophecies from the Old Testament that Jesus referenced or fulfilled while He was alive on earth, let’s start with a prophecy that focuses in on Jesus existing long before He was born. While some prophecies that we will cover this year are clear and very direct, others, such as this one, are a little more nuanced.

However, regardless of the directness of the prophecies that we cover this year, don’t be surprised when we uncover powerful insights that are relevant for our lives today.

For our first prophecy this year, let’s look at how Solomon poetically describes wisdom in the book of Proverbs, and see if we see any parallels with Jesus.

Our passage for this episode comes from Proverbs, chapter 8, and we will read it using the New American Standard Bible. Starting in verse 12, Solomon, writing from wisdom’s perspective, writes:

¹² “I, wisdom, dwell with prudence,
And I find knowledge and discretion.
¹³ “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil;
Pride and arrogance and the evil way
And the perverted mouth, I hate.
¹⁴ “Counsel is mine and sound wisdom;
I am understanding, power is mine.
¹⁵ “By me kings reign,
And rulers decree justice.
¹⁶ “By me princes rule, and nobles,
All who judge rightly.
¹⁷ “I love those who love me;
And those who diligently seek me will find me.
¹⁸ “Riches and honor are with me,
Enduring wealth and righteousness.
¹⁹ “My fruit is better than gold, even pure gold,
And my yield better than choicest silver.
²⁰ “I walk in the way of righteousness,
In the midst of the paths of justice,
²¹ To endow those who love me with wealth,
That I may fill their treasuries.

²² “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way,
Before His works of old.
²³ “From everlasting I was established,
From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth.
²⁴ “When there were no depths I was brought forth,
When there were no springs abounding with water.
²⁵ “Before the mountains were settled,
Before the hills I was brought forth;
²⁶ While He had not yet made the earth and the fields,
Nor the first dust of the world.
²⁷ “When He established the heavens, I was there,
When He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep,
²⁸ When He made firm the skies above,
When the springs of the deep became fixed,
²⁹ When He set for the sea its boundary
So that the water would not transgress His command,
When He marked out the foundations of the earth;
³⁰ Then I was beside Him, as a master workman;
And I was daily His delight,
Rejoicing always before Him,
³¹ Rejoicing in the world, His earth,
And having my delight in the sons of men.

³² “Now therefore, O sons, listen to me,
For blessed are they who keep my ways.
³³ “Heed instruction and be wise,
And do not neglect it.
³⁴ “Blessed is the man who listens to me,
Watching daily at my gates,
Waiting at my doorposts.
³⁵ “For he who finds me finds life
And obtains favor from the Lord.
³⁶ “But he who sins against me injures himself;
All those who hate me love death.”

In this proverb, Solomon draws our attention onto wisdom existing before the creation and the foundation of the world. Solomon describes how wisdom was involved in creation and how wisdom was with God when the earth was being formed.

Moving forward into Jesus’ ministry, and specifically into the gospel of John, we find Jesus draw attention to a very similar idea. In John, chapter 17, starting in verse 1, after Jesus had finished speaking to the crowd, John tells us:

¹ Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, ² even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. ³ This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. ⁴ I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do. ⁵ Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

⁶ “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. ⁷ Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; ⁸ for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me. ⁹ I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours; ¹⁰ and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them. ¹¹ I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. ¹² While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.

In this prayer Jesus prayed, Jesus references the glory that He had with God prior to when the world began. Like wisdom in Solomon’s poetry, Jesus draws our attention onto His existence before the world began.

The parallels don’t stop there, because in both this proverb and prayer, we discover symbolism and significance in the idea of God’s word. John’s gospel even opens with the idea that God’s Word existed prior to the creation of this world, and that in a way that is challenging to understand fully, Jesus is God’s Word revealed to humanity. God makes His Word, His Will, and His Wisdom known to us through Jesus, and we can know what His character is like through how Jesus lived His life.

However, with Jesus’ ministry on earth seeming like so long ago, what can we take and apply into our lives today from this truth?

From the proverb we read, seeking wisdom is one of the most important things we can strive towards. Solomon describes wisdom as being aligned with prudence; as hating evil, pride, and arrogance; and as walking in the way of righteousness. Fear of God, which is one way of describing being respectful towards and in awe of God, is the first step towards acquiring God’s wisdom in your life.

From Jesus’ prayer, an amazing promise we can hold on to is that Jesus prayed for each of us that God the Father will keep us safe and preserved within the power of His holy name. While that doesn’t mean bad things will never come into our lives, it does mean that with whatever happens in this life, while we remain allied with Jesus and with God the Father, our eternity with God has been assured. God has enemies in the world today who are not happy with God’s people, but when we are allied with God, we know that with whatever happens in this life, we will outlive and outlast sin. When we are allied with God, we will exist past the end of sin, the end of death, and the end of the reign of evil.

While living for God in this sin-filled world is not easy or pleasant at times, God promises to send us help through His Holy Spirit and Jesus has promised through His prayer that God will keep His people safe for eternity.

As we come to the end of our first podcast this year, here are the challenges I will leave you with:

As I always open these challenges by saying, intentionally seek God first in your life and choose to ally and align your life with God, with Jesus, and with the wisdom that existed with God before the world began. If you feel as though you need more wisdom in your life, ask God to send you His Holy Spirit to help teach you His wisdom and how to apply it in your life today.

Also, as I regularly challenge you to do in each episode, continue praying and studying the Bible for yourself, to learn and grow closer to God each and every day. Through personal prayer and study, don’t be surprised to discover that God will send His peace and His wisdom into your life in ways that may be hard to explain.

And as I end every set of challenges by saying in one way or another, never stop short of, back away from, chicken out of, or fall away from where God wants to lead you to in your life with Him!