Listen to Pastor Nick read the “Firestarter” and Hosea 10:7-12.

Just as the world of farming shapes Jesus’s parables, so it is with Hosea’s words here. The soul is as hard ground in verse 12. It needs to be loosened so that proper seed can yield nourishing produce, in place of the poison hemlock of verse 4.

Seeds of God’s justice result in the nourishing food of compassion. It is the same message as Paul, last Thursday: what you sow you will reap. Sowing without faith in the Lord yields plants poisonous to self and others.

Assume a physical posture that expresses total surrender to the Lord. With your soul now loosened in abandoned prayer, receive the Word today as seed of saving grace for each hour.

Make these chapters in Hosea personal to you. Are there inner echoes in these verses? Where do you place your confidence in life? Is it in banks, works, contracts, plans, relationships—the Lord on the sideline of your life? Repent from being only with God now and then, instead of always.

Hosea 10

What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…
Example: Sowing seeds of righteousness v. 12

Mondays are dedicated to the reading of the Hebrew Prophets.
In this season we read Hosea; in the 9th week, we read Lamentations 3.

For the next several weeks, the Firestarters will be from the original version of this program. For these Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.

Listen to Pastor Nick read the “Firestarter” and the Gospel.

Bread of the earth brings hunger again—but not Jesus, the Bread of Heaven. Receive in faith. For St. John, “to believe,” means, “to adhere to Jesus.” If you cling to Jesus on the cross, he will draw you up in resurrection.

For the Fourth Evangelist, “the last day” is Good Friday, the sixth day of the old creation. Then there is the Sabbath, followed by the first day of the week of the new creation, Resurrection Sunday.

Dwell on this immense fact: Christ calls you to live in a New Creation. All the “old stuff” that tends to stick like glue to your spirit, has really died and lost its power. Do not give any more power to what is already dead!

John 6:24–35

What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…
Example: Your bread that lasts forever v. 27

Sundays are dedicated to the Gospels from the Revised Common Lectionary.
In year B, we read from the Gospel of Mark except for the last five weeks of the season of Pentecost
when we follow the 6th chapter in the Gospel of John.

The Firestarters are from the original version of this program. I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.

Listen to Pastor Nick read the “Firestarter” and Numbers 32:28-32.

Two and a half tribes request Moses that they stay on the east side of the Jordan. Moses has to be sure that this is not due out of fear to enter into the Promised Land. He wants to be sure that they are not in rebellion about going into the Promised Land, as happened earlier in chapters 13 and 14. The cooperation of all of God’s people is needed in order for the conquest to take place. We are “our brother’s keeper,” as implied in Genesis 4:9, after Cain murdered his brother Abel.

You are important for the whole body of Christ. If you do God’s will in your life, then the rest of the body benefits; if you do not, then the whole is threatened. The unity in the Body of Christ is powerfully developed in 1 Corinthians 12:12 and following. May you find comfort and much joy in knowing in whom you live and move and have your being.

Numbers 32

This is the second of three parts of the Torah Portion Matoth (The Chiefs) 
.Conservative and Reform Jewish congregations read only this part this year,
as also in this Bible plan.
Here is the entire portion in all three parts.

Numbers 30:2—32:42

Bible Breaths Learn More…
Example: Blooming where I am planted v. 33ff

The Saturday passages follow the reading list that Jewish people use in their synagogue worship
throughout the world. They are taken from
“The Torah,” the first five books of the Bible from Genesis to Deuteronomy
that are read each year beginning with autumn.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.