Peter’s Escape From Prison

Now about that time Herod, the king, began to persecute the members of the church; and he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. When Herod saw that it pleased the Jews, he seized Peter also. This was during the feast of the unleavened bread. Therefore when he arrested Peter, he put him in prison, and gave him into the keeping of four bands of four soldiers each. And he planned to bring him out to the people after the Passover.

So Peter was kept in prison; but the members of the church prayed earnestly to God for him. On the very night before the day on which Herod meant to bring him up for trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, fastened to them with two chains. Watchmen were also on guard at the doors. All at once an angel of the Lord stood by him and a light shone in the cell. And he struck Peter on the side and awoke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And his chains fell off his hands.

The angel said to him, “Put on your belt and your sandals.” And Peter did so. The angel said to him, “Throw your coat around you, and follow me.” So Peter went out with him; and he did not know that what had been done by the angel was really true, but he thought he was dreaming. They went past the first and the second guards, and came to the iron gate that leads into the city; and it opened to them of itself.

They went out, and passed on through one street; and all at once the angel left him. When Peter found himself alone, he said, “Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent his angel, and saved me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jews were expecting he would do to me.” And after he had thought what to do, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark. Now many people had gathered together there for prayer. When he knocked at the door a girl named Rhoda came to answer. And hearing Peter’s voice, she was so glad that she forgot to open the door, but ran in, and told that Peter was standing outside. They said to her, “You are out of your mind.” But she insisted that it was so.

They said, “It is his angel.” But Peter kept on knocking: and when they opened the door and saw him, they were amazed. But he motioned to them with the hand to be silent, and told them how the Lord had brought him out of prison. And he said, “Go and tell James and the other brothers.” Then he left the house and went to another place. Now as soon as it was morning, there was great excitement among the soldiers, as to what had become of Peter. After Herod had searched for him, and had failed to find him, he questioned the guards, and commanded that they should be executed.

http://kids.ochristian.com/Childrens-Bible/Peters-Escape-From-Prison.shtml

Jesus Praises A Woman Who Gave Her Best & Jesus Eats The Last Supper With His Disciples

Jesus Praises A Woman Who Gave Her Best   

While Jesus was at dinner at Bethany in the house of Simon, the jar-maker, a woman came in with an alabaster jar of pure perfume, which was very costly. Breaking the jar she poured the perfume over his head. Some said to each other in indignation, “Why this waste of perfume? It might have been sold for more than three hundred silver pieces and the money given to the poor.”

But because they found fault with her, Jesus said, “Let her alone, why do you trouble her? She has done me a beautiful service. The poor are with you always; to them you can do good whenever you wish, but me you will not always have. She has done what she could; she has poured oil on my body beforehand for burial. I tell you, wherever through all the world the good news is told, this deed of hers will be told in memory of her.”

http://kids.ochristian.com/Childrens-Bible/Jesus-Praises-A-Woman-Who-Gave-Her-Best.shtml

 

Jesus Eats The Last Supper With His Disciples

Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples, went to the high priests with the intention of betraying Jesus. And when they heard, they rejoiced, promising to give him money; and he began to look for an opportunity to betray him.

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when the Jews kill the lambs that are sacrificed at the Passover Feast, Jesus’ disciples said to him, “Where do you wish us to make ready for your passover meal?”

So Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go into the city, where you will meet a man carrying a jar of water. Follow him and say to the owner of whatever house he enters, ‘The Master says, Where is my room in which I may eat the passover meal with my disciples?’ He will show you a large upper room already furnished. There make ready for us.” So the disciples went into the city and found things as he had said they would; and they prepared for the Passover.

When it was evening Jesus came with his twelve disciples; and while they were eating at the table, he said, “I know surely that one of you now eating with me will betray me.” In deep sorrow the disciples said to him, one after the other, “Surely it is not I?” He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping his fingers into the dish with me. The Son of Man will depart as it has been foretold of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for that man if he had never been born!”

Then Jesus took the bread and, when he had given thanks to God, he broke it and said, “This is my body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

In the same way, after he had eaten, Jesus took the cup, and when he had given thanks to God, he gave it to his disciples and they drank of it. Then he said, “This is the new covenant made by my blood which is shed for many. As often as you drink this cup, do it in remembrance of me.” Then after singing a hymn they went out to the Mount of Olives.

