Posts with the category “bible-reading-plan-2026”

The jailer asked how to get out of a mess. He found a Savior instead. That’s often how grace works. We come to Jesus looking for help with one problem, only to discover that he is inviting us into a completely new life.   Read More

What looks like an ordinary meeting beside a river is actually the beginning of something much larger. And the story isn’t finished...   Read More

Leaders sought God’s wisdom together. They protected the truth of the gospel. They refused to place unnecessary burdens on new believers. Then they walked alongside those believers to help them understand what faithful living looked like. Grace and truth were never competitors. They belonged together. However, almost immediately, we read about one of the most painful disagreements in the New Testament...   Read More

The apostles and elders listened. They remembered what God had done. They searched the Scriptures. James anchored the discussion in the words of the prophet Amos, showing that God's plan had always been to welcome the nations through the promised Messiah. Experience didn't replace Scripture; rather, Scripture helped them understand what God was doing before their eyes.   Read More

Grace invites a response. God reaches toward us first, but He does not force Himself upon us. We can receive His gift with humble faith, or we can cling to our own expectations, traditions, and pride.   Read More

The resurrection changes everything. Jesus isn't simply another prophet or another king in Israel’s long history. He is the risen Messiah through whom forgiveness of sins is proclaimed. What the Law could never fully accomplish, Christ has accomplished through His death and resurrection. In Him, people are made right with God by grace.   Read More

Luke reminds us of a truth that continues throughout Acts: whenever God sends His people, opposition often follows...   Read More

Human power is temporary. Public approval shifts. Leaders come and go. Some doors close while others open. Yet the gospel does not depend upon one ruler’s permission, one apostle’s presence, or the church’s perfect faith. It advances because Jesus is alive and reigning.   Read More

Peter didn't ask the church to trust his experience alone. He pointed them to the work of the Holy Spirit, anchored his testimony in the words of Jesus, and invited the believers to recognize the evidence of God’s grace. When they did, their objections gave way to worship.   Read More

God has no favorites, but God does have one way of salvation. Jews and Gentiles alike must come through Jesus. The ground is level at the foot of the cross because every one of us comes as a sinner in need of grace, and every one of us is invited into the same transforming relationship with Christ.   Read More

The church has always been at its best when it follows the Spirit across those boundaries. Sometimes obedience means going somewhere we never expected. Sometimes it means welcoming someone we never imagined would become family. Sometimes it begins with allowing God to challenge assumptions we’ve carried for years.  Read More

In only a few paragraphs, we move from plots, escapes, public preaching, and the future apostle to the Gentiles into an upstairs room filled with grieving widows holding the clothes Tabitha had made for them. The scale of the story becomes smaller, but its importance does not.  Read More

God didn't just change Saul’s opinion. God transformed his entire life.  Read More

The One who was rejected had come to welcome the rejected. The Servant who bore our sin had opened God’s family to those who had always stood outside looking in. What the law could never accomplish, Christ accomplished through His death and resurrection.  Read More

Acts continues to remind us that the church grows not because everything goes according to plan, but because God faithfully works through faithful people who are willing to go wherever God sends them.  Read More

Stephen wasn’t attacking Moses. He wasn’t attacking God’s Law. He certainly wasn’t rejecting Israel’s story. He was showing that the same God who called Abraham, spoke through Moses, and filled the Temple had now revealed Himself fully in Jesus Christ.  Read More

Stephen understands something that we often forget: faithfulness is not simply believing the right things. Faithfulness is knowing where your life fits within God’s larger story.  Read More

The church had committed itself to living as one family in Christ. That meant caring for one another, especially the most vulnerable. When widows were neglected, the witness of the church was threatened. The problem had to be addressed.  Read More

God’s movement is not controlled by our preferences. The Spirit is not limited to our comfort zones. The risen Jesus keeps calling, sending, healing, forgiving, restoring, and disrupting whatever stands in the way of the good news.  Read More

The problem was never that Ananias and Sapphira kept some of the money. Peter makes it clear that the property belonged to them. They were free to give all of it, some of it, or none of it. The issue was the lie. They wanted the reputation of sacrificial generosity without actually being sacrificial. They wanted the appearance of holiness without the reality of it. In a church filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit, that kind of deception could not remain hidden.  Read More

The believers in Acts did not build their prayer around their fear. They built it around who God is and what God had already spoken. They began by calling upon the God who created heaven, earth, sea, and everything in them. Then they remembered the words of Psalm 2, which describe the nations and rulers resisting God and his anointed King.  Read More

We may not have stood beside the empty tomb, but we have experienced his grace. We have known forgiveness when we were carrying shame. We have received strength when we thought we could not continue. We have found hope in grief, peace in uncertainty, and a new direction when our lives had wandered far from God. Have we grown so familiar with grace that we have stopped talking about it?  Read More

