Tagged: message of the day

“Because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of My mouth!” —Revelation 3:16 Jesus said that the lukewarm Christians of Laodicea made Him feel like vomiting. Then He knocked at their door and wanted to have supper with them (Rv 3:20). Isn’t it contradictory to want to have supper with people who make you sick? Yet Jesus loves us so much that He is willing to be sick, to suffer, and to die so as to share His life with us. Zacchaeus, the little tax collector, was another sickening person. Tax collectors, because of their...

“At that very moment he was given his sight and began to follow Him.” —Luke 18:43 Jesus’ healing of the blind beggar of Jericho is preceded by the young rich man’s rejection of Jesus and followed by Zacchaeus’ acceptance of Him. Jesus healed not only the physically blind but also those spiritually blinded by the god of the present age, the god of greed and a pleasure-seeking lifestyle (2 Cor 4:4). The love of money is the root of all evil, including spiritual blindness (1 Tm 6:10). For example, the Pharisees were “blind guides” and “blind fools” (Mt 23:16-17) because...

“Perhaps he was separated from you for a while for this reason: that you might possess him forever, no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially dear to me; and how much more to you, since now you will know him both as a man and in the Lord.” –Philemon 15-16 St. Paul tried to undermine the institution of slavery not by politics or legislation but by winning over individual Christians to the brotherhood and sisterhood of community life. By converting the slave Onesimus, Paul thereby made the slave a brother to the...

“This Spirit He lavished on us through Jesus Christ our Savior, that we might be justified by His grace.” ––Titus 3:6-7 Justification is a word often thrown around in today’s climate of denominationalism. Different Christian faith traditions have chimed in with competing definitions, causing confusion. Where can we find a brief and clear statement of the doctrine of justification? Notice what St. Paul wrote to his protégé, St. Titus: “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us; not because of any righteous deeds we had done, but because of His mercy. He saved us...

“The grace of God has appeared, offering salvation to all men. It trains us to reject godless ways and worldly desires, and live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age.” –Titus 2:11-12 St. Paul gave St. Titus the responsibility of giving orders to the old and young men. Titus should “tell the older men that they must be temperate, serious-minded, and self-controlled; likewise sound in the faith, loving, and steadfast” (Ti 2:2). He should “tell the young men to keep themselves completely under control,” while he himself was to set a good example for them (Ti 2:6-7). Titus was not...