Tagged: memory verse

“Teacher, tell my brother to give me my share of our inheritance.” –Luke 12:13 In the ancient world, receiving an inheritance was a make-or-break deal for the rest of one’s life. Not getting his share of the inheritance he was entitled to could have possibly doomed this man to poverty. Was Jesus insensitive to this man’s request to have his brother share the inheritance he had coming? It sounds that way. Yet Jesus has a heavenly perspective. He is trying to persuade people to focus on what does not fade away. He is concerned with higher things (see Col 3:2)....

“Then the Pharisees went off and began to plot how they might trap Jesus in speech.” —Matthew 22:15 The disciples of the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus by asking Him the question: “Is it lawful to pay tax to the emperor or not?” (Mt 22:17) If Jesus would answer: “Pay taxes to Rome,” He would lose His popularity with the masses of simple people who comprised the great majority of His followers. These simple folks were Jews who naturally opposed their conquerors and oppressors, the Romans. The Pharisees encouraged Jesus to disappoint His followers by reminding Him that He didn’t...

God “has made [Jesus]…Head of the church, which is His body.” —Ephesians 1:22-23 As I write this, a speaker quoted a statistic that only thirty-two percent of registered Catholics in the USA attend Sunday Mass. Our Catholic Church is emaciated. Our spiritual arteries are blocked. Our lifeblood, that is, the Precious Blood of Jesus, is literally not circulating throughout the full body. Jesus cares deeply about any wounded area of His body. He would leave the ninety-nine in the “wasteland” to save the one missing (Lk 15:4). We are in the 32% going to Sunday Mass. The word Mass means...

“We were predestined to praise His glory by being the first to hope in Christ.” –Ephesians 1:12 We are tailor-made for praising God. Our voices are for singing. Our hands, eyes, and hearts are made just right to be lifted up to the Lord. With our feet we can dance before the Lord (2 Sm 6:14). Our entire bodies can be offered “as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God, your spiritual worship” (Rm 12:1). Our minds and emotions can be trained and inspired to make music unto the Lord and to articulate our love for Him in words....

“The Lord has made His salvation known.” —Psalm 98:2 Jesus accused the people of His time of standing behind the murders committed by their fathers (Lk 11:48). Their fathers murdered the prophets, who were innocent and holy messengers of God. In doing so, they rejected God, Who sent the prophets (cf Mt 21:33-46). Jesus maintained that His generation would “have to account for the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world” (Lk 11:50). The reaction to Jesus’ convicting statements was “fierce hostility” (Lk 11:53). This resulted in the murder of murders committed against Jesus, the...