My friends and I used to crouch beside my dad’s giant Wharfedale speakers, ears poised to catch every nuance of the music. Compared to our transistor radios, those speakers were like being on stage. That’s why I remember hearing Johnny Cash perform San Quentin live, right there at the prison. The song was a diatribe, and the […]
Tag: following jesus
Following Jesus • 28 / The next person in line
Read this: Matthew 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22 John the Baptist spent his days preparing people to meet God, challenging the proud and baptizing the humble. One day, the next person in line to be baptized was Someone he knew. It was his own cousin. Jesus. The Messiah. Startled, John pushed back. “I need to be […]
Following Jesus • 27 / Great expectations
Read This: Matthew 3:11-12; Mark 1:7-8; Luke 3:15-18 Why did so many people flock to John? Because they longed for God — and God had been silent for a long time (Day 8). Except for that blip thirty years earlier. There had been talk of a great King (Day 19). Angels appearing to shepherds to […]
Following Jesus • 26 / What repentance looks like*
Read This: Matthew 3:7-10; Luke 3:7-14 Prophets were big news in Bible times. They spoke for God. If you wanted to hear God, you listened to His prophet. Since John was considered a prophet, people came from everywhere to hear him. John’s message was clear — the way to God is through repentance. Not wealth […]
Following Jesus • 19 / Paying Attention
Much is said about Jesus’ low-key birth. Small-town parents, strangers in Bethlehem, no vacancy, sleeping in the stable. Mary and Joseph were nobodies from nowhere. Unnoticed. But Jesus’ birth was no secret. The birth of John the Baptist six months prior was “talked about through all the hill country of Judea” (Luke 1:65-66). And since […]
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