Category: Verse for the day

EASTER PRAYER

“Grant to Your servants, even as they speak Your words, complete assurance by stretching forth Your hand in cures and signs and wonders to be worked in the name of Jesus, Your holy Servant.” –Acts 4:29-30 Alleluia! Jesus has risen! He lives, and we shall live with Him forever! Alleluia! Happy Easter season! I hope this Easter season is getting better and better for you each day. If, however, the Easter Spirit is stifled in your life, pray the prayer of Acts 4:29-30. The effects of this prayer will shake you up (Acts 4:31). The Lord will confirm your proclamation...

IT DOESN’T ADD UP

Jesus “took them to task for their disbelief and their stubbornness, since they had put no faith in those who had seen Him after He had been raised.” —Mark 16:14 In the Gospel reading, the apostles who had been with Jesus did not believe in His Resurrection (Mk 16:11, 13). In the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, after the descent of the Holy Spirit, those who had been with Jesus were those who did believe in Him (Acts 4:13). What was the difference that caused the apostles to believe? One major difference is the outpouring of the...

IT DOESN’T ADD UP

Jesus “took them to task for their disbelief and their stubbornness, since they had put no faith in those who had seen Him after He had been raised.” –Mark 16:14 In the Gospel reading, the apostles who had been with Jesus did not believe in His Resurrection (Mk 16:11, 13). In the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, after the descent of the Holy Spirit, those who had been with Jesus were those who did believe in Him (Acts 4:13). What was the difference that caused the apostles to believe? One major difference is the outpouring of the...

STARTING OVER?

“I am going out to fish.” –John 21:3 Jesus told Peter to leave the fishing business and follow Him (Mt 4:19). Even after meeting the risen Christ several times, Peter denied Christ again and returned to the fishing business. Peter denied Jesus, the Light, and chose the night. “All through the night they caught nothing” (Jn 21:3). Peter was naked (see Jn 21:7, NAB), and not clothed with power (Lk 24:49), righteousness (see Eph 6:14), and life in Christ (Eph 4:24). Peter chose night, nothing, and nakedness. Jesus, in all His mercy, forgave Peter another three times and proceeded to...

GHOST STORY

“They thought they were seeing a ghost.” –Luke 24:37 The apostles thought that Jesus was a ghost. He was not. Yet the apostles were on to something profound in thinking of the presence of a ghost. A “ghost” was in the upper room, the Holy Ghost, and the apostles would be filled with this Holy Spirit in seven weeks at Pentecost in that same upper room (see Acts 2:4). Jesus and the Holy Spirit opened the minds of the apostles to understand the Word of God. Then the apostles brought thousands to the Lord at Pentecost (see Acts 2:41). During...