Author Archive: Pastor Mark

Spiritual Mind

Steering the mind towards Spiritual truths

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We began this week by re-reading 1 Corinthians 2, drawing out certain truths which set the pace for the rest of the teaching. All we did was red a few passages, all of which offered both support, further examples and added to the knowledge we learned in 1 Corinthians 2.

The Spirit of God steers our mind towards the word of God, towards the character of Christ and ulitmately towards faithfulness in our stewardship regarding the spirital gifts invested in us by the Holy Spirit of God.

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Song of Ascents

The Songs of Ascent Pt. 1

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Tonight we begin with Psalm 120 which is the first of a sub-category of psalms which are referred to as songs of ascent. There are 15 of these psalms in all.

While the individual composers of these Psalms may not have had this intent in mind, they have been used in Judaism for generations as ‘Pilgrim songs’ sung while ascending the hill outside of Jerusalem on major feast days.

In particular these Feasts are the three major annual feasts of Passover, Shavuot (now known as Pentecost), and Sukkot (also known as the Feast of Tabernacles).

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Easter 2025 false heaven

False gospels make it just about heaven

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The danger of the seeker friendly movement was also the inevitable stripping away from the gospel anything that might offend. This has produced a Gospel which bears nearly ZERO resemblance to that witnessed in the early church.

This morning we spent almost 90 minutes looking at what the Gospel looked like 2000 years ago. What did confessing Christ and baptism cost those in the early church? The New Testament letters are FULL of information which we barely touched on superficially and it looks staggeringly different from what passes for the Gospel in the 21st Century.

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Wrapping up Psalm 119

Wrapping up Psalm 119

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This is the last 6 segments of this Alphabetic Acrostic Psalm. It covers Pey – Tav in the Hebrew alphabet.

Being container of God’s word, humility leading to the glory of Christ’ likeness, our need for our Creator and the rightness of our calling out to Him, turning towards God and away from wickedness, loving God’s law and the great hope His commandments offer and being marked by God’s sign which delivers from death. All of this and more are in these last segments.

As an additional treat, the final verses under Tav seem to summarize the entire 119th chapter in its emphasis on God’s words and our relationship to it!

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Palm Sunday 2025 Crown

How you see Him is how you will crown Him

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How you see Him is how you will crown Him

Well it’s Palm Sunday, the day the church “celebrates” the national superficial recognition of Jesus as their King just before demanding His crucifixion 4 days later.

Yes, this celebration confuses me too – however, it does set the stage for a very good teaching on expectations.

The Jewish people as a whole rejected Jesus because He did not conform to their incomplete & incorrect understanding of who the Messiah was going to be.

They knew He was going to:
• come and establish God’s kingdom
• unite Israel &make sovereign their borders
• reign on David’s throne forever.

What they failed to see was His:
• Rejection by Israel
• Authority being challenged
• Lack of majesty or stateliness so as to captivate them
• mocking
• trial
• sufferings
• Death
• resurrection.

ALL foretold and predicted, but as Isaiah said God gave them a “spirit of deep sleep” and “blinded their eyes”.

Yet, an old man and woman, namely Anna and Simeon, knew & recognized Jesus and knew He was here to redeem Israel from their sins without ever hearing Him preach, seeing Him heal or even talking to Him for they knew it from His birth.

How? The Spirit of God gave them eyes to see and ears to hear, BECAUSE they were true worshipers of God who sought Him for Who He IS rather than for what they wanted Him to be!

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