Hope For Today

If you would like to listen to today's devotional, please click  here Dear Friends, What does it mean to remain in Christ? In John 15:1-17  Jesus uses the illustration of a grapevine to explain our relationship with him and how we are to remain in him. He uses the word "remain" ten times in those verses. Jesus says: "I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener...Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing." ( v1,5  NLT) In v4   Jesus says this: "Dwell in Me, and I will dwell in you. [Live in Me, and I will live in you.] … abiding in (being vitally united to) the vine," (AMP) The Message paraphrases v4   as  “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you." But what does it mean to remain, dwell, live, abide in Christ?  1. Connection and Communication  I am in Jesus and he is in me. This...

Dear Friends, One Sunday morning after the church service I was chatting over coffee with a lady and a mutual friend.  When she saw Jess she said that my daughter looks just like me and my friend added that we have the same character too.  She's not the first one to say how much my daughter looks like me.  I know that on several occasions I've said to Josh, my son, "Oh, you're just like your father!" when he acts in a certain way.  It's no surprise that there are these family resemblances, after all, being family means we have the same DNA.  People also say that you become like the person you live with. Not only do we all have a physical family, when we become Christians God gives us a spiritual family too, he adopts us into his family and we become children of God.  " God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure." Ephesians 1:5...