The Demand for a Sign
Let’s pray: Jesus, help me to see the real You.
Matthew 15:39-16:4
15:39 After sending away the crowd, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan.
The Demand for a Sign
16:1 Now when the Pharisees and Sadducees came to test Jesus, they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. 16:2 He said, “When evening comes you say, ‘It will be fair weather, because the sky is red,’ 16:3 and in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, because the sky is red and darkening.’ You know how to judge correctly the appearance of the sky, but you cannot evaluate the signs of the times. 16:4 A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” Then he left them and went away.
What struck you?
How will it impact your walk with Jesus today?
The NET Bible© is freely available at www.bible.org
Jesus Heals and Feeds the Crowd
Let’s pray: Jesus, help me to see the real You.
Matthew 15:29-38
Healing Many Others
15:29 When he left there, Jesus went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up a mountain, where he sat down. 15:30 Then large crowds came to him bringing with them the lame, blind, crippled, mute, and many others. They laid them at his feet, and he healed them.15:31 As a result, the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing, and they praised the God of Israel.
The Feeding of the Four Thousand
15:32 Then Jesus called the disciples and said, “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have already been here with me three days and they have nothing to eat. I don’t want to send them away hungry since they may faint on the way.” 15:33 The disciples said to him, “Where can we get enough bread in this desolate place to satisfy so great a crowd?” 15:34 Jesus said to them, “How many loaves do you have?” They replied, “Seven – and a few small fish.” 15:35 After instructing the crowd to sit down on the ground, 15:36 he took the seven loaves and the fish, and after giving thanks, he broke them and began giving them to the disciples, who then gave them to the crowds. 15:37 They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. 15:38 Not counting children and women, there were four thousand men who ate.
What struck you?
How will it impact your walk with Jesus today?
The NET Bible© is freely available at www.bible.org
A Canaanite Woman’s Faith
Let’s pray: Jesus, help me to see the real You.
Matthew 15:21-28
A Canaanite Woman’s Faith
15:21 After going out from there, Jesus went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 15:22 A Canaanite woman from that area came and cried out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is horribly demon-possessed!” 15:23 But he did not answer her a word. Then his disciples came and begged him, “Send her away, because she keeps on crying out after us.” 15:24 So he answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” 15:25 But she came and bowed down before him and said, “Lord, help me!”15:26 “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs,” he said. 15:27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 15:28 Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, your faith is great! Let what you want be done for you.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.
What struck you?
How will it impact your walk with Jesus today?
The NET Bible© is freely available at www.bible.org
Their Heart is Far From Me
Let’s pray: Jesus, help me to see the real You.
Isaiah 29:13-16; Matthew 15:1-20
29:13 The sovereign master says,
“These people say they are loyal to me;
they say wonderful things about me,
but they are not really loyal to me.
Their worship consists of
nothing but man-made ritual.
29:14 Therefore I will again do an amazing thing for these people –
an absolutely extraordinary deed.
Wise men will have nothing to say,
the sages will have no explanations.”
29:15 Those who try to hide their plans from the Lord are as good as dead,
who do their work in secret and boast,
“Who sees us? Who knows what we’re doing?”
29:16 Your thinking is perverse!
Should the potter be regarded as clay?
Should the thing made say about its maker, “He didn’t make me”?
Or should the pottery say about the potter, “He doesn’t understand”?
Breaking Human Traditions
15:1 Then Pharisees and experts in the law came from Jerusalem to Jesus and said, 15:2 “Why do your disciples disobey the tradition of the elders? For they don’t wash their hands when they eat.” 15:3 He answered them, “And why do you disobey the commandment of God because of your tradition? 15:4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Whoever insults his father or mother must be put to death.’ 15:5 But you say, ‘If someone tells his father or mother, “Whatever help you would have received from me is given to God,” 15:6 he does not need to honor his father.’ You have nullified the word of God on account of your tradition. 15:7 Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said,
15:8 ‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me,
15:9 and they worship me in vain,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
True Defilement
15:10 Then he called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. 15:11 What defiles a person is not what goes into the mouth; it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles a person.” 15:12 Then the disciples came to him and said, “Do you know that when the Pharisees heard this saying they were offended?” 15:13 And he replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted. 15:14 Leave them! They are blind guides. If someone who is blind leads another who is blind, both will fall into a pit.”15:15 But Peter said to him, “Explain this parable to us.” 15:16 Jesus said, “Even after all this, are you still so foolish? 15:17 Don’t you understand that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach and then passes out into the sewer? 15:18 But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these things defile a person. 15:19 For out of the heart come evil ideas, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 15:20 These are the things that defile a person; it is not eating with unwashed hands that defiles a person.”
What struck you?
How will it impact your walk with Jesus today?
The NET Bible© is freely available at www.bible.org
Jesus’ Followers Depart
Let’s pray: Jesus, help me to see the real You.
John 6:59:71
Many Followers Depart
6:59 Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. 6:60 Then many of his disciples, when they heard these things, said, “This is a difficult saying! Who can understand it?” 6:61 When Jesus was aware that his disciples were complaining about this, he said to them, “Does this cause you to be offended? 6:62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascending where he was before? 6:63 The Spirit is the one who gives life; human nature is of no help! The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. 6:64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus had already known from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) 6:65 So Jesus added, “Because of this I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has allowed him to come.”
Peter’s Confession
6:66 After this many of his disciples quit following him and did not accompany him any longer. 6:67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “You don’t want to go away too, do you?” 6:68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life. 6:69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God!” 6:70 Jesus replied, “Didn’t I choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is the devil?” 6:71 (Now he said this about Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for Judas, one of the twelve, was going to betray him.)
What struck you?
How will it impact your walk with Jesus today?
The NET Bible© is freely available at www.bible.org
Servant Songs pt. 18
Let’s pray: Jesus, help me to see the real You.
Isaiah 50:1-3
50:1 This is what the Lord says:
“Where is your mother’s divorce certificate
by which I divorced her?
Or to which of my creditors did I sell you?
Look, you were sold because of your sins;
because of your rebellious acts I divorced your mother.
50:2 Why does no one challenge me when I come?
Why does no one respond when I call?
Is my hand too weak to deliver you?
Do I lack the power to rescue you?
Look, with a mere shout I can dry up the sea;
I can turn streams into a desert,
so the fish rot away and die
from lack of water.
50:3 I can clothe the sky in darkness;
I can cover it with sackcloth.”
What struck you?
How will it impact your walk with Jesus today?
The NET Bible© is freely available at www.bible.org
The Bread of Life pt. 2
Let’s pray: Jesus, help me to see the real You.
John 6:41-58
6:41 Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus began complaining about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” 6:42 and they said, “Isn’t this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 6:43 Jesus replied, “Do not complain about me to one another. 6:44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. 6:45 It is written in the prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’Everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to me. 6:46 (Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God – he has seen the Father.) 6:47 I tell you the solemn truth, the one who believes has eternal life. 6:48 I am the bread of life. 6:49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 6:50 This is the bread that has come down from heaven, so that a person may eat from it and not die.6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
6:52 Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus began to argue with one another, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 6:53 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. 6:54 The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 6:55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 6:56 The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me, and I in him. 6:57 Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so the one who consumes me will live because of me. 6:58 This is the bread that came down from heaven; it is not like the bread your ancestors ate, but then later died. The one who eats this bread will live forever.”
What struck you?
How will it impact your walk with Jesus today?
The NET Bible© is freely available at www.bible.org
