December 23, 2025
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in our Lenten readings from “The Life of Jesus”? Here’s today’s reading:
Advent 2025 – Day 23 in the Book: “The Life of Jesus“
The Year of Growing Opposition
Read Sections 4.29 through 4.33 (pages 92-95)
This book is an account of Jesus’ life and teachings told through in chronological order from the four Gospels to create one continuous story.
*If you do not have a copy of the book please contact the church at (401)667-0775 and we can get you a copy.
God is the truth and Satan is the father of lies. This world falls into the traps of Satan thinking that believing in God is a life of rules and rigidity that makes you a slave to those things. Jesus explains who it is actually the opposite and how those who seek to satisfy themselves through the flesh become slaves to that sin. They are trying to fill holes that only God can fill and become stuck in an endless cycle of sin.
Jesus also spoke of judgement and how only His father can judge sin. Unless we are without sin, which none of us can say we are, who are we to judge another’s sin. Just because someone’s sin is more obvious or evident doesn’t give us the right to judge. We must worrying about getting ourselves right in the eyes of God and not use other’s sin to feel better about our own.
The Pharisees have the perfect set up. They have trapped Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. If Jesus says, let her go then he denies the law of Moses. If Jesus says she needs to be stoned to death then they’re gonna report him to the Romans. Jesus turns this whole situation on themselves, only a sinless person could throw the first stone. So the wise and the oldest are the first ones to leave, knowing their many sins. most likely adultery themselves. The Pharisees obviously thought Jesus was either a lunatic or a liar, but Jesus starts giving them a third alternative. He was telling the truth, but they were never understanding that and they argue that His claim was invalid because He has no other witnesses as written in their laws, but Jesus has the best witness, His father in heaven. verse 24 and John chapter 8 you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am who I claim to be. What a sober thought for the world today. The Pharisees thought because of their position with Abraham they could be children of God, but their actions showed that they were children of Satan. Satan used their stubbornness and their pride to keep them from believing who Jesus was.
Advent 2025 – Day 23
Psalm 56; Jeremiah 33; The Life of Jesus 4.19-4.33
I just love that the guards don’t arrest Jesus because they had never heard anyone speak the way He did. And yet the Jewish leaders are literally hell bent on making Jesus look bad and eliminating Him if they can’t. Oh the forgiving heart of Jesus to not condemn the adulteress, but He doesn’t forgive to condone sin, but to free us from it. Jesus is trying to bring light to all those who hear His word. His witnesses to the validity of what He says is He and His Father. But they are blinded and do not see the truth of what Jesus has done and what He warns about in terms of them dieing in their sins. Thank God that Jesus has died for us so we do not have to die in our sins. The Jews think their credentials of being children of Abraham should save them, and yet they are not following in the way that Abraham would go. They are actually listening to their real father who is the devil. This made me think of all the false things that people cling to other than Jesus that makes them think that they are ok. And they think they are listening to God, when in reality satan is blinding them to the true gospel of sola Cristo, sola fide and sola scriptura.
Israel is in the news lately and I can’t help but think of Gods plans. Here the Jewish leaders reject Jesus despite the testimony of Him, His Father and His works. He tells them they will “die in their sin” and this is true of Jews today who do not believe. As Christians we love the Jews and believe God has a future plan for them. I would not curse them, but I believe the Majority of the book of Revelation is the remaining 7 years of Gods judgement of Israel. This is not cursing them but acknowledging what God has told us. I believe part of that revelation will be Israel recognizing they “made a deal with the Devil” (Antichrist) And “ looking upon the One they have pierced” (Jesus) mourning as for a son.