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Father’s Day 2025

The free will of Jesus, the Son of God. The Love of God the Father.

The Lord’s insight. Fathers, love your children. Children, honor your fathers.

In John 6:38, Jesus says, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him Who sent Me.”

In Matthew 3:17 it says, “And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.”

John 6:38 highlights Jesus’ submission to God’s will and His purpose on earth as fulfilling the Father’s plan. It emphasizes that Jesus’s actions and teachings were not based on His own desires, but on the divine purpose given to Him by God.

Today we will observe what we call Father’s Day. Some of us will see this as a day set aside in honor of our fathers.  And some of us will use this as a day we call attention to how we honor the lives of our fathers.  The two views are not the same.

John 6:38 is our best example of what we should be thinking about on Father’s Day.  Jesus reminded the people that He came to us from heaven to do the will of God the Father.  Jesus honored His Father in this way and in every way that He lived while here on earth.

But, God honored Jesus too.  Matthew 3:17 tells us God told others that Jesus was His Son whom He loved.  He honored Jesus with His love.

God did not see that moment as a moment in honor of Jesus.  And Jesus did not see that moment as a moment in honor of God the Father. They used those moments to honor one another.

A day set aside in honor of our fathers cannot do what we should be to honor our father’s every day.  The day itself cannot honor your father.  Who you are each day is the best way to honor your father.

So, as we take a moment to acknowledge the fathers among us, let’s be reminded.  It’s who we are daily that is the best honor we can give to our fathers.

We have God the Father.  We have Jesus our Lord.  And we have our earthly fathers. Fathers remember to love your children and show them how pleased you are with them.  And children, let your fathers know that although you have the freedom to live as you please, you will always try to live in a way that is pleasing to your earthly father and to your Lord and Savior and to your Heavenly Father.

Your free will as a child should be used to honor the Love of your Father.  And your love as a father should be used to honor the free will of the child who respects you enough to live wanting to please you.

Live A Delivered Life.

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Freely Receive and Freely Give

Your Moment at the Well: Nothing is free if there is a requirement to work for it or to earn it in any way.

The Lord’s insight. Receiving and Giving freely develops in us the deeper nature of Christ.

Matthew 10:8: “Freely you have received, freely give.”

With the Lord, the things that are of the greatest value to us are things that are freely given to us.  They cannot be bought, nor can they be earned.  Perhaps the greatest thing of value that we have is our salvation.  We are told this in Ephesians 2:8-9.

This is what it means to freely receive.  The Lord does not have a price tag on any of the things He has for us.  Everything we can have of Him is free to us.  All we need to do is to freely receive.  To freely receive means we accept with gladness and with thanksgiving and with respect and with humility the things that cannot be bought or paid for.

So, what does it mean to freely give?  Well, it means we learn to freely give to others things of great value that they did not work for or earn.  And since we did not work for or earn them, we give the things we have of the greatest value with no expectation of anything in return.  You must learn to freely give.

Freely receiving and freely giving work together to develop the deeper nature of Christ in each of us. When we learn to freely receive, we develop the ability and the things of value that we can freely give.

There is no price or cost that can be placed on grace.  So freely receive the grace of God so that you learn to freely give the grace of God.

There is no price or cost that can be placed on mercy.  So freely receive mercy and freely give mercy.

There is no price or cost that can be placed on the Love of God.  So freely receive His love and freely give His love.

We have nothing of any value that we can offer the Lord for the things He wants to give us anyway.  We have no work that we can do for the Lord that will earn the things He wants to give us.

All He wants from us is for us to freely receive and to freely give.  When we do this, we are transformed into His nature by the very things we freely receive of Him and by the things we freely give to others.

Ephesians 2:8-9: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” If we had to earn our salvation or work for it,

 I’m afraid we would never have it.  Freely receive His gifts and freely give His gifts.

Live A Delivered Life.

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Moments at the Well

Moments when Jesus unexpectedly shows up in our lives.

The Lord’s insight. Burning Hearts

Luke 24:32 “And they said to one another, did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scripture us?”

I want you to know of a change coming in the nature of our Live Delivered posts you receive from me each Sunday. I have been working for a couple years now on the material to publish a weekly journal that captures “Moments at the Well” that I have had with the Lord.

I believe I should start the process by posting some of those encounters on Live Delivered.  So, starting this Sunday, 8 June 2025, you will receive a post that is slightly different.  Many will be shorter but with more insight.

