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Lent Season - Passion Week
April 6th 2009
A Reading from The Voice:
5 In other words, adopt the mindset of Jesus your Liberating King. Live with His attitude in your hearts. Remember:
6 Though He was in the form of God,
He chose not to cling to equality with God.
7 But poured Himself out to fill a vessel brand new;
a servant in form
and a man indeed.
The very likeness of humanity,
8 He humbled Himself,
obedient to death--
a merciless death on the cross!
9 So God raised Him up to the highest place
and gave Him the name above all.
10 So when His name is called
every knee will bow,
on heaven, on earth, and below.
11 And every tongue will confess
"Jesus the Liberating King is Lord,"
to the glory of God our Father!
Philippians 2:5-11 (The Voice) -
Lent Season - Part 7
April 1st 2009
A Reading from The Voice:
20 Among the crowds traveling to Jerusalem were Greeks seeking to follow God and worship at the great feast. 21-22 Some of them came to Philip with an important request.
Greek Pilgrims (to Philip): Sir, we are hoping to meet Jesus.
Philip, a disciple from the Galilean village of Bethsaida, told Andrew that these Greeks were wanting to see Jesus. Together Andrew and Philip approached Jesus to inform Him about the request.
Jesus (to Philip and Andrew): 23 The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 I tell you the truth: unless a grain of wheat is planted in the ground and dies, it remains a solitary seed. But when it is planted, it produces in death a great harvest. 25 The one who loves this life will lose it, and the one who despises it in this world will have life forevermore. 26 Anyone who serves Me must follow My path; anyone who serves Me will want to be where I am, and he will be honored by the Father. 27 My spirit is low and unsettled. How can I ask the Father to save Me from this hour? This hour is the purpose for which I have come into the world. But what I can say is this: 28 "Father, glorify Your name!"
Suddenly, a voice echoed from the heavens.
The Father: I have glorified My name. And again I will bring glory in this hour that will resound throughout time.
29The crowd of people surrounding Jesus were confused.
Some in the Crowd: It sounded like thunder.
Others: A heavenly messenger spoke to Him.
Jesus: 30 The Voice you hear has not spoken for My benefit, but for yours. 31 Now judgment comes upon this world, and everything will change. The tyrant of this world, Satan, will be thrown out. 32 When I am lifted up from the earth, then all of humanity will be drawn to Me.
33 These words foreshadowed the nature of His death.
John 12:20-33 (The Voice) -
Lent Season - Part 6
March 25th 2009
A Reading from The Voice
Jesus: 14 Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. In the same way, the Son of Man must be lifted up; 15 then all those who believe in Him will experience everlasting life.
16 For God expressed His love for the world in this way: He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him will not face everlasting destruction, but will have everlasting life. 17 Here's the point. God didn't send His Son into the world to judge it; instead, He is here to rescue a world headed toward certain destruction.
18 No one who believes in Him has to fear condemnation; yet condemnation is already the reality for everyone who refuses to believe. Whoever embraces unbelief swims in a sea of judgment, because he chooses to ignore the Voice, and in doing so rejects the name of the only Son of God. 19 Why does God allow for judgment and condemnation? Because the Light, sent from God, pierced through the world's darkness to expose ill motives, hatred, gossip, greed, violence, and the like. Still some people preferred the darkness over the light because their actions were dark. 20 Some of humankind hated the light and so avoided its warm glow. They scampered hurriedly back into the darkness where vices thrive and wickedness flourishes. 21 Those who abandon deceit and embrace what is true, they will enter into the light where it will be clear that all their deeds come from God.
John 3:14-21 -
Lent Season - Part 5
March 20th 2009
A Reading from The Voice
1 As for you, don't you remember how you used to just exist? Corpses, dead in life, buried by transgressions, 2 wandering the course of this perverse world. You were the offspring of the prince of the power of air-oh, how he owned you, just as he still controls those living in disobedience. I'm not talking about the outsiders alone; 3 we were all guilty of falling headlong for the persuasive passions of this world, and we all have had our fill of indulging the flesh and mind, obeying impulses to follow perverse thoughts conceived of dark powers. As a result, our natural inclinations led us to be children of wrath, and we, like the rest of humankind, were due to receive the full weight of God's fury.
4 But God, with the unfathomable richness of His love and mercy focused on us, 5 united us with the Liberator and infused our lifeless souls with life-even though we were buried under mountains of sin-and saved us by His grace. Then do you know what He did? 6 He raised us up with Him and seated us in the heavenly realms with our beloved Jesus the Liberating King. 7 He did this for a reason: so that for all eternity we will stand as a living testimony to the incredible riches of His grace and kindness that He freely gives to us by uniting us with Jesus the Liberator. 8-9 For it's by God's grace that you have been saved. You receive it through faith. It was not our plan or our effort. It is God's gift, pure and simple. You didn't earn it, not one of us did, so don't go around bragging that you must have done something amazing. 10 For we are the product of His hand, heaven's poetry etched on lives, created in Jesus the Liberator to accomplish the good works God arranged long ago.
Ephesians 2:1-10 -
Lent Season - Part 4
March 17th 2009
A Reading from The Voice
13 The time was near to celebrate the Passover , the festival commemorating when God rescued His children from slavery in Egypt, so Jesus went to Jerusalem for the celebration. 14 Upon arriving, He entered the temple to worship and honor the Father. But it did not have the appearance of a holy place. The porches and colonnades were filled with merchants selling sacrificial animals, such as doves, oxen, and sheep, and exchanging money. 15 In a display that can only be described as a righteous anger, Jesus fashioned a whip of cords and used it with skill driving out animals; He scattered the money and overturned the tables, emptying profiteers from the house of God. 16 There were dove merchants still standing around, and Jesus reprimanded them.
Jesus: What are you still doing here? Get all your stuff and haul it out of here! Stop making My Father's house a place for your own profit!
17 The disciples were astounded, but they remembered that the Hebrew Scriptures said 'jealous devotion for God's house consumes me.' 18 Some of the Jews cried out to Him in unison.
Jews: Who gave You the right to shut us down? If it is God, then show us a sign.
Jesus: 19 You want a sign? Here it is. Destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days.
Jews: 20 Three days? This temple took more than 46 years to complete. You think You can replicate that feat in 3 days?
21 Jesus was planting seeds of truth in them. The true temple was His body, which would be destroyed on the cross and rebuilt in the resurrection. 22 His disciples remembered this bold prediction after He was resurrected. Because of this knowledge, their faith in the Hebrew Scriptures and in Jesus' teachings grew.
John 2:13-22
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