Today's reading: Exodus 40:1-38Although God's presence is certainly not limited to any building or structure, from the time the people of Israel were freed from slavery in Egypt until they settled in the Promised Land and eventually built a permanent Temple, He chose to manifest His presence in the tabernacle. Since the tabernacle was portable, it could always be set up in the midst of the Israeli...  Read More

Take some time today to read back over the devotionals for this week and consider what God has been revealing about Himself. Is there anything you need to do in your life to respond to that revelation?...  Read More

Hopefully you've been keeping up with your reading, but if not use today and tomorrow to catch up....  Read More

Today's Reading: Exodus 34:1-35In obedience to God's command, Moses cuts two new tablets and heads back up Mount Sinai. There God does what He had promised to do for Moses before: He reveals HIs name and He allows Moses to see HIs goodness.Verses 6-7 comprise the most often quoted description of God's character in the Bible. In just two verses God tells Moses that in His goodness, He is both graci...  Read More

Today's Reading: Exodus 24:1-18Moses reads the laws that God has given to him to all the people. And the people all agree that they will obey those commandments. But as we're going to see, it won't take long until they violate the first two commandments while Moses is still up on the mountain.It is easy for us to criticize the Israelites for their disobedience, but because of our sin nature we're ...  Read More

Today's Reading: Exodus 20:1-26God gives Moses the Ten Commandments for His people. These laws were intended to distinguish God's people from the surrounding nations.  The first four commandments deal with how we are to love God and the last six deal with how we are to love others.Much of the world views these commandments as "restrictive" and believe God gave these laws to keep us from enjoying o...  Read More

Today's Reading: Exodus 19:1-25Today we begin a new section in our reading plan. Having redeemed his people, God gives the Law that declares his righteous standards as well as a sacrificial system (based on substitutionary atonement) that provides a means to deal with sin. When God calls Moses to come up on Mount Sinai to receive the Law, He demonstrates His holiness by forbidding the rest of the ...  Read More

Today's Reading: Jude 1:1-25Today, we're not only reading a chapter, but an entire book of the Bible!This book certainly contains some interesting and unusual references to events that just aren't recorded anywhere else in the Bible and we could easily get sidetracked by focusing on them. (And if you're interested in digging into any of those events further I'd be happy to discuss them with you.) ...  Read More

Today Ryan will be finishing up our Exodus sermon series. So it's been great that our Bible reading for the last week or so have complemented that sermon series. Take some time today to reflect on what you've learned from both our sermon series and your reading in this section....  Read More

Hopefully you've been keeping up with your reading, but if not, make sure you catch up today. ...  Read More

Today's reading: 1 Corinthians 5:1-13Paul is writing to the church in Corinth about open, unrepentant sexual sin that is present within the church. He compares that sin to leaven and refers back to the Feast of Unleavened Bread that was closely associated with the Passover Feast. In the same way that homes were to be cleansed of any leaven during that feast, the body of Christ was to be cleansed o...  Read More

Today's reading: Matthew 26:1-75There is a lot going on in this chapter, but we're going to focus on verses 17-29.Jesus observes the Passover with His disciples, just as God had commanded His people when He delivered them from Egypt. But Jesus gave new meaning to two of the central elements in the Passover meal - the bread and the cup.Jesus said that the bread represented His body. That was a pict...  Read More