Tag: John 3:1-15

Christ is baptized! King Solomon says this in Ecclesiastes 12:13 – “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” And that’s a great way to wrap up our first week of devotionals for the New Year. But that also begs the question: How do I “fear God and keep His commandments?” All week long we have tried…

St. Theophan, the Recluse declares “The chief end of our life is to live in communion with God. To this end, the Son of God became incarnate, in order to return us to this divine communion, which was lost by the fall into sin. Through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we enter into communion with the Father and thus attain our purpose.” (LettersTo Various People, p.24) If St. Theophan is right,…

The implications of this false idea are enormous! This notion that the Physical world and the Spiritual world are separate and disconnected causes all kinds of problems, and that is mainly because this idea is FALSE. The Physical world and the Spiritual world are ONE WORLD because Jesus bridges the divide. IF you live as if the Spiritual world is either unreal or irrelevant, you are going to fall into the false…

Well, this has never happened before! After all these years of doing this devotional, we are sticking with yesterday’s passage again so we can unpack the power of this passage to set us up for some real spiritual growth and maturing in 2023! But be warned: Spiritual maturity takes a willingness to both to hear correction AND embrace the resetting of the whole idea of what a “normal” Orthodox Christian life is…

Happy New Year! At least that’s my prayer for you on this first Monday of the new year. Of course, we Orthodox started our New Year back in September, so this secular change of the calendar is just one more step for us as we celebrate the Church Year and learn the wisdom of our calendars being “Christianized” by our Purposeful Orthodox Faith! This brand-new devotional is a good start in mining…

Christ is risen! Ah, the beauties of Springtime! And the hay fever! For those of us susceptible to the reign of terror that is pollen season; the watery eyes, the stuffy nose, basically all the bad stuff on all the commercials we see for medicine to combat this scourge of this wonderful season; we love and hate this time of year! Especially when the wind is blowing around all that yellowish-green pollen…

Christ is risen! Ah, the beauties of Springtime! And the hay fever! For those of us susceptible to the reign of terror that is pollen season; the watery eyes, the stuffy nose, basically all the bad stuff on all the commercials we see for medicine to combat this scourge of this wonderful season; we love and hate this time of year! Especially when the wind is blowing around all that yellowish-green pollen…

Christ is risen! Ah, the beauties of Springtime! And the hay fever! For those of us susceptible to the reign of terror that is pollen season; the watery eyes, the stuffy nose, basically all the bad stuff on all the commercials we see for medicine to combat this scourge of this wonderful season; we love and hate this time of year! Especially when the wind is blowing around all that yellowish-green pollen…

“You must be born again.” Hey, where I’m from, that scripture is as well worn as John 3:16. In the ’70’s fad of the “Jesus Movement” (anybody who was paying attention at all to the culture of the early ’70’s knows this) being “born again” was all the rage. Billy Graham wrote a book about it and Jimmy Carter, running for President, made being “born again” a household phrase. I remember even…

Christ is risen! Ah, the beauties of Springtime! And the hay fever! For those of us susceptible to the reign of terror that is pollen season; the watery eyes, the stuffy nose, basically all the bad stuff on all the commercials we see for medicine to combat this scourge of this wonderful season; we love and hate this time of year! Especially when the wind is blowing around all that yellowish-green pollen…