“Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!” – Luke 12:24

Do you tend to worry? Many people do in our anxious modern age. However, that isn’t Jesus’ desire for you. He knows how easily our minds can be swept away by fear, anxiety, and worry. But His heart is for the minds of His beloved followers to be filled with shalom peace, no matter what’s going on.

So, Jesus offered frequent reminders of God’s goodness in caring for His creation. God looks after the flowers of the field and the birds of the air. God sustains life and makes things beautiful. He knows how to tend His creation. And you, a human being made in His image, are the crown jewel of God’s creation. You are!

So, of course, God is concerned about you. Of course, God wants the best for you. Of course, God is on your side. Which means that many of your worries are unnecessary and unhelpful. This doesn’t mean there aren’t legitimate things to concern yourself with. But the odds are good that a certain percentage of your dailies worries focus on things outside of your control and solidly in God’s good control. Those are the things Jesus doesn’t want you worrying about.

So, what are you worried about today? Right now? Which of them can you actually do anything about? If you can do something, what’s your plan to address that worry? If you can’t, then turn that worry over to God in prayer. Be clear and specific in your prayer. Then stop worrying about it and trust your Father in Heaven! #FollowJesus

“Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.’” – John 8:12

This world is very dark. A quick check of the headlines or a brief survey of human history for the past century makes that abundantly clear. However, there is light available! That light is Jesus – His person, His presence, His commands, His example, His teachings. He is the light of the world. That much is very clear, as He transforms anything and anyone He touches.

However, people aren’t automatically in the light just because they have a Jesus bumper sticker on their car or carry a Bible with them to church every week. Jesus says a person must genuinely follow Him to have the light of life. Those who are truly raised to new life in the light of Jesus are marked by a life of genuine obedience to Jesus. Those who walk in the light genuinely follow His commands. Genuinely follow His example. Genuinely follow His teachings. Genuinely abide in His presence.

Are you? Do you care about who and what Jesus cares about? Are you concerned about mercy, justice, and your own personal righteousness? Are you concerned for the poor, the sick, and the vulnerable? Do you care about those far from God? Do your everyday thoughts, words, and actions increasingly reflect the character of Jesus? His tone? His words? His heart?

Do you read the Bible often and let it point out areas where you fall short? Do you then repent, ask God’s forgiveness, and ask God to help you better follow Jesus? If so, that’s a good indicator that you’re walking in the light. However, if the Scriptures never point out any need for you to change and the Holy Spirit never convicts of you of ways you fall short of Jesus, that’s a serious warning sign that you may actually be walking in darkness! #FollowJesus

“Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents.” – Matthew 18:23-24

Thus begins a critically important parable for every follower of Jesus to understand: The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant (or Two Debtors). Probably the most important thing to understand in order to truly “get” this parable is the amount of this first debt. 10,000 talents. What on earth is that?

In the 1st Century, a talent was worth 20 years’ wages for an ordinary worker. 20 YEARS. Multiply that by 10,000 and you discover that this debt was worth 200,000 years’ wages!!! What?!?

That’s an astronomically, unimaginably, ludicrously enormous amount of money. It would be many billions of dollars in today’s currency. Jesus said that’s what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. In what way? That mind-boggling amount is what the weight of your sin against God is like! Seriously.

When the man in the parable was called to account for his debt, he begged for mercy and promised to work hard to pay it off. Of course, nobody can pay off a debt like that. So the master (representing God) graciously forgave this astronomical, unimaginable, ludicrously enormous debt. That’s exactly what God has done for you if your sins have been forgiven in Christ! This is what Jesus accomplished for you on the cross. He paid your unimaginably large debt.

Most of us fail to truly appreciate how horrible our sins really are. The daily or hourly rebellions and disgraces that take place in our thoughts, hearts, words, actions, inactions, and silences. This parable illustrates what that’s really like. The good news is that you don’t have to pay this debt (which you couldn’t if you tried) because Jesus paid it for you. Your debt of sin has been cancelled, nailed to the cross of Christ.

Of course, the ultimate point of this parable is about how we treat other human beings who have wronged us. People who owe us a considerable debt of pain that’s nonetheless minuscule in comparison to what we owed the Lord for our sins. Will we respond with the same grace we’ve been shown? Or will we respond in self-righteous wrath and bring into question whether we have the slightest understanding of God’s grace? #FollowJesus

“And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.” – Mark 9:2-3

For a brief moment in time, Peter, James, and John were blessed to see Jesus in His eternal, divine glory. Jesus as He had always been before stepping out of glory and into our world as a newborn baby. Jesus as He would appear once more after His Resurrection and Ascenscion. This Transfiguration of Jesus was clearly an overwhelming experience for them. It was also life-changing for them.

As you read the letters of Peter and John, which were written decades later, this glimpse of glory anchored their faith and motivated their ministry for the rest of their lives. They poured out their lives as an offering to the Lord because of what they saw and heard at the Transfiguration and the Resurrection. That’s what makes the Bible so powerful and why you can have complete confidence in its truth.

The authors risked their lives every day because they were eyewitnesses to Jesus. They saw, heard, and touched the reality of the resurrected Jesus. They heard the voice of God while seeing the glory of the transfigured Jesus. Glory that was always His from eternity past. They knew, and communicated with everything they had, that Jesus really is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God come in the flesh. He is the second person of the Godhead, the Lord, God incarnate.

Believe what they have told you! Meditate on this Jesus often. Picture for yourself the awesome majesty of Lord Jesus, Who rules and reigns in Heaven. Let the reality of Who Jesus is and what He did for you motivate your mission and ministry for the rest of your life. #FollowJesus

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” – Matthew 16:18

Just before this verse, Peter gave his great confession, that he knew that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. This confession, of course, is the foundation of our faith, the rock on which the church of Jesus Christ is built throughout the ages. Then Jesus gives this wonderful promise to the church, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

In an age of declining faith and church attendance in the western world, many take comfort in this promise but they miss its point. Jesus wasn’t talking about an embattled church holding out desperately against the forces of hell coming at it. Gates don’t attack anything. Gates are a defensive structure. The gates of hell don’t attack the church. Rather, Jesus is making a promise about the ADVANCE of His Kingdom! He is a making a promise about the forward progress of the church in the world.

When the church – the assembly of believers – holds firmly to the truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and lives like it, it will move forward. We will share the Gospel with our neighbors, classmates, coworkers, friends, and strangers. We will go and make disciples of all nations. We will do what Jesus called us to do – be salt and light in a dark, decaying world. We will demonstrate the love of Christ and invite people into His Kingdom. As we do, He will move them out of Satan’s dark domain.

That advance is what the gates of hell can’t prevail against. All the forces of darkness in the world can’t stop the Gospel from moving forward if the followers of Jesus are faithful to our Lord. The gates of hell cannot prevent God from using our faithfulness to rescue people from bondage to sin and death. The gates of hell cannot prevent the Kingdom of God from breaking into countries and places that have never heard the Good News that God loves them and sent His Son to reconcile them to Him.

Be faithful! Move forward! Fear not! Be the Kingdom ambassador Jesus has raised you to be in Him. #FollowJesus