The name “Moments at the Well” refers to the Samaritan lady who Jesus encountered at the Well as she came to draw her daily water, John 4.  She came to the well looking for water, but in that moment, she found Jesus.  My future posts will capture moments like this for us.  Times when we were looking for one thing, but Jesus revealed something more to us.

I am sure scriptures will become more alive to you with these Moments.  It is my prayer that this insight will give you burning hearts to know the Lord better.

Right now, you do not have to do anything any different from what you are doing each Sunday.  But in time, we will shift the way the posts are distributed.

Thanks for listening to the Lord me all these years.

Live a Delivered Life. Love you.

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Compassion that Heals

Your compassion may not heal the cancer, but it can heal some of the emotional pain cancer causes.

Delivering compassion that heals?

In Matthew 8:1-3 we have the account of a leper who came up to Jesus and bowed down before Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, you are able to make me clean.” Jesus reached out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

Jeus shows us the importance of being compassionate and kind towards others.  It requires us to demonstrate a spirit of both being willing and being able. “Willing” implies a readiness and eagerness to do something, demonstrating a choice or desire to act. “Able” refers to having the capacity, or means to do something, regardless of whether one chooses to do it.

Jesus didn’t go around healing everyone He had contact with. The leper knew this.  He also knew that Jesus was able to heal him, but to get healing, he appealed to Jesus for compassion that heals.  He wanted both compassion and healing.

Now most of us are unable to heal others of their sicknesses. But most of us who are believers have within us the capacity to show a willingness to do something and an ability to act out our willingness.  This shows up in us in the form of the compassion with which we demonstrate toward others.

We can often get this simple display of compassion wrong.  We will often withhold compassion because we feel like the receiver is not worthy of our compassion. Compassion is of no use to us unless we shower it onto others. Having the ability to be compassionate but withholding that compassion makes our ability to do compassionate things of no use.

When Jesus said, “I am willing,” He was saying you are important to Me.  Often when we say we are willing we are secretly saying it is important to me to be seen as helpful to others. The leper was looking for both willingness and ability in Jesus.  Jesus was not looking to be seen, but to be helpful.

And like this, the Lord is looking for willingness and ability in each of us.  A willingness to be people of compassion and an ability to put our compassion to work in the lives of the people around us.  He wants us to do this without thinking of how it makes us feel or of how worthy we may think others are deserving.

Compassion that is withheld actually contributes to what holds others down. If you have received compassion at any time from the Lord, He deposited enough compassion into you so that you can use that same compassion to help heal the conditions of others. Your compassion may not heal the cancer, but it can heal some of the emotional pain cancer causes.

Compassion that heals takes many forms that are easy for us to give to others.  It can be understanding; it can be patience; it can be sharing; it can be tolerance.  Compassion is both the willingness and the ability to move in the lives of others without judging the lives of others.

Compassion that heals is not compassion when it makes you feel great to have done something for others.  Many of us think of our compassion and what it will cost us if we use it on something we do not believe is worthy.  Your compassion is of no value if you use it only on the thing you believe is of value.

Compassion is made valuable because you give it to someone who values what you do for them. Just as the Lord did not heal everyone during His time on earth, we must learn to restrain ourselves, so we learn to deliver healing and compassionate kindness where it is needed and not where we want it to be needed.

Be ready to deliver your compassion when you are called to do so. Be kind and friendly and supportive towards everyone but make sure to be compassionately kind and friendly and supportive to those who need kind, friendly and supportive compassion.

But be careful not to make people feel they are down by the way we try to lift them up. Compassion that heals is discerning.  It is delivered to those who need healing. Trying to show compassion to a healthy man could make you appear to be more about yourself that about others.

The leper asked Jesus for His willingness. Jesus could see his need.  He saw the circumstances. If you are providing help to others, it is wise to discern the circumstances, so you don’t try to cheer up the person who is already more cheerful than you are.

Learn to deliver compassion that heals, and you will find that the same compassion will heal you of many things that hinder the joy you can have in your life.

Live a Delivered Life. Love you.

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Jesus Will Ease Your Mind

When we are troubled, we cannot see the light that shines brightly in the middle of darkness. Jesus must east your mind.

Matthew 11:28-30 is a well-known scripture passage where Jesus says to us: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

People were troubled.  Jesus knew that.  He knows it is the same today.  Many of us are constantly troubled and burdened. We are weary as the waters all around us are swift and troubled. In times past, people were troubled mostly by their adversaries. But today we are troubled by our adversaries and more so by those close to us.

