Author Archive: Pastor Mark

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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led renewed overcome

Led, Renewed & Overcoming

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We tackled Romans 8 this week in all of its complexity and glory.

In chapter 7 Paul leaves the christian with a palpable awareness of our divided hearts. Once we have come to Christ in faith and allegiance to His Lordship our spirits are recreated in the image of God our Father and Maker. We are no longer spiritually dead. No longer beings of utter darkness, we are now alive to God in the spirit, children of light.

However there remains the law of sin and death actively at work in our flesh nature, warring for dominant influence over our souls. This lower nature or lower life as Jesus put it, attempts to lead us into actions which are in high rebellion against the God we love. So it is that Paul asked the question – “Who will deliver me from this death-ridden body?” He closes that thought with the answer, “Jesus Christ our LORD”.

We are left with our higher nature serving God, but our lower nature, the law of sin & death.

Chapter 8 is nearly all about the mind, which is where this war is fought.

The Spirit encourages the believer to set their minds on spiritual things and be led by the inward promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Though we are predestined to bear the image of Jesus Christ, the means of bringing this about is suffering in the flesh. We must put to death the deeds of the body, that we might live and that death is realized in suffering.

In the end though, not anything or anyone external to ourselves can remove us from the love of God or the victory we will realize in Him!

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Belong to You

I belong to You!

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These verses in chapter 119 cover the 9th through the 12th letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

Of course the primary theme is a focus upon the value and power of the word of God, His love and solicitous care of His Own and instruction to maintain our focus upon Him even in the face of adversity.

However, another theme seemed to surface in some of this psalmists musing which expressed not only an embracing of his humanity before His God, but a sense of belonging that took this notion even deeper and made it all the more tangible and endearing!

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Sin Mind Believer

Sin & the mind of the believer

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There is a vast difference between God’s children and the devil’s.

According to Jesus, when a child of the devil sins they are simply walking in agreement with their own spiritually dead nature. They WANT to do the will of their father the devil.

A child of God on the other hand has experienced a literal, spiritual rebirth.

They once were dead and now they are alive, they were darkness and now they are light in the Lord. Old things have passed away now EVERYTHING is of God. The seed of Jesus remains in them and so as John says, “They CANNOT sin, because they have been born of God”.

Contrary to what most commentators will tell you this does not mean they cannot sin as they once did (which is also true), but that from their new nature – BECAUSE of the seed of Christ within them – IF they sin, it is no longer coming from WHO THEY ARE as a reborn spirit but from their flesh and mind alone.

Galatians tells us that the flesh exercises strong desire against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. These are strongly opposing forces which makes it hard for a Christian to do what is right.

The decision to side with their flesh or with the influence of the Holy Spirit upon their spirit is made in the mind. THAT is why we are focused on the renewing of the mind in this series.

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