Being Like Jesus

PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 30, 2023. Topic: THE LOVE OF THE FATHER Bible Reading: Luke 15:11-32 Verse for Meditation: Romans 5:8 TPT But Christ proved God’s passionate love for us by dying in our place while we were still lost and ungodly. The theme in Luke 15 is about ‘the parable of the lost’; the lost sheep (Lk. 15: 3-7), the lost coin (Lk. 15:8-10) and the lost son (Lk. 15:11-32). And all three stories reveal how the Trinity desires to bring people back through the Son, by the Spirit to the Father. The Son came as a Shepherd, seeking and sacrificing to find the lost sinner. The Spirit seeks the lost sinner like the woman searched with the light of illumination for the lost coin until she found it. And the Father welcomes the returning sinner back to His house. It is the work of the Trinity to bring us back to God. The introduction to these parables was when the Pharisees and the scribes began to complain when they caught Jesus among the tax

  PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 29, 2023. Topic: THE WRATH OF GOD Bible Reading: Genesis 6:1-9 Verse for Meditation: Colossians 2:9 NKJV For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Just to reiterate what was shared yesterday, every sin committed has its consequences, but that is not God punishing the believer. Every of His punishment was dealt with in Christ, and what He did is so powerful enough to reconcile us with God. The Bible says, “... He [God] forgave all [past, present and future] our sin.” (Col. 2:13 Parenthesis Mine). Yet as God’s children, we are chastised but through His Word. I have heard some folks say that God allowed certain things to happen to us in order to teach us a lesson. That is not true, His Word is sufficient enough to teach us. Those negative circumstances may occur because of the fallen world that we live in or as a result of the fallen man (E.g. sickness), or as a result of committing a sin, or our ignoran

 PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 28, 2023. Topic: THE CHASTISEMENT OF THE LORD Bible Reading: Hebrews 12:1-11 Verse for Meditation: Hebrews 12:6 NKJV For whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. Questions related to the chastisement of the Lord have been quite difficult to answer because many of our experiences have led to a subjective view about God and His Word. I was once like that until I started to see God and His Word through the lens of Christ and a proper interpretation of the Scripture. To interpret the Scripture properly, you must first read the text in context, then look out for the mode of communication used (the language used, and if it was used figuratively, check out for the figurative expression and meaning), and the culture (also the time). Then finally pass it through the lens of Christ, because the Scripture is about Him. So the questions, “do my difficult circumstances indicate that God is mad at m

PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 27, 2023. Topic: RELIGION III (RELIGIOUS SPIRIT) Bible Reading: Revelation 2:1-7 Verse for Meditation: Revelation 2:4 NKJV Nevertheless have this against you, that you have left your first love. God’s initial plan for the church of Jesus was not denomination but unification. When you study a bit on church history you will discover that the major reason for such denomination is as a result of a subjective interpretation of the whole truth in the Bible. For example, the teaching of the election of grace has become a theological debate between the followers of John Calvin and the followers of Jacobus Arminius. The reason for such theological debate is because the whole truth in the Bible has not been properly interpreted objectively and in context. Yet we thank God for what He’s doing in our churches and that all the church believe in one gospel- Christ’s crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. At least t

 PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 26, 2023. Topic: RELIGION II (CHRISTIANITY) Bible Reading: Matthew 23:1-13 Verse for Meditation: Mark 7:9 MSG He went on, “Well, good for you. You get rid of God’s command so you won’t be inconvenienced in following the religious fashions! Many believe that Christ’s earthly ministry led to the starting of a new religion; some materials have it documented that Christianity emerged from Judaism. That looks true, but actually religion was never God’s plan to man; His plan ever since was to establish a relationship with man. Thus the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ was to oppose man-made religion and to explain the Law, that it was all about a relationship all the while. When God gave His Law to the Israelites, His desires was that they “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:37). “Love” speaks of relationship. Obedience to all the other commands

 PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 25, 2023. Topic: RELIGION I (INTRODUCTION) Bible Reading: Colossians 2:6-10, 20-23 Verse for Meditation: James 1:27 NLT Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. According to some estimates, there are over 4,000 religions, faiths groups, and denominations that exist around the world today. Yet there is no universally accepted definition of the term, “religion” as there is no straightforward meaning. Some cultures view religion entirely separately from individuals or society. Others don’t distinguish those concepts enough to consider “religion” a meaningful category. A general definition of religion can be distilled from these widely varied experiences as “a range of social-cultural system connected to spiritual and/or supernatural components that uniquely impacts the adherent’s worldview, behaviour, belief,