STAND BY ME

 

Today I want to share with you how the Lord will stand by you and be faithful.

1.       GOD IS FAITHFUL TO FORGIVE SINS WHEN THEY ARE CONFESSED.  He was faithful to humble himself, become a man, live a sin free life, go to cross, shed his blood, and pay the penalty for sin.  Without His faithfulness, we would not have the wonderful benefit of being forgiven. 

 

a.      We can be assured that when we confess our sins, pardon will be granted, and forgiveness given.  John writes in 1 John 1:9  “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

 

b.       The good news is when we come and confess our sins, He forgives. He pardons. He accepts us and we can become His disciples,  be assured that God is faithful and will forgive.

 

2.      GOD IS FAITH TO NOT ALLOW YOU TO BE TEMPTED BEYOND WHAT YOU ARE ABLE.  1 Corinthians 10:13 “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”

 

a.       God is right there with you.  He won’t let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. The faithful God will always provide to you a way of escape.  God is in the battle with you.

b.      You will never be overcome, conquered or be a victim.

 

3.      GOD IS FAITHFUL TO COMPLETE THE WORK HE STARTED IN YOU.  You may not realize this, but the moment you sincerely gave your life to Jesus Christ. God enrolled you in his plan. His plan for you is your ultimate transformation. He desires for you to become like Jesus Christ.  God’s goal is that you would become mature and complete. His plan for you is that you would walk in victory.

 

a.      Here are some things to consider.  God finishes what He starts.  God didn’t get halfway through creation and then give up. Rather, in six days he created the earth and the heavens and on the seventh day he rested. He looked at what he did and he said it was good.

 

b.      Jesus didn’t go halfway to Calvary and then cast the cross aside and say I won’t complete my mission.  He went all the way until he was able to utter those beautiful words on the cross, “It is finished!”

 

c.      When he saved you. He said I am going to complete the work I began.  Philippians 1:6 NLT  “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

 

d.      There are many believers that are in a position to say the following:  I may not be all that I should be. I am not what I used to be. I am still under construction. God is not done with me.

              God is faithful. If he saved you. He can sanctify you. In other words, He can set you apart for his 

              purposes.

 

e.      1 Thessalonians 5:23-24  “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.”

 

f.       God will finish the work that he started in you.  He will do that as you are exposed to the Word, as you receive the promptings of the Spirit, He will continue working in your life.  God has His ways to move us toward becoming like Him. God will complete the work.  1 Corinthians 1:8-9  “who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

 

4.      GOD IS FAITHFUL TO PROVIDE YOUR NEEDS  Philippians 4:19  “My God shall supply all of your needs according to his riches in Glory by Christ Jesus.”  He is your provider. Just think of his faithfulness. He feeds the birds. He provides food for the oxen. The flowers of the field are more beautiful than Solomon in all his splendor.  He is the faithful God.

 

 

5.      GOD IS FAITHFUL TO GO WITH YOU EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.  In our relationship to a faithful God He promises to guide us.  As we connect with Him on a daily basis, his hand guides our life. We sense God cheering us on.  He becomes our biggest fan. He is telling us by His Spirit, I am with you! You will make it to the end.  If we need guidance, God can lead us.  God knows how to give us strength no matter what the circumstances.  God will be faithful to walk with  you every step of the way!

 

a.      Paul tell us in Romans 12:1-2, that as we submit to God, We can know the perfect and acceptable will of God..  You do not have to be in the dark about the will of God.

b.      As we go out from this place.  You now know that God will stand by you throughout this week.

 

Show God’s faithfulness.

 

 

 

 

QUOTES FOR APRIL 29, 2026

 

NEW SEASON

 

     Well summer holidays are over and the school season has started.   I love the staples commercial that states it is the most wonderful time of the year.  September is also the season where the leaves begin to change and we enter one of the most gorgeous times of the year.  When the leaves turn their beautiful colors God is just showing off.

     Well as we are talking about change I am going to give you some reasons that change is good.  Here are five reasons why change is good for you:

 

You are pushed out of your comfort zone.

Life in the comfort zone is easy. You simply follow a routine and you can predict the consequences.   This makes life boring.  Outside of the comfort zone, your assumptions are challenged. Your opinions, mindset, and belief system are tested.  God changes our circumstances that we can grow in Him.  You must find new ways to articulate who you are and what you believe. The idea of doing the same thing over and over without question is discouraged and also can cause great frustration.  Getting out into the world and doing something new and different is a fostered approach to life.  Jesus wants us to have an abundant life and this is one way it happens.

