Category: Memory Verse

“When you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for trials.” –Sirach 2:1 To prepare ourselves for trials, we must expect them. “Anyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus can expect to be persecuted” (2 Tm 3:12). Expect it. “Christ suffered in the flesh; therefore arm yourselves with His same mentality” (1 Pt 4:1). The psalmist stated: “If an enemy had reviled me, I could have borne it…but you, my other self, my companion and my bosom friend!” (Ps 55:13, 14) It is hardest to take sufferings inflicted by those closest to us, because we don’t...

Jesus “replied by saying to the crowd, ‘What an unbelieving lot you are! How long must I remain with you? How long can I endure you?’ ” –Mark 9:19 A lack of faith distresses Jesus (Mk 6:6). Jesus came into the midst of a crowd which lacked faith and expressed His exasperation quite openly (Mk 9:19, 23). Many of us are surrounded by crowds of people who lack faith. What is our comfort level in these crowds? Does it likewise distress us that people live lives lacking in faith? What kind of words do we speak when in the presence...

“It was from that place that He scattered them all over the earth.” –Genesis 11:9 We are divided, fragmented, even shattered. Even our divisions are divided and sub-divided. Our different languages, nationalities, and denominations have cut the human race and even the body of Christ into hundreds of thousands of pieces. Pride is the cause of our divisions and divisiveness. Like the builders of the tower of Babel, we want to make a name for ourselves and make monuments to ourselves reaching high into the sky (see Gn 11:4). We want to be better, superior to others, to stand apart,...

“Be fertile, then, and multiply; abound on earth and subdue it.” –Genesis 9:7; see also Genesis 9:1 The first recorded words from God to humanity are: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gn 1:28). To make sure that humanity got the message, God repeated it two more times (Gn 9:1, 7). Sin then took advantage of humanity’s fertility to transmit a fallen nature to every human being. Likewise, when our fertility seems to multiply our problems, many of us respond with birth control. We reason that less people means less problems for us who already have...