Posts with the tag “jesse-tree”

The image of a mother and child is powerful. It evokes tenderness, protection, nurturing, and life-giving strength. In Mary and her unborn child, we see the mystery of God’s plan taking human form. Mary is carrying the Savior, and yet she herself is human, afraid, humble, and yet faithful. In the same way, every mother embodies both vulnerability and resilience, offering life and love to the child...  Read More

Luke 1:45-56God sent an angel to Mary. The angel told Mary that she would have a Son, but he would be no ordinary son, she was to name her Son Jesus, and He would be great. God had chosen Mary because she was beautiful inside and out, and loved God. She would carry and care for God’s own Son.Mary rejoiced to be part of God’s great plan to save the world from sin. She was happy that God had chosen ...  Read More

Luke 1:39-45Elizabeth, the cousin of Mary was unable to have children, but God did a miracle in her. She was old enough to be a grandma, but God allowed her to become pregnant. She too would have a special baby.Elizabeth never thought she would have a child, but God was so kind to her. And now she was going to have a son. This was too good to be true, but it was true!Her son would have a very impo...  Read More

As we’ve said throughout this study, advent is about waiting. But it’s not a passive waiting. It’s living in the tension between what is and what is coming; between the world as it is and the world God promises. In Luke 3, John the Baptist stands at the river, calling people to prepare the way for the King. He doesn’t call for moral perfection, but repentance, a turning of our hearts toward God.To...  Read More

Luke 3:1-20, 7:18-30John’s coming marked the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of one who would prepare the way for Jesus (Isaiah 40:3). He came “in the spirit and power of Elijah” and preached a message of repentance, calling the Israelites to humble themselves before God and to turn away from their sin (Luke 1:17).We too must humble ourselves and magnify the goodness of God through our own repent...  Read More

Imagine walking into a home and seeing holes in the drywall, a front door hanging by one hinge, and a Ring camera that is clearly not connected to anything…That’s the feeling Nehemiah had when he heard the report from Jerusalem. God’s people had returned, but the walls were rubble. The gates were charred. The city that once proudly declared God’s glory now groaned in vulnerability.Nehemiah sat dow...  Read More

Nehemiah 1:1-2:8, 13:15-22Nehemiah lived among strangers in a faraway place. He became very sad and wept when he heard about the destruction of Jerusalem and longed for peace and safety of his home.So, he began praying that God would provide a way home and rebuild the city of his fathers, the home of the Israelites. God’s hand was on Nehemiah when he asked the king he served if he could return hom...  Read More

There is a weight that comes when you read Jeremiah, the kind of heaviness you feel in your chest before you even know why. It is the sound of a prophet weeping. It is the ache of a God who has loved His people deeply and watched them walk away. And it is the echo of a watchtower standing alone in a field, built to protect a vineyard that no longer cares to be protected.In Jeremiah 11, God reminds...  Read More

Jeremiah 7:1-15; 29:1-14Throughout their history, the Israelites turned from God and worshipped other idols. In his mercy, God gave them many chances to turn back.God sent Jeremiah, his last try, to call out for change one more time before he brought bad things upon His people. Jeremiah loved the people, and so he cried out to them, begging them to clean themselves up and return to God’s ways. But...  Read More

Advent isn’t just about warm lights and gentle carols. Advent is also about awakening, about God confronting the darkness in us so He can redeem us. And that’s exactly what Isaiah experiences.Israel had drifted far from God, and Isaiah 1 sounds like a divine intervention nobody wants to attend. God tells His people that their sacrifices are meaningless because their hearts are far from Him. They w...  Read More

Isaiah 6:1-7; 11:1-9Isaiah found himself in a smoke-filled room with trembling floors and flying angels shouting about God’s holiness and glory, he was in the throne room of God. And God was sitting on the throne. With all of this happening, Isaiah was overwhelmed.His response to being so near to God’s holiness was, “Woe is me!” As he stood before the perfect holiness of God, his own sin so clear ...  Read More

Most of us love the idea of specialists. You’ve got a legal issue, you want the lawyer who only does that one thing. You’ve got mysterious back pain, you want the chiropractor who adjusts exactly three vertebrae and calls it a day. We’re trained to think the world works best with specialists. And in the ancient world, religion worked the same way. Every nation had a whole roster of gods. A god for...  Read More