 

You get to experience more.

Change is good because you have the opportunity to embrace new experiences.  1 Pet 3:18 tells us that we are to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.   New perspectives are waiting for you at the doorstep. Opportunities are plentiful. When you look back on your life, all of the really amazing things are because of a new experience you had. All of those vacations you took and all of the people you have met have taught you more than you ever learned in school. God brings people and change into your life so you can become more than you currently are.  These experiences now make up who you are today.

 

You get to find out who you really are.

When you are going through a transition, your mind expands in way that is hadn’t in the past. You find out about what you can handle and what you can’t.  When the Lord is leading this it can really make you into the person God intended you to be.  You learn about your limitations and God’s unlimited wisdom.   You figure out what you are really made of when you trust in Him.  Learning about yourself, including what you cannot handle, helps you to figure out a better path to take in life.  It also makes you trust the Lord more.  You are open to the possibility of learning that what you have been doing in the past isn’t suiting the future.  You become more wise and resourceful.

 

Makes you more flexibility creative and adaptable.

Without a doubt, change makes your more flexible, creative and adaptable. You learn to embrace chaos in a way that seems foreign but acceptable and achievable.  God helps you walk through this times because you are trusting in Him. Then, you are armed with more confidence as you walk into the next uncomfortable situation.  You have learned through His wisdom and strength you are more than you thought.  You begin to thrive in new situations because you have proven to yourself, to God and others that you can, not only handle change, but FLOURISH.

 

You have more fun.

When you are open to change, you are open to saying YES to more. You are open to more experiences and opportunities.  You are willing to risk and be more daring.  You have the opportunity to meet more people too.  God will bring people into your life to help you grow and expand.  When you add all of these things together, you are going to have a more robust life and you’ll have a ton of fun figuring it all out along the way   Remember trust the Lord with all your heart do not lean to your own understanding but in all ways He will direct you path. — there’s no doubt about it.  You are an overcomer, victor and more than a conqueror when you trust God and are willing to embrace change.

STEADFAST

 

Isaiah 26 In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:  We have a strong city;

    God makes salvation, its walls and ramparts.

 

1.      This is a song that is going to be sung in that day.  Isaiah is looking prophetically in the future and sees a song that is going to be sung.  It will be part of the Hymn book of that day. 

 

2.      Let’s examine the word and glean some truth.  How does a city become strong.  The Lord is the foundation.  It is the walls and ramparts.  Simple when you base your community in and on the Lord it will be strong.  You don’t it becomes or is weak.  If the Lord does not build the house the Labor is in vain.  Righteousness exalts a nation; sin is a reproach to any people. 

3.      Salvation is key.  The results are a new heart, eternal view, moral and ethical lifestyle, proper view of people, new mindset, and proper view of love.  You are walking in the gifts and fruit of the Spirit.  Salvation means preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss.  That is what the Lord has done and is doing.

 

2 Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith.

 

1.      The opening to healing, renewal, revival and transformation is your heart or the gate of your heart.  Jesus said, “Behold I stand at the door of your heart.”  It opens righteousness, peace, and joy.” 

2.      It also opens the possibility of a righteous nation.  Righteousness begins in the heart spread to relationships, families, churches, communities and eventually nations. 

3.      This leads to a nation that keeps faith.  We started off well and now the tension are to keep faith.  That is why we must work hard while there is still day and time which is running out.

 

You will keep in perfect peace, him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.

 

1.      The Lord will keep us in perfect peace.  In the Bible Shalom or peace has these applications. (1) peace as the absence of war or chaos internally. (2) peace as a right relationship with God or with Christ; (3) peace as a good relationship among people; (4) peace as an individual virtue or state, that is, tranquillity or serenity; and (5) peace that is to be given to others. 

 

a.      When the Bible talks about perfect peace it means to be whole or complete. Perfect peace is complete peace and is guaranteed when we focus on Jesus. “Since we are surrounded by so many examples of faith, we must get rid of everything that slows us down, especially sin that distracts us.”

b.      Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the Son of God. 

 

2.      This means our minds is steadfast and stable because we have connected, interfaced, commune with the one who helps us be stable.  That is why we must submit our thought life to God.  Paul writes in Phil 4:8-9, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me—put it into practice.  Paul says put this into practice.  This is called putting on the helmet of salvation.  It is called walking in the Spirit.  This makes you stable.  Steadfast, immovable, and abounding in love.