When we turn back to God, our sins are wiped away. The image Peter uses is beautiful. The accusations written against us are erased. The guilt that clings to us is removed. The burden we were never meant to carry is lifted by grace.  Read More

Peter explains what has happened by reaching back into Israel’s Scriptures. God’s people had waited for generations for the promised day when God would act decisively, pour out the Spirit, rescue the people, and begin making all things new. Peter announces that this long-awaited work has begun.  Read More

Pentecost reminds us that Christianity was never meant to be a private belief system. The Holy Spirit fills ordinary people with heaven’s power so they can bear witness to Jesus. The same Spirit who filled that upper room still works today, and perhaps the most faithful response to Acts 2 is not simply to explain Pentecost, but to surrender ourselves to the Spirit’s work and allow God to transform us by grace.  Read More

Before Jesus ascends, the disciples ask a familiar kind of question: Is this finally the time when God will restore the kingdom to Israel? They want a schedule. Jesus gives them a mission.  Read More

John closes his Gospel by reminding us that countless other stories could have been told. The world itself could not contain all that Jesus did. Maybe that's the whole point — the story was never meant to end with a book. The Word became flesh, and now the testimony continues through the lives of His followers. We are sent into the world to live the story, bear witness to the resurrection, and reflect the love of Christ wherever He places us.  Read More

The resurrection is the announcement that God’s new creation has begun. Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on His disciples, echoing God’s breath of life in Genesis. He speaks peace over fearful people. He sends them into the world just as the Father sent Him. The result is more than forgiveness of sins. It is new life.  Read More

ohn wants us to see that Jesus is not a tragic victim caught in the machinery of Rome. He is not a failed Messiah whose mission has collapsed. He is the righteous sufferer of Psalm 22. He is the true King. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Read More

The religious leaders look at Jesus, the true King standing before them, and cry out for his crucifixion. Then, when Pilate asks, “Do you want me to crucify your king?” they answer, “We have no king except the emperor.” Those tragic words show just how far the religious leaders had strayed from God...  Read More

Denial is not always loud rebellion. Sometimes denial sounds like silence, or blending in. Sometimes denial sounds like avoiding the conversation, or saying “I’m not,” when everything about our lives should say, “I belong to him.”  Read More

For a moment, the arresting party gets a glimpse of the truth. The vulnerable man in the garden is not powerless. The one they have come to bind is the eternal Son. The one standing in torchlight is the true Light. The one being handed over is still Lord.  Read More

Jesus knows He is about to leave His disciples. He entrusts them to the Father who has faithfully cared for Him throughout His earthly ministry. And the same prayer extends to us. Jesus prayed for His first disciples, but He also prayed for those who would believe through their witness—including you and me. The Son of God prayed that we would be protected from evil, formed by truth, united in love, and sent into the world as His witnesses!  Read More

Because of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, we don't stand at a distance wondering if God will hear us. We have direct access to the Father. Jesus tells His disciples that the Father Himself loves them. The door is open. The invitation is extended. We are welcomed into the presence of God through Christ. That truth connects deeply with our understanding of grace.  Read More

The Holy Spirit comes as Advocate, like one who stands in the courtroom and tells the truth. The world believes it knows how to judge sin, righteousness, and condemnation. But according to Jesus, the world has gotten the verdict wrong.  Read More

Branches don’t produce fruit by trying harder. They bear fruit because they remain connected to the vine. Their life comes from the vine itself. We know this, but remaining in Christ also means submitting to the Father’s pruning work... That’s the part many of us would rather avoid. We naturally drift inward. We become consumed with our own ambitions, comforts, preferences, hurts, and distractions. We spend energy on things that don’t produce lasting fruit. We can even become so focused on ourselves that we block the very light we were meant to grow toward. Yet, the Father lovingly cuts away whatever keeps us from becoming who He created us to be.  Read More

We walk the way because the Spirit walks with us. This also means the church’s witness has to look like Jesus. Wright says that only when Jesus’ followers continue doing what Jesus did will they be believed when they speak the truth he spoke. We need to hear and embody this message.  Read More

And right there, in the middle of betrayal, denial, fear, and confusion, Jesus speaks about love... are we paying attention, because that should tell us something really important about the pattern of love we are to follow.  Read More

The foot washing is more than an act of hospitality. It points to the cross itself. The One who laid aside his outer robe would soon lay down his life. The One who washed the disciples’ feet would soon cleanse the world through his sacrifice.  Read More

Walk in the light. Believe in the light. Become people whose lives are determined by the light. That is the invitation... and the challenge. John tells us that when some Greeks arrive wanting to see Jesus, He immediately realizes something significant has changed. The moment has come. The hour He has been speaking about since Cana has finally arrived.  Read More