1 Kings 18There was a new king in Israel, Ahab. And this was anything but good news. He was an evil king, who built an altar for Baal, the Canaanite god, promoting worship of this false god throughout the kingdom and turning people away from the True God.So God called the prophet Elijah to bring them back. He challenged the priests of Baal to a contest, seeing whose god can set the offering on an ...  Read More

Psalm 23, I Samuel 16: 1-13, 2 Samuel 5: 1-5David was a shepherd when he was a boy. He would use a cane to gently herd his sheep and keep them safe from wild animals. He learned to trust God from his dad Jesse. David often sang songs to show his love for God.David was also just a humble shepherd who protected his sheep well. When it came to appearances, his older brothers were the obvious choices ...  Read More

Samuel 8:1-22Samuel, the prophet, had functioned as Israel's leader for decades. Their true king was God, but Samuel spoke for God, but with Samuel growing older, the people wanted a more stable form of leadership. They wanted a king—a human king.When God’s people looked around the nations surrounding them, they noticed something. Everyone was ruled and led by a human king. But the Israelites didn...  Read More

Judges 6:1-7:25After God brought His people into the promised land they forgot about God and His rules. They even started believing in other gods and became very wicked. God was angry with them and handed them over to the Midianites who were very cruel and wicked too. For seven years, the Midianite nation had been mean to the Israelites. This made them feel defeated, afraid and weak.After a while,...  Read More

By the time we meet Gideon, in the book of Judges, the story of God’s people has reached a low point. Israel is hiding in caves, oppressed by the Midianites, harvesting grain in secret to survive. The people turned from God to idols, from trust to self-reliance, and from freedom to fear. In that fear-filled moment, the angel of the Lord appears to Gideon, not in a temple, not on a mountain, but un...  Read More

Joshua 1:1-11, 6:1-20The Israelites had wandered in the desert for 40 years, always longing to go home. And now finally, they were almost there. But one thing still stood in their way—Jericho.After Moses died, God chose a man named Joshua, to lead the people into the land he had promised them. Jericho was a towering fortress, with soaring ramparts and thick iron gates. The Israelites were no match...  Read More

The sound of the ram’s horn, the shofar, is unlike any other. It’s raw, primal, and piercing. In Jewish tradition, it was the sound that called the people to remember the power and promises of God. It was blown at coronations, at festivals, and at the start of battle. Most famously, it was sounded at Jericho, when, as the song goes, “the walls a’ came tumbling down”, not by human strength, but by ...  Read More

Three months after the night of Passover, Israel arrived at the foot of Mount Sinai. They had seen the plagues, the parted waters, the pillar of fire, and now they stood before a mountain wrapped in smoke and thunder, and heard God’s booming voice shake the mountain. But this was not the voice of an enslaving tyrant, like Pharaoh. It was the voice of a Father teaching His children how to stay free...  Read More

Exodus 19:1-20:21When God’s people were finally free from slavery in Egypt, God gave Moses instructions to share with His people.As the Israelites gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai, thick clouds swirled in the sky, darkening the land. Constant flashes broke the darkness as bright bolts of lightning swarmed the mountain, appearing and disappearing, and then appearing again. The ground shook as th...  Read More

Exodus 12:1-42The Israelites looked to Moses as their deliverer, the one who would help them and set them free from slavery. He would bring them to their true home, the land of Israel, a land promised to their father, Abraham.In preparation for this deliverance and journey home, they had something called the Passover. God asked the Israelites to cover their doorways with the blood of a lamb so tha...  Read More

Exodus 2:1-25, 3:1-14Many years after Joseph, God’s people were still living in Egypt, but now as slaves. God wanted to rescue His people and bring them to the land He had promised.When Moses was a baby, God saved him from the Nile River. And when Moses grew up, God saved him from the anger of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.God saved Moses for a very important reason: to rescue God’s people from slave...  Read More

Genesis 37, 45:4-11, 50:15-21Joseph was one of many sons of Jacob. Although Jacob had 12 sons, he loved Joseph the most. Jacob, showing his love for Joseph, gave him a very expensive, fancy, colorful coat. Joseph also received dreams from God, showing he was destined for greatness in his future.Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him and hated him. They wanted to kill him, but they instead sold him ...  Read More

Joseph’s story is famous and inspiring; he is an overcomer, but sometimes we are too quick to see ourselves in his story, rather than the story of his brother! They sold him for twenty pieces of silver, beat him, and stripped him of his beautiful coat, the symbol of his father’s favor. And if we’re honest, we might have done the same.Joseph was daddy’s favorite, likely to inherit his everything, a...  Read More

