Dear Calvary Christian Church Family and Friends,

I hope you’re taking time with God in His word daily. Enjoy today’s devotional for faith comes by hearing!

Peace and blessings, Pastor MichaEl

PS – Have a Wonderful Wednesday!

BIBLE STUDY NOTES – Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory – the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father. John 1:14

God’s Word has now taken a new form. It is not just words inscribed on stone or even written on paper. God’s Word has taken on human flesh. In Jesus

There were many who wanted to follow Jesus after He fed the 5,000. But Jesus made it clear thatHe did not come to merely feed the hungry; He came to give His life as a sacrifice, to die in the sinner’s place by the sacrifice of His body and the shedding of His blood:

John chp. 6:  This was not what most of these followers wanted to hear:

Jesus knew that a good many of these “disciples” were not true believers;they were just followers looking for a free meal. Jesus called attention to their unbelief and then informed them that no one could come to Him unless the Father granted it. He is certainly speaking of the sovereign calling of God here, and that does not flatter men who want to earn their way to heaven in some way.

Indeed, is this not the great “bone of contention” for many religious unbelievers? They do not want “charity” (otherwise known as grace); they want a salvation that they have earned on their own, by their own efforts. They do not want a salvation that is achieved only through the sacrificial death (and victorious resurrection) of Jesus. And this is precisely what keeps them from heaven:

The crowd vaporizes, and now Jesus has a much smaller group of followers. Jesus turns to His disciples to ask if they do not wish to leave Him as well. Peter answers for the others:

68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God!” (John 6:68-69)

The living Word is the only one who has “the words of eternal life.” How right Peter was. They had nowhere else to go to obtain eternal life. And neither does anyone else!

The Word of God is the seed from which faith is begotten: John 12:24   (NIV) ²⁴ Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

40 Days in the Word video – http://40daysintheword.com/blogs/habits/day-2/

OSWALD CHAMBERS DEVOTIONAL – The Discipline of Spiritual Perseverance

Be still, and know that I am God . . . —Psalm 46:10

Perseverance is more than endurance. It is endurance combined with absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. Perseverance means more than just hanging on, which may be only exposing our fear of letting go and falling. Perseverance is our supreme effort of refusing to believe that our hero is going to be conquered. Our greatest fear is not that we will be damned, but that somehow Jesus Christ will be defeated. Also, our fear is that the very things our Lord stood for— love, justice, forgiveness, and kindness among men— will not win out in the end and will represent an unattainable goal for us. Then there is the call to spiritual perseverance. A call not to hang on and do nothing, but to work deliberately, knowing with certainty that God will never be defeated.

If our hopes seem to be experiencing disappointment right now, it simply means that they are being purified. Every hope or dream of the human mind will be fulfilled if it is noble and of God. But one of the greatest stresses in life is the stress of waiting for God. He brings fulfillment, “because you have kept My command to persevere . . .” (Revelation 3:10).

Continue to persevere spiritually.