There Jesus said to them, “You will all desert me, for it is written in the scriptures: ‘I will smite the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.’ But after I have risen, I will go before you into Galilee.” Peter said to him, “Though all others should desert you, I will not.” Jesus said to him, “Indeed I tell you, this very night before the cock crows you will deny three times that you know me.” But Peter said more emphatically, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you.” And all of them said the same.

http://kids.ochristian.com/Childrens-Bible/Jesus-Eats-The-Last-Supper-With-His-Disciples.shtml

Take Control of Your Time (3)

“I must work…while it is day.”                                               Jn 9:4 NKJV

Time is like money; it must be budgeted. That means determining the difference between the fixed—what you must do—and the discretionary—what you would like to do. What caused Jesus to be such an organized person? (1) He understood His mission. During His final walk toward Jerusalem where He would be crucified, His ears picked up the voice of a blind man and He stopped, much to the consternation of His friends. They were irritated that Jesus did not appreciate that Jerusalem was still six or seven hours away and that they would like to get there to achieve their purpose, the celebration of the Passover (See Lk 18:35-42). From where they were standing, it appeared that Jesus was misusing His time. But from where Jesus was standing, the time was well spent for it fitted the criteria of His mission. (2) He understood His limits. He knew what we so often forget: that time must be properly budgeted for gathering inner strength and resolve in order to compensate for one’s weaknesses when spiritual warfare begins. Knowing His limits, such private moments were a fixed item on Jesus’ time budget. And it was hard for even those closest to Him to fully appreciate this. (3) He had His eye on the future. Jesus spent the lion’s share of His time training twelve men. He said, “I will build my church” (Mt 16:18 NKJV). How did He plan to build it? Through others. So, the way to maximize your time—is to keep your life’s purpose before you at all times and evaluate each decision in the light of it.

http://theencouragingword.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/take-control-of-your-time-3/

The Boy Jesus Asks Questions

After Joseph and Mary had done all that the law commanded, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. And the boy Jesus grew and became strong in body and mind. And the blessing of God was upon him.

Now his parents went every year to Jerusalem to the Feast of the Passover, and when he was twelve years old they went up as usual. After they had stayed the full number of days and were returning, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know this; but, supposing him to be in the caravan, they travelled on for a whole day. Then they searched for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem, still looking for him. After three days they found him in the Temple, sitting with the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. All who heard him were amazed at his intelligence and his answers.

When his parents saw him, they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.” He said to them, “Why did you look for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he meant.

Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth; and he was obedient to them; but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and body and in favor with God and man.

http://kids.ochristian.com/Childrens-Bible/The-Boy-Jesus-Asks-Questions.shtml

The 50-day Climb

“Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the LORD.” — Leviticus 23:16

We’re used to counting down the days when we have something exciting to look forward to. But when it comes to the festival of Shavuot, we count up. Why?

Shavuot, or Pentecost, marks one of the most important days in human history. On that day we celebrate the revelation of God and the giving of the Torah to humanity.  Surely it would make much more sense to say, “49 days left until the big day, now 48, only 47 left,” and so on. Yet the Bible commands us to start at 1 and count out loud every day until we reach 50.

The practice of counting the days between Passover and Shavuot is known as “counting the Omer.” It is named for the barley sacrifice that was brought during this time period when the Temple stood. At the end of these seven weeks, a new and different offering was brought – one of “new grain.”

Something changes in these intermediate weeks. They are intended to be introspective and transformational, so much so that what a person can offer God in the beginning is profoundly different by the end. At the beginning of the 50 days, a journey begins. By the end, we are ready to receive the Word of God.

That’s why we count up, and not down. As each day passes, we become more, not less. Like climbing the rungs on a ladder, we ascend towards Heaven one step at a time. By the time we reach the top we can appreciate the distance that we have spanned. Passover celebrates our physical redemption, but it takes seven weeks until we are able to experience our spiritual redemption on Shavuot.

The offering that we bring to God on Passover is reminiscent of animal food, but the one that we bring on Shavuot from the “new grain” is food fit for man. Over the seven-week period we refine ourselves and rise above our animal nature. By day 50 we are the human beings we were intended to be “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27) and we are ready to keep His Word.

Counting the Omer lends us a paradigm that can be used year-round. When tackling the big goals in life, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. How will we cross such a great distance? How can we accomplish such lofty tasks? Maybe it’s better not to even start! But the message of the Omer is to take the journey one step at a time.

Take that enormous task in front of you and break it into smaller parts. Step by step, rung by rung, you will make your way all the way to the top. And when accomplished, you will not be the same person who you started out to be!

