There are thousands of men and women filling seats and pews in countless churches today who say that they ���believe��� in Jesus. But in truth they do not come to Jesus; believe in Jesus; and worship Jesus as the resurrection and the life! They are still looking to and trusting in other things to give them life ��� a husband or wife; a baby; a job; a home; a car. The Bible calls those things idols. They come to Jesus because they see Him as the one who can give them their idols! For them Jesus is not the Resurrection and the Life ��� He is the idol giver!
When Jesus asks ��� Do you believe this ��� He means, Do you believe that He is the resurrection and the life in the sense that it moves you to cast yourselves on Jesus Christ as your Savior ��� as the one who alone can give you life and victory over sin and death? THAT is the ONLY kind of faith that unites you with Jesus ��� who IS the resurrection and the life! And THAT is Christianity!
04/09/18 The Epiphany in the Prelude - Part 2
John 11:17-27
April 9, 2018 • Richard Cimino
04/16/18 God in the Graveyard
April 16, 2018 • Richard Cimino
This is the FIFTH of the amazing I AM declarations that Jesus made. REMEMBER ��� Whenever Jesus uses the term I AM ��� He is declaring Himself to be the God of Exodus 3. Exodus 3:13-15 3 Then Moses said to God, ���If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ���The God of your fathers has sent me to you,��� and they ask me, ���What is his name?��� what shall I say to them?��� 14 God said to Moses, ���I am who I am..... Say this to the people of Israel, ���I am has sent me to you..... This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. ���I AM the resurrection and the life��� With this 5th I AM declaration ��� Jesus took the subject of resurrection out of the realm of abstract theology and placed it into the personal. With one statement Jesus took the subject of resurrection out of a book and put it into a person ��� Himself.
04/02/18 The Epiphany in the Prelude - Part 1
April 2, 2018 • Richard Cimino
By inspiration of the Holy Spirit John records for us SEVEN MIRACLES. In recording these miracles John uses the Greek word ���s��meion��� (say-mi'-on) ��� which means ���SIGN��� ��� because John wants us to know that each miracle was intended to POINT us to and TEACH us something about Jesus; His glory and His Divine Nature, and about the nature of our relationship with Him. The seventh and final sign recorded by John took place only days before Jesus would make His very public entrance into Jerusalem on the Sunday before He would die in our place for our sins. We find it in John 11 where we have the record of Jesus raising a man named Lazarus from the grave. This final sign recorded by John reveals to us the very nature of salvation. This sign should blow up even any sense of clich�� attached to the word ���salvation.��� This miracle screams to us that ���Salvation��� is nothing less than the giving of life to the dead. The structure of the account of this sign is so thorough ��� so layered ��� so nuanced ��� so packed with truth about the nature of Jesus and the nature of our relationship with Him that we just can���t spend one night walking through it. I���m going to call our first run at this sign EPIPHANY IN THE PRELUDE.