Genesis 28:1-22Isaac grew up to have a son of his own, named Jacob, Abraham's grandson. Jacob wronged his own brother and had to run away from his family for fear of his life. During his journey, Jacob came to place to lay for the night thinking of all the good things he had to leave. On this one night, God visited Jacob and spoke to him in a dream and showed him a vision - a symbol of God’s promi...  Read More

Ladders are ordinary tools, but their purpose is extraordinary. They connect what seems impossible to reach. They bring the high and the low together. With a ladder, the lofty and the lowly meet. They make a way where no way previously existed.When Adam and Eve sinned, humanity was separated from God. The gap wasn’t just spiritual; it was relational, a height we could never scale on our own. Heave...  Read More

Genesis 22:1-19God promised Abraham a family. God had given Abraham and Sarah a gift—their son, Isaac. Isaac was their joy and delight. They treasured their son, and loved him more than anything.God spoke to Abraham, asking him to make a sacrifice of his son. God was testing Abraham because he obeyed God in all he did. Abraham knew what he had to do. Abraham and Isaac set off on a 3 day journey to...  Read More

God had given Abraham and Sarah a gift, their son Isaac. From the moment he cried his first newborn wail to the first time he tottered across the tent, Isaac was their joy, their delight, the treasure of their hearts. They loved him more than anything, more than life itself.And then one day, God spoke to Abraham with a command that shook him to his core: Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom yo...  Read More

THE PROMISE The story of Abraham is, at its heart, about looking at the impossible and trusting God anyway. It begins with a call: Leave your country, your people, and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. - Genesis 12:1 Abraham was seventy-five years old when God called him. All he had was God’s word.God’s promise came with a vision that stretched beyond Abraham’s imaginatio...  Read More

Genesis 12:1-7, 15:1-6A man named Abraham was living peacefully at home with his family, in a land he’d always known, with a clear vision of his future. He understood what his path in life was. He knew his future, and was eager for it. Abraham was set. But then came something he never could have believed. God spoke directly to Abraham, changing his plans and his future and calling him to something...  Read More

Genesis 6:5-14, 7:-5, 7:17-8:12, 9:1-17As the world kept growing, unfortunately sin kept growing. The more people sinned, the more the world became more broken, angering God. God would send a big flood to destroy the earth to start all over again. But God, because He is kind, decided to preserve the goodness of His creation. He would restore the earth, and to help, He would use a man named Noah. N...  Read More

ADAM & EVE Have you ever tried to put something together and realized, halfway through, that you left out an important piece? Maybe it was a toy, a shelf, or a recipe. Everything looks fine for a moment, but without the missing piece, the shelf won’t hold together, or the birthday cake will taste like wheat bread.It’s a lot like life without knowing what we’re for. In Genesis 2, God shows us what ...  Read More

Genesis 2:4-3:24God created Adam and Eve, who were perfect and without sin.God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to work and keep it, to enjoy the world that He had given them. God told them they can eat fruit from all of the trees in the garden, except one. God commanded, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,for in...  Read More

In the beginning, God was already there. He was perfect and good, full and complete. He didn’t need anything more than what He already had. But this was just the beginning!God created everything in the entire universe—the sun, moon, and stars. The mountains, valleys, and trees. And everything else that flies in the sky, walks on the land, and swims in the sea!But of all of His creation, one thing ...  Read More

CREATION The best stories have amazing first lines; just think about Charles Dickens’ “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” in A Tale of Two Cities or E.B. White’s “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” in Charlotte’s Web. A great opening pulls us into a bigger story, one we want to keep reading.The Bible begins with the greatest opening line of all: “In the beginning, God created th...  Read More

In the beginning, God was already there. He was perfect and good, full and complete. He didn’t need anything more than what He already had. But this was just the beginning!God created everything in the entire universe—the sun, moon, and stars. The mountains, valleys, and trees. And everything else that flies in the sky, walks on the land, and swims in the sea!But of all of His creation, one thing ...  Read More

Read/listen to Bible. Read devotional. Reflect. For each day of this devotional journey, we encourage you to read the assigned passage of Scripture before reading the reflection. Allow God’s Word to be your primary guide, and let this resource serve as a supplement to that guidance, much like a map is to a lit path in the darkness. The lit path will show you the way; the map will aim to help you m...  Read More