The times are difficult for us. Often, we can see no safe way to keep moving forward even with those we know and love.  We are troubled by waters that should be calmed by those around and over us, but they do not calm them. Sometimes we see so much trouble that we fail to see the trouble God wants to bring to the troubles we face.

The Lord is our bridge over the troubled waters we face. God is a master at troubling what troubles us. When things all around you seem to be about to take you under, remember that God has control of you and He has control of the waters around you too. Don’t be troubled; He will ease your mind.

When Moses brought the Israelites out of Egypt and they stood at the edge of the Red Sea, he commanded them to “stand still and get ready to see the salvation of the Lord.”  They had the sea in front of them and Pharoah and His army behind them. They did not see a way to safety. But God did.

God had Moses to tell the people to settle down and see what was about to happen. God had to first ease their minds of fear before they would see the bridge He had prepared for them. The path to safety was across the Red Sea; without boats they would cross the sea on dry land by the hand of God.

God always starts helping us by getting us to a place where He can ease our minds about the burdens and troubles we face. He did it with Noah in the way people lived before the flood.  He did it with Job when he lost all he had.  He did it with David when he was chased by those who wanted to kill him.

It doesn’t matter what is your situation, the Lord is always saying “let me ease your mind” of what is troubling you so you can walk through what is before you.  If you are weary and feeling heavy ladened, take Him at His word. Go to Him and ask for rest from your troubles and He will ease your mind.

When the things you face won’t change, the Lord will ease your mind so He can change you. He does this best by helping to ease our minds about what we see.  When your mind is eased about what is before you, then you can see clearly what is waiting for you. When you cannot stop the rain, He eases your mind by changing how you dress for the weather.

You cannot see the bridge He is ready to build over the troubled waters of your life until you allow Him to ease your mind of the troubles you see. A troubled mind cannot see the light that shines in the middle of darkness.

Things are really tough in the world today. Things are backwards. Our leaders should be smarter than us but often they are not.  They make things worse for us because they are not what is best for us. We are troubled at home; at school; at work; at church and almost in every place we go.  It seems we cannot find a place where we can relax and feel safe from others or from the things others do.

But like a bridge over troubled waters, learn to take your troubles to the Lord and leave them there. Look for the bridge to take your health, your child, your spouse, your job, whatever it is, take it to Him and leave it with Him. Seeing and knowing that He is your bridge is what should ease your mind of what troubles you.

No matter how weary or tired you may be, learn to walk on His life.  It is the bridge that will take you through the things that challenge your life. The call to “Come unto Me” is a call to have your mind eased of the burdens you face daily. Don’t allow the size of your troubles to attack your mind and make you feel small and weary. Picture this.  It is ok to feel small when you know you are in the Lord’s hands.

Answer His call by realizing He is the bridge over all your troubles. Walk on Him and your troubles will learn you are going to live at peace no matter what you face. Let Him ease your mind so that your troubles are pained by trying to bring pain to you.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

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Confessing and Believing

My beliefs and my words do not change Who the Lord is or What God does.

Romans 10:9-10 says, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Paul writes from Rome, first to the Jews and then to the gentiles.  He is reminding the Jews how many of them lived a believing life but not a confessing life.

At the time he wrote this, Paul was saying that many Jews believed that Jesus was Lord but just as many would not confess that God had raised Jesus from the dead. They valued what man might think of them more than the value they placed on being saved. What man thought of them bothered them more than what God thought of them.

But the Word in Romans is not limited to the Jews.  It is also written for the gentiles (non-Jewish people or people who are not of Jewish religion).  I imagine many of us reading my messages are gentiles – believers Yes – but gentiles, nevertheless. Paul has a warning for us.  Pay attention to how the Jewish leaders lived and you live differently. While the salvation of the Lord is a free gift to us, having the gift it will cost you something just like it cost the Jewish leaders of old.  If you have the gift of salvation, it will cost you to give up on what you want to think of yourself and on what you want man to think of you.

As I have watched my life, it came to me to look at Romans 10:9 this way.  I will confess to God and to others that Jesus Christ is exactly Who He says He is in the scripture.  And I will believe in my heart that God raised Him from the dead. Note that I am not saying I will live a life free of sin.  Sin is sin.  It means we come short of living the way the Lord us to live.  But sin does not change who the Lord is or what God has done and will do for us.

