Dec 30, 2018
1 John 4:8 shows us God is love. We know Jesus is God by verses like John 10:30 in which Jesus reveals, “I and the father are one”, and this means Jesus is love. By knowing Jesus to inherently be love, we can better come to understand what love is and who God is by observing the life of Jesus through God’s...
Dec 23, 2018
Mary was young, poor and probably not especially attractive. She lived in the rural area of Nazareth and came from a family with no great social influence. Like most young women of her time, she would have been happy to marry a man she loved and please God by being a godly wife and mother. Greatness doesn’t have to...
Dec 16, 2018
Anna probably married as a young woman, then after seven years her husband died. When she met infant Jesus she was 84 years old. She was likely widowed for over 60 years and didn’t remarry or have children which allowed her to continually pray and fast at the Temple. A person’s priorities pave their path (Prov....
Dec 9, 2018
In the Law, every firstborn male belonged to God as he was the ‘strength’ of the herd or family (Ex. 13:2). As Israelites that loved God, Joseph and Mary came from Nazareth to Jerusalem to redeem Jesus from service to the Lord at the Temple forty-one days after his birth. Because they were poor, instead of a lamb,...
Dec 2, 2018
Before the time of Christ, multiple nations had ruled Israel for hundreds of years with brief moments of independence. Just before the first century, Rome controlled Israel through the ruthless client-king Herod the Great. In 20 BC, Herod began to remodel and expand the Temple in Jerusalem that Jesus attended throughout...