The Spirit of the Lord had come to anoint the Son of God in a special and powerful way. After Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit led Jesus away from the Jordan and the bustle of ministry that surrounded John. Jesus was compelled to go out to the wilderness and to the silence of utter nature.
Read MoreAfter his baptism, Christ was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to face the temptations of Satan. Meanwhile, the counsel of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, the most powerful religious leaders in the country, sent more priests to question John the Baptist.
Read MoreThe world of the Jews was being shaken. In the midst of their great, national Passover celebration, the young man named Jesus was turning everything upside down.
Read MoreIn the early days of Christ’s ministry, He spent His days preaching and teaching in the northern region of the nation of Israel around the Sea of Galilee. One day while Jesus was in Capernaum, He went for a walk along the edge of the water.
Read MoreHow different were the people of Capernaum from those in Nazareth! They heard the words of Jesus and believed! Many were healed of their suffering. Can you imagine the excitement the people felt as they watched people being set free?
Read MoreAs Jesus and His disciples were traveling to the cities and towns around Galilee, the Lord continued to do His work of teaching and miraculous healing. Crowds came from all over to follow this wildly popular young preacher.
Read MoreThe times that Christ lived in were very different times from our own. There were no news cameras or newspapers. It wasn’t possible to take a picture with a cell phone and post it on the internet.
Read MoreOne of the ways a writer expresses what is important is by using a lot of repetition. You can tell what is important to them by the subjects that they bring up the most often and by what themes get the most volume in their writings.
Read MoreJesus was doing massive amounts of healing and preaching to the multitudes. The Jews from Galilee and Judea that came to Him early on in His ministry were being joined by Gentiles from cities hundreds of miles away.
Read MoreCrowds upon crowds of people had come from all over the nation of Israel and the surrounding countries to see Jesus, the popular young preacher who performed amazing miracles and taught about God in a radical new way.
Read MoreWhen we read the Beatitudes, we see a picture of the qualities a disciple of Christ is meant to grow in. The descriptions are of a people so full of meekness and mercy that it is hard to imagine anyone would want to persecute them.
Read MoreIn the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus started by describing the qualities of those who are blessed in His Kingdom. They are very different from the things that receive respect and honor in the eyes of the world. They look like Him.
Read MoreAs Jesus taught the Sermon on the Mount, He proclaimed six different ways that the Jewish leaders of His time had distorted and misused the high and holy Law of the Old Testament. In His protection against the rages of evil in this world, God gave commands against murder, adultery, and divorce so that sin would be restrained.
Read MoreOf all the important questions there are in the world, perhaps one of the most important is this: “How are we supposed to talk to God?” If you think about it, the fact that we can talk to Him at all is pretty amazing. There are lots of false stories about God out there that suggest we can’t come to Him.
Read MoreIn His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gave some of the most beautiful truths every spoken or written. Each statement has infinite worth, and yet everything He says in His sermon hangs together like a beautiful golden chain. It helps to look at each part in depth.
Read MoreJesus had spent His days travelling around Galilee, teaching the deepest, richest truths that humanity had ever heard, and healing the broken. He started out teaching in the synagogues, giving the religious leaders a chance to recognize their Savior.
Read MoreThe multitudes of crowds came to follow Jesus and see His amazing miracles. These were the powerful signs God had given in the Old Testament about the coming of His Kingdom. But as Jesus travelled to the cities and villages of Galilee, many of the people did not repent of their sins.
Read MoreJesus continued to teach parables to help his disciples understand how the Kingdom of God would work in the world as true believers waited for Him to return.
Read MoreIn this story, Jesus was continuing to give His faithful witness of the Gospel in the region Galilee in spite of the hard-heartedness of the people. Where was the repentance that should have marked the children of God when their Savior came?
Read MoreThe time had come for the Lord to prepare His disciples for when it would be their job to tell the world what God had done through the work of His Son. Jesus was going to offer His life to pay for the sins of humanity. Through His sacrifice He was going to utterly defeat sin and death.
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