Tagged: daily bread

“A time will come when anyone who puts you to death will claim to be serving God!” –John 16:2 The Holy Spirit witnesses for Jesus and calls us to do the same (Jn 15:26-27). This is one of the main reasons why many Christians don’t want the Holy Spirit to be very active in their lives. Although they realize that witnessing is an act of love which will lead people to Christ, they also know that witnessing will result in personally suffering and being persecuted. Jesus’ witnesses will be expelled even from Church and, moreover, may be put to death...

“Beloved, let us love one another because love is of God.” –1 John 4:7 Jesus loves us as God the Father loves Him (Jn 15:9). Jesus reveals the Father’s love so that we will accept that love and make love the very atmosphere in which we live (Jn 15:10). Then, after first being loved (1 Jn 4:19), we can love one another (Jn 15:17) even as Christ has loved us (Jn 15:12) and lay down our lives in love even for our enemies (Rm 5:8; 1 Jn 3:16). “Love, then, consists in this: not that we have loved God but...

“If you find that the world hates you, know it has hated Me before you.” –John 15:18 Christians continue to be surprised that the world hates them. We may naively think that the world has changed since it rejected and crucified Jesus. Also, we may think that we’re not enough like Jesus to be worthy of rejection and persecution. Nevertheless, we have been fundamentally changed by being baptized into Christ (see Rm 6:3). We have a new nature. As new creations (see Gal 6:15), we have been chosen out of the world by Christ (Jn 15:19). The world recognizes that...

“This is My commandment: love one another as I have loved you.” –John 15:12 Jesus commands us not only to love one another but to love as He has loved us! That means that we are to lay down our lives for our friends (Jn 15:13) and even for our enemies (Rm 5:8, 10). In this way, we will be recognizable as Jesus’ disciples, because no one except Jesus loves his enemies by dying for them (Lk 5:27ff). How are we, with all our selfishness, to love so divinely? The Holy Spirit will purify us by obedience to the truth...

“We ought not to cause God’s Gentile converts any difficulties.” –Acts 15:19 The leaders of the early Church discerned that the Holy Spirit was not requiring Gentile Christians to observe the Mosaic law except for abstaining “from anything contaminated by idols, from illicit sexual union, from the meat of strangled animals, and from eating blood” (Acts 15:20). We have no Biblical record of the Gentile Christians having any problems with abstaining “from the meat of strangled animals and from eating blood.” However, some Gentile Christians had serious problems in obeying the first two commands. Paul warned the Corinthian Christians that...