 

A.     To be steadfast of mind means our mind is fixed on something. Isaiah suggests that our mind is steadfast in trusting God. God isn't subject to our definition of him or our idea of him. When we trust in God, we learn about him and grow in our knowledge of him.

B.     It means regardless of what comes your way, you're cool - even-tempered. Nothing can upset, bother, or destroy you; you're at rest with things.

C.      It means the motives, inclinations, and desires of our hearts shaped and formed by God Himself. And how one is shaped by God.

 

3.      It is because you trust in God.  The word “trust” here implies confidence or security. It is a concept that is associated with firmness or something that is solid or secure.  Simply stated, we can put our confidence or security in the Lord because we know that He can be trusted.  Trust leads to peace and vice versa.

 

Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal.

 

1.      Isaiah then states again to trust, put your confidence, security, self esteem, and significance in the Lord.  In the Lord means intimate union and fellowship with the Lord.  This is maintained by the way through three things, the Bible, prayer and going to church.  This is also the basis of all relationships and conducts.  You are letting the Lord be the guide you in all aspects of your life, conduct and character.  Character is who and what you do in private. 

2.      Isaiah says trust the Lord forever.  Never stop.  Now notice He says the Lord three times.  This is a reference to the trinity or three persons of the Godhead.  It is also for emphasis.  For the Lord, the Lord, he is the almighty, all powerful, all knowing, all loving, creator, and sustainer of all things. 

3.      The rock eternal.  He is unchanging, immovable, He is our shoulder whenever we need it or even if we don't.  He will never leave or forsake us.   He is solid and secure.  He is the one constant in this world of change.  Stability, security, consistency, and constancy. 

 

SUMMER OF LOVE

 

God’s heart is that we know and experience the vastness of His love, both in its magnitude and in its complexity.   One tradition refers to them as the benevolent, beneficent, and complacent love of God.As disciples and in our disciplemaking ministries, it’s important for us to ever seek to fathom the depths of God’s love and live in light of what we discover, and then to help others do the same

1.       God’s Creative Sustaining Love is evidenced in all that He has created, but especially in His provision for mankind even when people reject God. The model is found in nature and illustrated when Jesus said that the rain falls on the just and the unjust. The proper response to His creative sustaining love is reverence and gratitude

 

2.      God’s Individual Redemptive Love is expressed in His eternal plan to call out people to be His own. It is this love that is expressed in the familiar first part of John 3:16. The biblical model of this love is seen in the events of the initial Passover. God redeemed people for Himself as they responded by believing and applying the blood of a lamb to the doorposts of their homes allowing the death angel to pass over them.  The appropriate response to God’s redemptive love is repentance and belief in the sacrificial atonement of Jesus Christ (John 3:16), which opens the door to the next expression of God’s love.

 

3.      God’s Covenant Family Love is accompanied by a new identity and position in Christ, “the old has gone, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). This expression of God’s love is seen in such passages as John 1:12 and 1 John 3:1-3. Family love includes (among others) justification, adoption, citizenship, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  The expected response to this expression of God’s love is faith-filled obedience. The apostle John states in his first letter that obedience is a clear indicator of being a child of God and is how we are to demonstrate our love

 

4.      Lastly, we bring God’s love into all relationship.  Whether in Friendships, family, romantic or our love towards God.  It marks who were are and what we do.   God’s Personal Intimate Love exposes us to the heart of God and is a result not only of maturity but continued alignment to God’s will.   Jesus said they will know His Disciples by the way we love one another.  I close with 1 Cor 13:4-8.  4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails.  1 Cor 13:13 states that these three remain.  Faith, hope and love but the greatest of these is love.  SO let us love through this week.

 

5.      Pythias was accused of plotting against the tyrant and sentenced to death.  Accepting his sentence, Pythias asked to be allowed to return home one last time to settle his affairs and bid his family farewell. Not wanting to be taken for a fool, the king refused, believing that, once released, Pythias would flee and never return. Damon offered himself as a hostage in Pythias' absence, and when the king insisted that, should Pythias not return by an appointed time, Damon would be executed in his stead, Damon agreed and Pythias was released.

Dionysius was convinced that Pythias would never return, and as the day Pythias promised to return came and went, he called for Damon's execution—but just as the executioner was about to kill Damon, Pythias returned.  Apologizing to his friend for the delay, Pythias explained that on the passage back to Syracuse pirates had captured his ship and thrown him overboard, but that he swam to shore and made his way back to Syracuse as quickly as possible, arriving just in time to save his friend.So astonished by and pleased with their friendship, Dionysius pardoned both men.