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/the-50-day-climb

Making Miracles

“The sea looked and fled,    the Jordan turned back.” – Psalm 114:3

As the Passover meal progresses, we go from recounting the Passover story to expressing our gratitude for the great miracles that God did on behalf of the Nation of Israel. What better text to read from than Psalms of thanksgiving written by King David? In Psalm 114 we read about the Exodus from Egypt. The Psalmist reveals that when the Israelites approached the Red Sea, it “looked and fled.” But what exactly did the sea look at that made it split?

Jewish tradition teaches us that the sea saw the bones of Joseph, the son of Jacob, who had requested that the Israelites take his remains with them when they left Egypt. Something about the bones of Joseph caused the sea to react. What? For the answer, we turn to Joseph’s greatest moment.

Joseph’s greatest achievement was not becoming the second-in-command of Egypt. It wasn’t even his willingness to help out his brothers even though they hadn’t exactly treated him with the same kindness that he would later bestow upon them.

Joseph’s greatest moment came when he refused the advances of the wife of his master. After being sold into slavery in Egypt, Joseph found himself working in the home of Potiphar. Potiphar’s wife took a liking to him and tried daily to ensnare Joseph in sin.

Against his grain and natural desires, Joseph was able to refuse her offers:  “…‘How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?’ And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her” (Genesis 39: 9–10). Tradition teaches that when the sea saw the remains of Joseph it said, “If Joseph can go against his nature, I too can go against my own.” And it split.

Friends, are you looking for miracles in your life? Look no further than yourself. Every day is a chance to bring the miraculous into the world. Are you drawn to gossip? Hold your tongue. Do you worry incessantly? Trust in God. Find the areas in which you come up short – and go beyond them. Like Joseph, go against your nature, change yourself, and you may just find that your world changes, too.

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/making-miracles

A Matzo by Any Name

“Do not eat it with bread made with yeast, but for seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left Egypt in haste — so that all the days of your life you may remember the time of your departure from Egypt.” — Deuteronomy 16:3

Matzo makes for a not-so-great cracker. Yet for seven days out of every year Jews all around the world will trade in their regular bread for the “unleavened bread” we call matzo. When you taste it, it’s no wonder the Bible refers to it as the “bread of affliction.” Tasteless and flimsy, matzo is a poor man’s bread containing nothing but the basic elements of sustenance, flour and water.

Curiously, matzo is also known as the “bread of freedom.” Matzo is born out of the exodus narrative when the children of Israel are told to leave Egypt in such a hurry that their bread doesn’t have time to rise. The matzo they ended up with is the matzo that we eat today in remembrance of their freedom from slavery.

How is it that the same item can represent both affliction and redemption? One symbolizes our pain, the other our greatest pleasure. The discrepancy is reconciled by a third term for matzo. Jewish mysticism refers to matzo as the “bread of faith.”

Pain and pleasure are not opposites. Rather, they are two sides of the same coin. The source of our greatest pain is often the same source of our greatest pleasure. Take parenting for example. Most parents will affirm that their children have given them the most grief and also the most joy in their lives. The key to joining the two is faith.

So when my child is painfully stubborn, I have faith that he will turn out to be a very successful and persistent adult. Along those same lines, when we find ourselves in painful situations, we need to have faith that they are part and parcel of great things yet to come. Matzo reminds us that no matter where you find yourself on your journey – whether it’s all uphill or you’re enjoying a smooth ride down the other side – it’s all part of the story of redemption.

Think about a challenge that you are facing right now and ask yourself how it can also be an opportunity. What can you learn from it? How can you become better from it? Every wall that keeps you out can be transformed into a doorway that lets you in. We just need the faith to believe it.

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/a-matzo-by-any-name

Attitude of Servitude

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go to Pharaoh and say to him, “This is what the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, says:  Let my people go, so that they may worship me”’.” — Exodus 9:1

“Let my people go” is probably the most famous line in the entire exodus story. God, via Moses, commands Pharaoh to let the people of Israel leave Egypt. However “let my people go” is only half of the line, and it represents only half of the story.

The rest of the verse reads “so that they may worship me.” God wants the Israelites to be freed . . . so that they can become servants to Him! The New King James Version actually translates this verse as “Let My people go, that they may serve Me.” Then why is Passover celebrated as the holiday of freedom when the whole point of leaving Egypt was for the Israelites to become slaves once more?

So, let’s take a closer look at this concept of slavery and freedom. What is slavery? Slavery means living a life without choices. You are not the master of your own life. Someone else is. Someone else tells you what to do and when to do it. You have no choice but to obey.

What is freedom? Freedom is the chance to choose your own life. You get to decide how you spend your time, your money, and your energy. It’s all up to you.

Now here’s the key. A person can be physically free and yet still live completely in bondage. Pharaohs come in all shapes and sizes today. Slavery is alive and well.

