Monthly Archives: October 2016

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Nazareth—Jesus’ Hometown with a View to the Past and the Future

Not many people can say they grew up on a hill that overlooked the battlefields of history. But Jesus could.

Jesus’ hometown sat off the beaten path and high on a ridge that overlooked the International Highway and the prominent Jezreel Valley.

Nazareth—Jesus’ Hometown with a View to the Past and the Future

(Photo: Nazareth Mount of Precipitation. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

The gospels tell us Nazareth rested on a hill with a formidable precipice (Luke 4:29). From here Jesus cold see the battles of Israel’s history.

The city’s name likely comes from the Hebrew term netzer, meaning “branch” or “shoot.” Some scholars believe this represents the faith of those Jews who returned from exile. Their hope focused on the coming Messiah, the “righteous Branch” of David, promised by the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 23:5; 33:15).

But when He did finally show up, they tried to throw Him over the cliff.

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The Gates of Jerusalem Today and Tomorrow

8 gates today and 12 in the future.

Every time I see them, they fascinate me. The walls and gates of Jerusalem have expanded and contracted over the centuries like the breathing of a living being. Even today, the Old City of Jerusalem is such that we have to enter the city through gates—just as people did for thousands of years.

Golden Gate

(Photo: Jerusalem’s Golden Gate. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

Gates were more than passageways. They served as places for personal business and civic affairs (see Ruth 4:1). Gates often took their names from the distant cities they faced, like Jaffa, Damascus, and Shechem.

There are 8 gates of Jerusalem today. But the Bible promises 12 in the future.

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The Harod Valley—Your Overwhelming Anxiety Finds its Peace

Truths as enduring as the beautiful settings in which they occurred.

It’s amazing how history repeats itself in our lives. We think we’ve learned to deal with overwhelming anxiety, but each new day offers a new challenge we never would have expected.

The Harod Valley—Your Overwhelming Anxiety Finds its Peace

(Photo: The Harod Valley. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

In ancient Israel, the Harod Valley gave stage to two sets of desperate situations. From threats to insecurities to death and hopelessness, in every case the overwhelming anxiety found its peace only one way.

It’s the same with your overwhelming anxiety today.

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Where the End of Hopelessness Begins for You

Theology offers something essential in your struggle.

There’s not much we can be sure of today. We live in a culture of broken promises, broken relationships, shallow friendships, and flawed leaders. And that’s just at church.

Where the End of Hopelessness Begins for You

(Photo courtesy of Unsplash)

After a number of stabbing disappointments, we can come to the place where we expect little else. We can choose to hope for nothing in hopes we won’t be disappointed. When we focus on the here and now—and especially on all the pain life has handed us—the black hole of hopelessness sucks us in and surrounds us.

To the marvelous promise that “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose,” we need to ponder the rhetorical question that follows: “If God is for us, who is against us?” (Rom. 8:28, 31).

The question gives context to those painful parts of God’s sovereignty in our lives.

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Why Your Life in Christ is Supposed to Hurt

Finding the key to pressing on in spite of your pain.

Any woman who has experienced childbirth understands. Any helpless man who has witnessed childbirth, like me (twice), gets it to a degree. That’s why the Bible uses the experience as a metaphor of our lives.

Why Your Life in Christ is Supposed to Hurt

(Photo courtesy of Unsplash)

 

The whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves . . . groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. —Romans 8:22–23

We would all love to have an emotional epidural to where we didn’t feel the pain of life. But that won’t happen.

God doesn’t give us a way to avoid the hurt.

But He does tell us what to think so we can make it through the struggle.

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Israel’s Negev Gives Enormous Hope for Your Barren Life

Nothing can stop God from fulfilling His promises.

Nothing can stop God from fulfilling His promises to those who believe in Him. In the mean time, it takes great vision to see something where there is nothing. Israel’s Negev provides a great example.

Israel's Negev Gives Enormous Hope for Your Barren Life

(Photo: Sculpture garden at Sde Boker, by שי קסל CC-BY-2.5, via Wikimedia Commons)

Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, saw the vast expanse of Israel’s Negev as something that offered great potential. In 1953, he settled in the kibbutz Sde Boker, urging Israelis to help him tame the Negev into a new society for Israel.

To many, the idea seemed no more than a pipe dream. As a result, the plea fell on deaf ears, for the arid region receives barely eight inches of rain per year.

In the Negev, life has one uncompromising requirement: water. Through this simple need in the same land, God taught His people a life-giving lesson.

We can drink from it as well.

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How Antioch Can Energize Your Right Motivation for God

Where you are and who you are make all the difference.

Some cities have a geographical location that seems especially designed by God as a springboard for communication. Antioch on the Orontes, for example, bears the thumbprint of God.

How Antioch Can Energize Your Right Motivation for God

(Photo: The modern city of Antakya covers much of ancient Antioch. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

Scripture’s first mention of Syrian Antioch refers to the city on the Orontes River, 300 miles north of Jerusalem. Antioch served as the Roman capital of Syria and ranked as the third largest city in the entire Roman Empire, behind Rome and Alexandria.

Its influence came from its location.

  • The river snaked southwest along a narrow valley between the Amanus Mountains and the harsh Lebanon Mountains.
  • This valley offered the easiest access inland for those traveling from the Mediterranean Sea.
  • Anyone journeying overland across the Taurus Mountains would have to pass by Antioch.

The land funneled all who traveled in this area by Antioch. No wonder the Lord chose this city as a springboard for the known world to hear God’s universal good news.

Antioch offers a great lesson in our motivation for God.

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Get the Perspective You Need with 3 Truths

How to watch for the journey as well as the destination.

The Texas Driver’s Handbook has a tip that can help you today. A diagram shows when you sit in a parked car, you have a 180-degree field of vision. Great perspective. But then you start moving.

Get the Perspective You Need with 3 Truths

(Photo courtesy of Unsplash)

Once you get going, your perspective immediately changes:

  • When your car accelerates to 20 M.P.H. that field of vision reduces to 66%.
  • At 40 M.P.H. your visual field shrinks to 20%.
  • At 60 M.P.H. your field of vision remains barely wider than the headlights.

Simply said, the faster you go the less perspective you have. The same holds true for your day today. If you never sit still, you never see the big picture—only the immediate right in front of you.

Here are 3 truths to give you the perspective you need for your journey.

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Finding the Dead Sea Scrolls Isn’t Enough

The Qumran caves only take us so far.

Our guide pointed from the road to a rocky outcropping on one of the distant hills. “This hike is definitely optional,” he warned. “But it’s worth it.”

Qumran Cave 4 interior

(Photo: The interior of Cave 4 at Qumran. Courtesy of the Pictorial Library of Bible Lands)

A few of us brave souls followed, and for the first time in my life, I wished I had four legs.

Our guide scurried over the rocks like a lizard and stopped ahead, halfway up the hill, near the fissure in the rocks to which he had pointed. He turned and stood, arms crossed, one leg over the other, and waited for us. Finally I arrived.

“This is it,” he beamed.

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2 Questions to Help You Live Intentionally for God

There's no need to keep going with the flow.

It’s always easier to react to life rather than to shape it. To go with the flow rather than to dig a new trench. Obviously, we want to respond well to what life throws at us. It’s assumed we should do that.

2 Questions to Help You Live Intentionally for God

(Photo courtesy of Unsplash)

But I believe God gives us help to choose the direction of our lives. To live intentionally for Him. I don’t mean we choose what happens to us, but rather, that God has given us the freedom to make significant choices in spite of our circumstances.

Jesus’ example shows us what choices to make to live intentionally for God.

Two questions can help us do that.

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