Month: July 2019

Works that Bear Fruit

Scripture: John 5: 36-40

But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. 37 And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, 38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. 

Scripture Commentary:

The religious leaders knew what the Bible said but failed to apply the Word to their lives. They knew the teachings – they knew the ‘works’ that would bear fruit – but they failed to see the Messiah to whom the Scriptures pointed. They knew the rules but missed the Savior.

Entrenched in their own religious system, they, like some of us, refused to let the Son of God change their lives. The religious leaders enjoyed great prestige in Israel but their stamp of approval meant nothing to Jesus. He was concerned about God’s approval.

Be concerned when you get approval for doing the wrong thing.

If ever the highest officials in the world approve our actions and God does not, we should be concerned. We know what God requires from us, and our love for the Father requires our obedience to Him.

Whose praise do you seek?

Are you open to God’s teaching? Don’t neglect His gracious offer. Eternal life begins when you accept Jesus Christ as Savior.

Read the Entire Chapter:

John Chapter 5

Read Other Commentary from the Book of John

God So Loved You That He Gave His Son

Lord, I Want to Follow You Now

Jesus Is the Way to Eternal Life

Scripture: John 6: 26-27

Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw[f] the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled.27 Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal of approval on him.”

Scripture Commentary:

Eat and fill yourself with food and be hungry again. Fill yourself with the food that lasts for eternal life that the Son of Man gives you and never hunger or thirst again.

Jesus criticized the people who followed Him only for physical and temporal benefits, not for satisfying their spiritual hunger. The Word of God has a filling effect on the spirit that food can’t satisfy.

What do you hunger for?

Is it for worldly goods or is it for eternal life with Our Savior Jesus Christ? True believers follow Jesus simply because they know He has the truth. His way is the way to salvation.

Jesus is the bread of life but bread must be eaten to sustain life. You must invite Christ into your life. He must be part of your daily walk to sustain spiritual life with Him.

God can do the miraculous.

God, through the Holy Spirit, urges you to accept, but it’s up to you to believe in Christ. God can do the miraculous. Trust Him to provide the way.

Don’t miss your opportunity to believe in the Savior, Jesus Christ!

Read the Entire Chapter:

John Chapter 6

Read Other Commentary From the Book of John

Christ is the True Vine

God Didn’t Send Jesus to Condemn the World

God Says “Come to Me” If You’re Weary

Scripture: Matthew 11: 28-30

“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Scripture Commentary: God invites us when He says, “Come to me.”

“Come to me.” God is inviting us to come to Him. Accept His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, as your Lord and Savior. God will free you of the earthly burdens that you carry.

When we put ourselves in Jesus’s care, the problems we thought we had are not as important anymore. The peace we have is so relative that it gives us the answers we need.

What type of person are you?

Jesus mentioned two types of people in prayer: the “wise” who are arrogant in their knowledge, and the “little children” who humbly open themselves to receive the truth of God’s word.

Are you wise in your own eyes or do you seek the truth in childlike faith, realizing that only God holds all the answers? Christ’s death and resurrection gave us direct access to the Father. How fortunate we are that Jesus clearly revealed God to us!

Read the Entire Chapter:

Matthew Chapter 11

Read Other Commentary from the Book of Matthew:

Will You Be Prepared When Christ Returns?

Take My Yoke Upon You

Evil Thoughts Defile the Person

Scripture: Mark 7 (Part Three)

Mark 7: 20-28

And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities,thefts, murders, 22 adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, self-indulgence, envy,[i] slander, pride, and foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within and defile a person.”

24 He got up and departed from there to the region of Tyre.[j] He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it, but he could not escape notice. 25 Instead, immediately after hearing about him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit came and fell at his feet. 26 The woman was a Gentile,[k] a Syrophoenician by birth, and she was asking him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, because it isn’t right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” 28 But she replied to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

An evil action begins with a single thought.

Jesus traveled to Tyre and Sidon. The city of Tyre was an evil, wicked place. Its king even claimed to be God.

Tyre rejoiced when Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 B.C. It is here that Jesus brought His message. A Greek woman whose daughter was possessed by evil spirits asked Jesus to heal her. Many Jews would lose God’s spiritual healing because they rejected Jesus. On the other hand, many Gentiles, whom the Jews rejected, would find salvation because they recognized Jesus.

Mark 7: 29-37

Then he told her, “Because of this reply, you may go. The demon has left your daughter.” 30 When she went back to her home, she found her child lying on the bed, and the demon was gone.

31 Again, leaving the region of Tyre, he went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through[l] the region of the Decapolis. 32 They brought to him a deaf man who had difficulty speaking and begged Jesus to lay his hand on him. 33 So he took him away from the crowd in private. After putting his fingers in the man’s ears and spitting, he touched his tongue. 34 Looking up to heaven, he sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphatha!”[m] (that is, “Be opened!”). 35 Immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak clearly. 36 He ordered them to tell no one, but the more he ordered them, the more they proclaimed it.

37 They were extremely astonished and said, “He has done everything well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

Don’t miss the real message.

This miracle shows that Jesus’s power over demons is so great that He doesn’t need to be present physically to free someone. His power transcends any distance.