If your phone bings to let you know that a text has come in, and you know you should ignore it because you are in the middle of a real conversation, but you can’t – that’s slavery. If you can’t resist the piece of chocolate cake even though you know it’s bad for you – that’s slavery. Need to have the latest fashion? Slavery. Can’t help but snap at your spouse? Slavery.

Every time you go on autopilot, everywhere you don’t make conscious decisions, you experience slavery. The exodus story is not just about a bunch of Jews in ancient Egypt. Every human being experiences slavery. Yet we can all experience redemption. Here’s how.

No one can tell me what to do when I only listen to The One. Nothing can force me to do anything when I only do what He tells me to do. And what does God tell us to do? He tells us to rise above money. He teaches us to transcend popular opinion. He asks us to become masters of our desires. Everything that we do in service of God puts choice back in our hands. That, my friends, is why only a servant of God is truly free.

Celebrate freedom by exercising it! Before every decision you make today, ask yourself who is calling the shots. Is it the servant of God or the servant of Pharaoh? Choose accordingly.

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/attitude-of-servitude

This Holy Season

“The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”—Psalm 18:2

During this holy season for both faiths, I wish my Jewish friends a blessed Passover, and to my Christian friends, a blessed Easter. In the week ahead, I will share some reflections on the Passover celebration and the lessons that can be gleaned from it for Jews and Christians alike. In fact, many of the sacred aspects of Christian worship trace their spiritual roots directly to the Jewish faith and the early history of the nation of Israel.

Such is the case with the term “Paschal Lamb,” or “Lamb of God,” which in the Christian tradition refers to Jesus. From the Jewish perspective, the term is Korban Pesach, or “sacrifice of Passover,” which dates back to the first Exodus. The blood of a sacrificed lamb, which was smeared on the doorframes of each Jewish household, served as sign of deliverance from death striking their firstborn sons. The lamb’s blood would be the only path to salvation — without it, their firstborn would die, along with those of the Egyptians.

Additionally, the lamb represented the idols, or false gods, that the Egyptians worshiped. By killing a lamb, the Israelites were, in essence, defying their Egyptian masters as well as demonstrating once again the power of the God of Israel over the Egyptian gods.

In the times of the Jewish temple worship, Jews obeyed God’s command to remember the first Passover by sacrificing a lamb on that day. This lamb had to be male, one year old, and most importantly, without blemish. Only then would it suffice to be the perfect Passover sacrifice. (See Exodus 12:5.)

This Passover observance is what Christians reference when speaking of “a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:19).

It is also true that Jesus, as an observant Jew, and his disciples were celebrating the Passover on the very night that he foretold his coming death. Jesus followed the same divine instructions that were given to Moses as he broke bread with his disciples. And later, the apostle Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians to “keep the Festival” (Passover/Lord’s Supper) with unleavened bread.

Indeed, the Christian observance of Easter resonates back to the story of the Jews’ escape and deliverance from Egyptian bondage three thousand years ago. Understanding the story of Passover and rich symbolism of the Seder meal gives a new richness to many of the worship traditions at churches around the world.

This year, as my Christian friends celebrate Easter, it is good to remember the Jews’ miraculous deliverance on that first Passover and of God’s divine leading from bondage to freedom. Let us celebrate and praise along with David, in the words of Psalm 18, our rock, our fortress, and the horn of our salvation.

http://www.holylandmoments.org/devotionals/this-holy-season-2

World’s Longest Table

On Sunday, July 18, 2010, one of the busiest highways in Europe became what some called “the longest table in the world.” Officials closed a 60-kilometer (37-mile) section of the A40 Autobahn in Germany’s Ruhr region so people could walk and bicycle or sit at one of 20,000 tables set up on the roadway. An estimated 2 million people came to enjoy an event the director hoped would connect people from many cultures, generations, and nations.

This event made me think of an even grander table around which believers gather to share the Lord’s Supper. During communion, we remember Jesus’ death for us as we anticipate the culmination of history at His return.

Just before Jesus was crucified, He shared the Passover meal with His disciples, telling them, “I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom” (Matt. 26:29).

The Lord’s Table unites everyone Christ has redeemed by His blood “out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). One day, in a scene of reunion and joy, all who belong to Jesus will sit down together with Him at a table that will dwarf the Autobahn gathering. We joyfully anticipate sharing that table together!

Here we gather to remember, In the breaking of the bread, Jesus, who for us was broken, And is now our living Head. —Anon.

Christ’s love creates unity out of diversity.

http://odb.org/2012/04/05/worlds-longest-table/