Category: Kingdom Perspectives

From Rachel: I am kicking off 2019 with three months of rest and seeking God, so I am reposting favorites from the blog. I’ll be back with new posts in mid-April. Enjoy! When He came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him. Right away a man with a serious skin disease came up and…

“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10) The second half of Matthew 6:10 parallels or fleshes out the first half. First we ask for the kingdom of God to come, then we pray more deeply into what that means. On the surface this is a pretty simple request. Yet,…

Jesus is relentless in his examination of anger: its roots, its ugliness, the damage it does, and the guilt we incur because of it. Along the way he continually underlines the fact of judgment. We might be tempted to see “the judgment of God” as something arbitrary or cruel, but the truth is that because…

From Rachel: I am kicking off 2019 with three months of rest and seeking God … so I am reposting favorites from the blog. Enjoy! Righteousness is not what you think it is. When it comes to righteousness, most of us think like Pharisees. We see it as a position we must earn or else…

From Rachel: I am kicking off 2019 with three months of rest and seeking God … so I am reposting favorites from the blog. Enjoy! We don’t say it, but most of us understand the Sermon on the Mount as one giant losing proposition. We cannot possibly be as righteous as it calls us to…

Matthew 4:18-22 tells the story of the day Jesus called his first disciples: While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you…

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. After He had fasted forty days and forty nights, He was hungry. Then the tempter approached Him and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’” (Matthew 4:1-3, HCSB) For years I…

You will even be brought before governors and kings because of Me, to bear witness to them and to the nations. But when they hand you over, don’t worry about how or what you should speak. For you will be given what to say at that hour, because you are not speaking, but the Spirit…

“Look, I’m sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as serpents and as harmless as doves. Because people will hand you over to sanhedrins and flog you in their synagogues, beware of them. (Matthew 10:16-17) Countless saints and missionaries and martyrs can testify to this truth: the gospel is risky. The…

Greet a household when you enter it, and if the household is worthy, let your peace be on it. But if it is unworthy, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that house or town. I…