What I now know is that Romans 10:9 says to me that while I am a sinful man, I should never confess something about the Lord that is not of the scripture.  And I should never believe God has done or will do anything different from what He has said.  I should value the Lord more than I value myself or man.

You see, my desire to be valued by man could cause me to confess what I do not believe or to believe what I do not live out. My desires and my beliefs do not change Who the Lord is or Who God is. Who God is and what Jesus did for us is not wrong, but I could be.  I want to live a confessing and believing life. And I want that life to be before God alone.  Man can catch a glimpse of my life, but my life is not lived for the glory of what man says or for the glory of what I want.

So, confessing with my mouth that the Lord Jesus is the Christ means to me that I know He is more than the Son of God. He is the Son of God and everything else scripture says.  I’m not just intellectually saying I believe He is Christ. I am saying He is all that He says He is. I am saying, I will try to live life based on all that He says He is.

Believing in my heart that God raised Jesus from the dead means to me that I know God raised Jesus from death just as He said He would. Jesus did not stay dead.  He is alive just as He was before He came to earth.  And because He is alive, we have salvation through our belief in Him.

Believing in my heart means that I believe everything God said about Jesus.  Confessing with my mouth means that I speak everything Jesus and God has told me about Jesus. I want to live the way the Jewish leaders of old could not live.  I want to use their poor example to move me to a place where I value living before God and Jesus more than I value living before man.

Check your own life.  Ask yourself if you are living a confessing and believing life.  Ask yourself if your praise of the Lord is meant to mean more than for the Lord than for man.  Ask yourself if your belief is more to set you apart among man than to establish a place for you with the Lord. Ask yourself if you value what others think of you as much as you value what you hope the Lord will think of you.  Ask yourself if your presence means more about how you look and feel before man and others or how you believe the Lord and God would look upon and feel about you carry yourself.

Confessing and believing. What life are we living? Learn to live a confessing and believing life. You will have something of value that man cannot understand.

Live a Delivered life. Love you

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When Evil Looks Like Good

God is always looking to help the many by helping the one

When evil looks like it is good.

Genesis 50:19-20 shares the conversation Joseph had with his brothers after their father died.  The brothers had sold Joseph into slavery years earlier and now they were all in Egypt where Joseph had risen from slave to second in command to Pharoah of all Egypt.

In the scripture, Joseph says this to his brothers about what they had done to him and how he felt about it then. “do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God?  But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.”

Joseph was saying to his brothers, “do not worry about what I might do to you now that our dad is dead.  I do not hold any grudge against you.  What you did to me years ago was evil, but God used that as an opportunity to do good for you today.”  Joseph was saying you did evil, but God used it to bring about His good.

If you remove the letter “d” from the word devil you will have the word “evil.”  The devil can do nothing but evil because it is who he is, and it is his name. Selling your brother into slavery was wrong.  That’s easy to see.  It’s easy for us to understand that God can use anything for our good.  But it is difficult for us to see the subtle evil that is all around us daily looking like it is good for us.

This deception all started in the garden of Eden when the serpent tricked Eve into believing God’s command to them was not good for them because it kept them from something better.  Remember, the devil can do no good so when you believe anything the devil says or does, no matter how good it may seem, you believe a lie.

Joseph probably didn’t realize at the time things were happening that God would use the evil his brothers did for Good. Joseph probably didn’t go to bed in prison saying God has a plan for him in all that he was facing. All Joseph could do was to continue to be faithful to God.

When we don’t understand why and what is happening around us, we will generally say “God has a plan.”  But this is really just an unbelieving way of saying since I cannot change things, I have to believe God can and He will. God does not always tell us He has a plan for all the things that happen with us. We would spoil His plans just as Eve did.

We do not get cancer so that God can use it as an opportunity to bring us to a saving faith.  Cancer is evil. It happens to many of us. The devil orchestrates evil against us, but God can use that evil to bring good to us. I know some of you may think that God does cause sickness so we can learn to value health.

I won’t argue that He does or does not cause sickness. But if and when God brings a sickness upon us, it is not evil but good.  Everything God does towards us is good just as everything the devil does towards us is evil.  God’s good can never be mistaken as evil but the evil the devil does can sometimes look like it is good for us.

How then do we learn to recognize evil when it looks like it is good? Well, the answer is simple.  The devil uses evil to appeal to something for yourself.  The devil wants to destroy you and those around you by making you make choices that seem like they are good for you.  You cannot see evil in what is before you because you want to see the good that can happen to you.