QUOTES FOR APRIL 28, 2026

 

TEARS AND A PROMISE

 

Now the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were scheming to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him. 2 “But not during the festival,” they said, “or the people may riot.”

 

1.      This story establishes that Jesus was in the last days of His life.  We know that this event happens just two days before the festival of the Passover and unleavened bread.  Jesus was in Jerusalem. 

2.      We also learn that the teachers of the law were scheming two things.  They wanted to arrest Jesus secretly and kill Him.  Remember Jesus knew they were going to kill Him.   All the events of supernatural and natural history were about to collide in the greatest human drama and event of all time. 

3.      The teachers and officials had decided not to do this during the festival.  They knew Jesus was popular and they were concerned about a riot.  Mark puts this in his narrative to set the stage for the final events of Jesus life and this event we are about to talk about. 

 

3 While he was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head.

 

1.      Jesus is in Bethany which is located on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives overlooking the Judean Hills.  He is relaxing or reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper.  Simon was Leper this is also recalled in the account of Matthew.  We do know that from this account the disease was in the early stages because he was not yet an outcast or that Jesus had healed him, and this was how he was now identified. 

2.      A woman came in.  Some people it is Mary Magdalene based on the Luke account.  In Mark’s gospel that detail is left.  Mark just says she is a woman.

3.      She comes in with an alabaster jar of expensive perfume.   Alabaster is a form of marble stone made of gypsum.  In the ancient world it was very expensive to make.   A craftsman who would hollow it out the usual time to do it would be from 2 to 3 days.  This was a jar shape.

4.      The perfume inside was pure nard.  Spikenard, also called nard, is an aromatic, amber-colored essential oil, flowering plant in the honeysuckle family which grows in the Himalayas of Nepal, China, and India.  It was imported.

5.      She broke the jar which would have been quite the feat and poured the perfume on his head. 

 

4 Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? 5 It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages[a] and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.

 

1.      Some of those that were there spoke indignantly to each other.  They were criticizing her and this act.  They saw it as a waste of perfume.  They missed the meaning and reason why she did it.  The crowd and critic never see the bigger picture.  They only see things from their narrow, bias, and prejudicial view. 

2.      We now know the value of this perfume it was over a year’s wages.  This would be anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 dollars on today’s money.  They then tried to justify what they were doing by saying the money could have been given to the pour.  The cynic will often disguise their attack in some noble cause. 

3.      This was the cover or reason in their mind for the harsh rebuke they gave her.  They turned an act of beauty into an act of shame and guilt.  They were demeaning her. 

4.      Remember there will always be people who miss what you or they Lord are trying to do.  Remember keep doing the will of the Father.  Keep doing right.  Keep your heart right.  Remember you are not going to have to give an account to any of the crowd.  Just to the Lord. 

 

6 “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. 7 The poor you will always have with you and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. 8 She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. 9 Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”

 

1.       Jesus then has a moment of anger, and he tells the naysayers and critics to leave her alone.  He comes to her rescue.  He says why are you bothering her? 

2.      Jesus tells them they are missing the beauty of the moment and this gesture.  She was doing something that would not be taken away from her.  She and Jesus saw the big picture.  Her act of homage, worship and honor would not be taken away from her. She gave the most expensive thing she had.  God honors both her sacrifice and obedience. 

3.      He reminds them that there will always be poor and disadvantage people.  Jesus also saw their false piety and motives behind what they were doing.  Jesus says you can always help them anytime.  He says there will always be an opportunity to help others which we should.

4.      He reminds them that they will not always have Him.  This was also a moment of truth and prophecy.  Jesus knew shortly what He had to face.  She has done what she could.  Then Jesus states that she has prepared his body for my burial.  Jesus knew before the week was out, He would be dead and buried.  This was a pre-burial, prophetic moment.  Jesus was announcing publicly what would happen to even though they would not understand till later.  Nicodemus and Joseph would prepare his body later, but this was her moment, gift, and time.  It would not be taken away from her.  Jesus was her defender, advocate, and promoter.

5.      Jesus closes with stating that whenever and wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world what she has done will be told in memory of her.  That is why it is included in in all the gospels in one form or another.  This is her story, connection, and blessing of being with Jesus.  All mankind for all generations countries and languages knows this story.  It is her testimony of love, homage, sacrifice and worship.  In Jesus mindset she was a true worshipper.  She gave the most expensive and important thing she had.  If it doesn’t cost us something it is not true worship.  Jesus says if we are not willing to give us family, friends, lands, and society we are not worthy of Him.