By Mike Peek

The past couple of mornings I’ve been reading “The Gospel According to Mark” and a thought came to mind this morning that I find quite interesting. During Jesus’ earthly ministry whenever He heeled someone He told them not to tell anyone. But what did they do? They would go out from there and tell everyone. “And He gave them orders not to tell anyone; but the more He ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it.” (1) He even told His disciples when they rightly answered whom He was, not to tell anyone. “And He warned them to tell no one about Him.” (2) Even when the Lord took Peter, James, and John up on the mountain, and He was transfigured before them, “He gave them orders not to relate to anyone what they had seen, until the Son of Man rose from the dead.” (3) Now the thing that is so interesting about what He told Peter, James, and John; was for them not to tell anyone what they had seen, until the Son of Man rose from the dead. Of course they did not unde...

From my birth I have been an offense, I offended my parents and siblings; the first people I knew. From my childhood I offended my classmates, my teachers, and friends. As I grew into adulthood I offended coworkers, friends, and aquatintists. I've offended my wife, my children, my church. I've offended people in my community, people on the street, and people in stores. I've offended people on the Internet, people of other countries; if I haven't offended you, just give it time. But the worst offense of all, I've offended The Lord God, my creator and sustainer, the One who gave me life. While I will never make amends to the people I've offended The Lord God is all satisfied with me in Christ. He lived a sinless life satisfying the righteousness of God. He died in my place satisfying the justice of God. Through faith in Him I'm justified before God and I'm no longer an offense to God, because the Holy One of God, Jesus Christ, became an offen...

Jesus said "Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." We, who are in Christ, sometimes get frustrated with unbelievers, as to why they cannot see the truth, and it is frustrating I agree, and God is just to punish them for their sin, but never forget we were dead in our trespasses and sins "but God." Just as a dead man cannot get up and walk, the spiritually dead cannot hear. The spiritually dead cannot chose to hear the word anymore than a dead man can chose to get up and walk, they must be born of God, transformed. It is all of God! (Ephesians 2:1-10) What event occurred in your life that you had no control over and nothing to do with whatsoever? The answer; your birth! Do you not find it of up most interest that Jesus said you must be born again to see the kingdom of God? (John 3:3) We tell people in our proclamations of the gospel to "Repent and Believe" (Mark 1:15) and this is the biblical call to an unbeliever, but it is...