God is never just after satisfying your selfish desires.  He is after those around you, and He will use you to get to others.  You can recognize His good more easily when you start seeing the impact your decisions will have on those around you that God loves. God’s good is always looking for ways to help the mass never just the individual.

The devil destroyed Eve, then Adam and then many more because each person chose not to sacrifice something they had for something greater that they could not see. God used the sacrifice of His One and Only Son to save all who will believe on Him.

If you are not willing to sacrifice what you have for the unknown God may have planned, you may never be able to recognize the evil that looks good.  Bring your good to all the evil around you and many will have good in their lives they could not have had before.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

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When The Lord Cannot Speak to You

People will not speak to you when they know you will not listen to anything they have to say.

John 9:27 says,” I told you already and you did not listen.  Why do you want to hear it again?”

Jesus had restored sight to a blind man.  The religious leaders asked him who had restored his sight.  He told them it was a man called Jesus.  They didn’t want to believe this, so they kept asking him the same question.

Instead of asking the man the same question over and again, perhaps they should have asked themselves why they did not listen to the man.  In a way the man was saying to the religious leaders, “you people are so harsh in heart that no one can speak to you. You don’t listen so why should I talk.”

Long before this, we see this very thing in 1 Samuel 25:3 when scripture describes a man named Nabal in this way.  It says, “But the man (Nabal) was harsh and evil in his doings.  And in 1 Samuel 25:17 it says, “For he is such a scoundrel that one cannot speak to him.”

Nabal had disrespected King David and his men, but he rejected this when his people told him what he had done. David was going to kill Nabal and his family for his disrespect. Describing Nabal as a scoundrel seems to be a harsh, but God wants us to understand how being harsh of heart keeps us from listening to wisdom and insight.

A scoundrel is a dishonorable person, a person who is mean and unprincipled and who lacks morale integrity.  This person will often act badly towards others, and they will not care about that.  They will act harmful towards the harmless and with evil towards the good.

This was an accurate description of the religious leaders of Jesus time.  They did not care about others or the condition of others.  They were mean and evil and hateful toward those who were the least among people.  They sought respect but they did not give respect.

They wanted others to listen to them, but it was hard for others to speak to them. They were the smartest and most intelligent of people, yet they acted with stupidity and without reason. This is why they could not listen to anyone. They could not speak about themselves, only about others.

Because they had position and status they believed this meant they had knowledge and understanding superior to others. Unfortunately, today we have many people around us like this and we are forced to live with the decisions they make.

The Lord wants us to know that having good understanding and wisdom does not come to us because of the position or status we have in life. And likewise, having position and status does not mean we have good understanding and wisdom and intelligence.

We are all just a short distance from being like and walking in the steps of Nabal. When it is hard for others to hear us, it will be hard for them to speak to us.  If the Lord cannot speak to us, we will not be able to hear Him.  The Lord is always trying to answer the questions we would never ask ourselves.

Today, perhaps He is saying to us, the reason we do not get the answers we want in life is because we are asking the wrong questions.  Perhaps we want Him to listen to us more than we want to listen to Him.

Perhaps the reason we do not make wise decisions is because we do not listen to someone who makes better decisions than us. If we never ask if we are the reason things are going bad, we will likely never accept when others tell us we are the reason things are bad. If things are not going well for you, it may be because you do not hear when you are told you are not acting well towards others.

Nabal acted with disrespect toward David.  He didn’t think much of David.  Nabal was stupid for behaving the way he did.  Unfortunately, today we have a lot more people like Nabal around us. We could be one of those.

It doesn’t matter that you are successful, educated or highly placed in society, when you do not ask yourself if you are the problem you always see with others, you will likely say things that make no sense to those looking for you to make sense in what you say.

If you want people to listen to you, you must be someone people can speak to. The Lord is our example. We can always speak to Him. He will always be there waiting to hear us. When all we want is for people to hear us and go away, they will hear, they will go away and they will never return.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

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Uncover It

When you uncover the reasons you disbelieve, you can learn to believe what you didn’t believe before.

Uncover it! That’s my message today.

1 John 4:6 Says this:  We are of God.  He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us.

Matthew 28:19 says this: Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Believers know God so they can hear what other believers say about God.  People who do not know God cannot hear what is said about Him. They hear but they cannot understand. This sounds contrary to the call to go and make disciples. How can we do that if the nonbeliever cannot hear what is said about God?

