Building on the Foundation

We live in a rough world, a world bent on our destruction and the destruction of our hearts. In our daily lives, we walk through the valley of the shadow of death constantly because any moment might be our last. I’m not trying to be dramatic; that’s simply the truth. Very few deaths are expected, and most happen completely out of the blue, so not only might every moment be our last moment, but it might also be someone we love’s last moment. There are a lot of things that could be said about that, but the main lesson to draw is that we need to make every moment we have with those we love count because we might not get another one. Someday we will have seen someone for the last time on this earth and not even realize it. That’s a bit of a sobering thought when you recognize that our time with those we love is temporary. Losing someone can be one of the greatest emotional struggles we will face in our lives and the pain is one of the deepest and longest-lasting pains in this world. It...

 Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John record about six occasions when Jesus healed people on the Sabbath. We know, of course, that Jesus, as the Son of God, did only what was right and proper on the Sabbath. He never broke the Sabbath, He never broke any of God's laws, He only broke manmade traditions. Remember, Jesus Christ is also God (John 5:18; Phil. 2:6), and He and His Father are of one mind and one spirit (John 10:30; 14:9). The very idea of Jesus breaking His Father's law — which is also His own law — is ludicrous. Still, the question remains, Why did Jesus heal on the Sabbath so often? God never does anything haphazardly; He does everything for a reason. In this case, there are several reasons, the most obvious being that those people needed healing. But there's one reason in particular that I'd like to focus on today, one which I find most fascinating! We know from Hebrews 4 that the Sabbath represents God's Kingdom . The physical Sabbath that we celebrate each w...