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2 Corinthians 5:7 “We live by believing, not by seeing” NLT In college, my wife and I had a religion professor named Alan Smith.  He taught us a lot about Christian Education (that is his area) but to be honest, I don’t recall most of it.  But one thing I do remember from Dr. Smith…

James 2:14-24, The Message “Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, “Good morning, friend!…

Hebrews 11:1-2 The Message – “The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.”                 I would encourage…

Read 1 Samuel 25                 For our last Old Testament heroine, we circle back to consider Abigail, a wise and clever woman who no doubt saved many lives with her quick and decisive action.  She also saved David from doing something he most likely would have deeply regretted later.                 David, as you may remember,…

Read Daniel 6 So today we find Daniel in the court of a new Kingdom, the Persians.  Darius is the King.  Daniels’ faithfulness and service to King Nebuchadnezza (Babylon), His Son, Belshazzar (Babylon) and King Darius endeared himself to them so that even though he often was the bearer of bad news, they trusted him…

Read Daniel 3                 Today, we move to famous trio Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.  What’s that you say?  You’ve never heard of them?  Well, you might know them by the Babylonian names they were given – Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  Or if you’re a Veggie Tales fan, they are Rack, Shack, and Benny.  Whatever names…

Nehemiah 6                 So work on the walls continues under the leadership of Nehemiah but his faithful enemies don’t let up. In fact they plan to kill him. They pretend to want to “meet” and talk about their differences, but their plan is to take out Nehemiah and Nehemiah knows it. His response is genius.…

Read Nehemiah 5                 So the work continues on the walls of Jerusalem until internal struggles begin to cripple the workers.  Persian taxes were oppressive to the Jews – so overwhelming that many had to take out loans to pay the taxes.  It was Jewish businessmen that were giving the loans – and get this…

Read Nehemiah 4 Yesterday, we saw Nehemiah leading and inspiring all the tribes of Israel to do their part in building back the walls.  The work progressed impressively.  However, today in Chapter 4, we see there is opposition.  It’s important not to skip over this.  Whenever good work is moving forward, there will be opposition. …

Read Nehemiah 3                 We rejoin Nehemiah in Chapter 3.  Nehemiah, an Jewish official in the King of Persia’s court, hears about the crumbled walls of Jerusalem and is moved to do something.  He obtains permission and resources from the King and sets off to begin the task.  He shares his vision and it is…