Learning to become a believer means uncovering what keeps you in a state of disbelieving.  A believer is someone who has simply learned to believe things about the Lord what they once disbelieved.  A believer has learned to uncover and overcome the thing that made them disbelieve.

The Lord wants the believer to help the nonbeliever to learn about what they are missing. Our work is to help them learn to uncover the knowledge they are missing about the Lord.  When you cannot uncover what keeps you from believing, you cannot hear what you should believe.

Many people don’t see an issue with not believing in the Lord because they cannot see a benefit to believing while they are living.  Also, they cannot see a consequence of not believing because to them death is the end of life. People like this choose to live in a way that is comfortable for them. They never uncover what keeps them from becoming believers because their belief is to disbelieve.

The believer knows nonbelief is a problem.  While the nonbeliever looks for proof that God is real, the believer has uncovered enough insight about God to know that there is nothing that can disprove that God is not Who He says He is.

The nonbeliever tries to validate the truth of why they disbelieve.  But the believer, by uncovering and learning, lives to validate why they cannot disbelieve. Uncovering what keeps you from disbelieving will make you a more effective disciple for the nonbeliever.

The Holy Spirit will help you learn to uncover the things that would make you disbelieve. He will help you to:

Uncover and know what makes you disbelieve the Lord and to and never allow it to go hidden.

He will help you to own that you are the reason you believe as you do or that you disbelieve.  No one else can keep you from either believing or not believing.  The Holy Spirit will help you personalize your problem.  It is yours to own.

He will help you to attack the problem of disbelief with belief. Yes, I mean attack it. He will help you to challenge your attitude, behavior, conduct or whatever it is.  He will help you change what you must change so that you believe what you must believe about the Lord.

He will help you to overcome what keeps you where you are before what keeps you where you are overcomes you. When you uncover what keeps you back, move forward so it cannot come back to you. Disbelief wants you to stay where you are believing just as you do.

Uncover the things that hinder your belief, then you will be a better help and witness to those who are held by their own disbelief.

When God uncovers for you things about your belief that no man could know, you should believe more of the things that only God can uncover about you.

Live a Delivered Life. Love you

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Resurrection Sunday 2025

He is Risen! He did not stay dead!!

Resurrection Sunday 2025!

Matthew 28:1-8

“Now after the Sabbath, as the first day of the week began to dawn, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, came to see the tomb.  And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat on it.

His countenance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow.  And the guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men. But the angel answered and said to the women, do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus Who was crucified.  He is not here; for He is risen, as He said.

Come, see the place where the Lord lay.  And go quickly and tell His disciples that He is risen from the dead, and indeed He is going before you into Galilee; there you will see Him.  Behold, I have told you. So, they went out quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to bring His disciple’s word.”

Until then, the disciples and many believers had known Jesus as Christ, the Son of God.  But on this day, they will come to know Him as Christ, their Lord and Savior.  Today is the day we acknowledge that Jesus the Son of God was raised from the dead and became Jesus, Son of God, and Savior to all those who believe on Him.

On a day like today, with the resurrection of Christ from the dead, the relationship with the Lord of every believer and of every person who wants to believe, becomes personal. Christ was crucified. The Son of God was buried in a tomb.  But Christ the Son of God and now savior of the world was raised from the dead.

To those who believe, now at the dawning of every day we do not have to go to a tomb to see Him.  He lives in our lives.  We simply need to never allow the stone of unbelief to be rolled across our hearts.

To those who believe, the Lord can still send His angel to us, but we have the privilege to have the Lord Himself come to us and encourage our faith and our belief.  His life in us is His proof to us that we do not need to be afraid He may be a dead Savior. He lives in us.

To those who believe, because of a day like today, we can go tell the world of the place where the living Lord now wants to go. Much like He went before His believers to Galilee, today He is now going to the hearts of every believer.

Believers don’t need to go before Him to any place.  He is coming to you.  To those who believe, their heart is the place where He will see them.  Their heart is the place in which He will show Himself in all the fullness of His life.

So, as we acknowledge His resurrection from the dead, His risen life, and His new life in us, lets go out quickly today and every day from the tombs of our old lives.  Let’s allow Him to bring to life a new life in us, a life that He shares with us.

And let’s run with joy among all peoples and bring them word that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, is indeed risen from death and alive in heaven with God and in the hearts of all those who believe on Him.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.