Jesus asked the people not to talk about this healing. He didn’t want to be seen only as a miracle worker. He didn’t want the people to miss His real message.

We must not be so concerned about what Jesus can do for us that we forget to listen to His message!

Read the Entire Chapter:

Mark Chapter 7

Other Commentary from the Book of Mark

What Was Going to Happen to Jesus?

God’s People Are the Salt of the Earth

What Tradition Do You Follow?

Scripture: Mark 7 (Part Two)

Mark 7: 8-9

You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” 9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!

Commentary: The Pharisees added hundreds of their own petty rules and regulations to God’s holy laws. They worked to force the people to follow them.

Mark 7: 10-11

10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ 11 But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)— 

Commentary: The Pharisees used God to put money in the temple treasury rather than to help the parents or people in need. God’s law tells us to honor fathers and mothers (Exodus 20:12) and to care for those in need (Leviticus 25: 35-43).

Mark 7: 14-19

And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”[e]17 And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?”[f] (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 

Commentary: Jesus points out that sin actually begins in the attitudes and intentions of the inner person. Jesus didn’t degrade the law. He paved the way for the change made clear when God removed the cultural restrictions regarding food. (See Acts 10: 9-29.)

We are pure on the inside as Christ renews our minds.

Read the Entire Chapter:

Mark Chapter 7

Read other commentary from the Book of Mark

Jesus, Son of God; Son of Man

Watch and Pray; Jesus Will Return

Receive the Kingdom of God with Childlike Faith

Wash Your Hands Before You Eat

Scripture: Mark 7 (Part One)

Mark 7: 1-2

Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, 2 they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 

Commentary: The religious leaders sent people to Jerusalem to spy on Jesus. They didn’t like what they saw and questioned Jesus’s disciples about washing hands. Jesus scolded them for keeping the law and the traditions in order to look holy instead of honoring God.

The prophet Isaiah accused the religious leaders of his day of doing the same thing. (See Isaiah 29:13.) Jesus used Isaiah’s words to accuse these men.

Mark 7: 3-4

(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, 4 and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.)

Commentary: Mark explained these Jewish rituals because he was writing to a non-Jewish audience. Before eating, a devout Jew performed a short ceremony by washing in a specific way. The Pharisees thought this ceremony cleansed them from anything unclean. Jesus said they weren’t making themselves acceptable before God just by performing this act.

Mark 7: 5-7

And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

“‘This people honors me with their lips,
    but their heart is far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
    teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’

Commentary: Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites because they worshipped God for the wrong reasons. Their worship was for profit, to appear holy, and to increase their status.

Part Two of the Commentary on Mark Chapter 7 will cover verses 8-19.

Read more commentary from the Book of Mark

Pay Attention to What You Hear

Are You Spiritually Paralyzed?

Dear Lord, What Shall I Do?

Learn the Truth of Jesus

Scripture: John 8: 42-47

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me,because I came from God and I am here. For I didn’t come on my own, but he sent me. 43 Why don’t you understand what I say? Because you cannot listen to[f] my word. 44 You are of your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature,[g] because he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. 46 Who among you can convict me of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? 47 The one who is from God listens to God’s words. This is why you don’t listen, because you are not from God.”

Scripture Commentary: Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.*

Because God loves us, He sent His Son. But we, like the people in Jesus’s time, do not believe. Satan uses our stubbornness, pride and prejudice to keep us from the truth. We may not be conscious of this but our hatred of truth, our lies and murderous intentions indicates how much control the devil has over us.

Satan, both then and now, uses people to obstruct God’s work. Satan has many tools to carry out his plans, and his followers speak the same language of lies.

No one can accuse Jesus of a single sin.

Jesus intentionally challenged His listeners to test Him. Ask yourself, do I believe that Jesus Christ is my Savior?

If you answered yes, remember to keep Jesus’s word in your heart. This means to not only hear His words but to obey them and lean on Jesus for His love.

Read the Entire Chapter:

John Chapter 8

* John 1: 17

Read Other Commentary From the Book of John

Jesus, the Light of the World

Do You Recognize God’s Voice?

The Food of Spiritual Nourishment

Scripture: John 4: 34-38

“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work,”Jesus told them. 35 “Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: Open[h] your eyes and look at the fields, because they are ready[i] for harvest. 36 The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. 37 For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from[j]their labor.”

Scripture Commentary:

The “food” Jesus speaks about was His spiritual nourishment. It includes more than Bible study, prayer, and attending church. Spiritual nourishment also comes from doing God’s will and helping to bring His work of salvation to completion.

Don’t let Jesus find you making excuses.

We are nourished not only by what we take in but also by what we give out for God. Sometimes Christians excuse themselves from witnessing by saying that their family or friends aren’t ready to believe. Jesus, however, makes it clear that a continual harvest waits to be reaped. Look around, you will find people ready to hear God’s Word.

The wages Jesus offers are the joy of working for Him and seeing the harvest of believers. These wages come to the sower and reaper alike because both find joy in seeing new believers come into Christ’s kingdom.

There is joy in working for our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, He loves you. He gave His life for you.

Read the Entire Chapter:

John Chapter 4

Read Other Commentary from the Book of John

Do You Know the Gift of God?

You Can Depend on Jesus to Make You Whole