God wants you to know that He is the Owner of all things, including you. God also wants you to know that He has made you in His image and that for this reason you have unique dignity and worth.

At the beginning of human history, God made it possible for our first parents to know Him and enjoy Him. He brought the man and his wife together. He led them to their home and gave them their work. He provided all that they needed and shared in their life. What God did for them, He continues to do for all His people. The only difference is that we don’t see Him do it. We walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7).

We can only begin to make sense of our world when we understand that we live with the knowledge of evil and are excluded from the presence of God. But God has not abandoned us. He sent His Son into our ongoing battle with evil. Through His death on the cross, He broke the power of the enemy and opened a new and living way into the presence and blessing of God.

Imagine yourself at a theater for the first performance of a new play. The curtain goes up, but the stage is empty. Then the author walks out and introduces himself to the audience, telling you who he is, why he wrote the play, and what it is about. The author does not present an argument for his own existence, he simply introduces himself and begins to speak about his work.

God divided mankind into different linguistic groups in order to put a brake on man’s growing rebellion. The brake has been remarkably effective. Throughout human history there have been multiple attempts to bring the nations together, but any success has always been limited and short-lived.

But God is bringing people from all nations together through Jesus Christ. In heaven all the barriers that have divided people throughout history—race, class, and language—will be completely removed, and God calls His people to begin expressing that unity now in His church.

God’s promise to bless the world through Abraham’s descendant is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. God the Father was pleased to send His Son into the world, where He carried our sins on the cross and laid down His life as a sacrifice, so that His righteousness might be credited to all who come to Him in faith.

The repeated slaughter of animals is one of the harder themes for us to understand in the Old Testament story, but it is also one of the most important. Through these animal sacrifices, God was preparing His people to understand the need for, and the significance of, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

“Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). He bore the judgment of God so that it will not fall on you. But as in the Passover, the blood must not only be shed, it must also be applied. Just as there had to be an act of faith and obedience in which God’s people applied the blood to the doorframes of their houses, so there must be an act of faith in which Christ’s blood is applied to your life. Then you can rest on God’s promise, and God will bring you safely through the Day of Judgment.

The law is a mirror that exposes the hidden sins of our lives. Properly understood, it will convict us of our need for a savior and bring us to Christ. And when the Holy Spirit lives in us, the law is no longer a list of impossible demands, but a description of new possibilities.

Maybe you feel that if you are sufficiently sorry for your sins, you will be right with God, or that if you are obedient to God by attending church and saying your prayers, this will atone for your sins. These things are good, but they are not good enough. It’s the sacrifice of Christ and the shedding of His blood that makes atonement with God. This is what puts things right with God and brings back His presence and His blessing in our lives.

The Day of Atonement illustrates how Jesus made atonement for our sins. When His blood was shed, God’s judgment was poured out, and mercy was released for sinners. The atonement is applied to your sins, in particular, when by faith you lay hold of Christ, believing in Him and confessing yours sins to Him. God will transfer the guilt of your sin to Christ as you lay hold of Him by faith. And when God transfers your guilt, He removes it from you, so that you can look up to God with the joy and freedom of someone who is truly forgiven.

Some generations contribute more to advancing the purpose of God than others. The book of Numbers leads us to expect that this would be the case; not all generations serve willingly. Unity among God’s people and courage among their leaders will save us from aimless wandering and position us to advance God’s purpose in the world.

Idolatry is redefining God. Across the centuries people have repeatedly chosen to invent their own gods rather than bow before the living God. The gods we create are attractive because we can control them, but they only exist in our minds and are powerless to deliver us from sin, death, and hell. Only God can deliver us, and this is why He sent His Son into the world.

Jesus is the king who completely fulfills all that God requires of any leader. It is through our king that the will of God will be accomplished in our lives and in the world. God calls all who aspire to leadership to submit themselves to Christ the King and follow his example.

God’s people can be confident about the future because Jesus Christ is on the throne. Through Him we are reconciled to the Father and become members of His family. Christ has many enemies, but they will all be put under His feet (Psalm 110:1), and the destiny of God’s people is to enjoy the blessing of His reign and rule forever.

If you have ever wished that God would speak to you, you need to know that He does. God speaks through His Word and by His Spirit. When His Word is opened, His voice is heard.

As you study the Bible and hear it proclaimed, you will find that God says some things that can be hard to take. Hearing the truth about your sins will make you uncomfortable. But whenever God speaks, it is a sign of His grace. His purpose is always to restore and to bless.

The cloud of God’s presence in the temple pointed forward to what God would do in Christ. God took human flesh and came down among us in Jesus Christ. When we believe in Him, God’s presence enters our lives by the Holy Spirit, giving us a foretaste of the joys that lie ahead when we will live with Him forever.

Authentic worship is always a response to revealed truth. It is directed toward the living God, focused around the Lord Jesus Christ, and inspired by the Holy Spirit. True worship will be fostered where God’s truth is proclaimed, where Jesus Christ is exalted, and where God’s people submit to the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

If you want to grow in your worship, open your Bible and soak your mind in what God says about Himself. The Holy Spirit will use the truth to stimulate worship in your heart.

God calls us to godliness and righteousness. We are to love God with our whole heart and we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Morality cannot be sustained when we lose the knowledge of God. But when we come to Jesus Christ, He will reconcile us to the Father and lead us in paths of righteousness.

Righteousness cannot be imposed by parents, churches or governments because it must flow from the heart. Of course, good laws are better than bad ones, and they have great value in restraining evil. Good laws backed up by appropriate penalties will usually bring some modification of behavior. But the law cannot bring a change of heart, and that is why attempts to impose religion always fail.

God’s purpose is not to impose an outward conformity to His law. It is to cultivate an inward desire for righteousness. This is the promise of the new covenant and the work of the Holy Spirit. It involves changing our hearts to give us a new hunger for righteousness, and a new ability to pursue a life that is pleasing to God.

The teaching on joy from Nehemiah 8 will be available in April of 2019.

God is holy, holy, holy. His holiness is foundational to His character. In Isaiah’s day thousands of people crowded into the temple, but they had no experience of the God they claimed to worship. Eventually this kind of worship becomes boring. But if you think God is boring, you have never encountered the God of the Bible.

Sin is an offense against a holy God, and an atonement is needed, because without it sinners would be ruined in His presence. The good news of the gospel is that Jesus, God’s Son, satisfied the judgment of a holy God, by becoming the sacrifice that atoned for all our sins.

Christians desperately need to rediscover the awesome holiness of God. Then, like Isaiah, we will begin to appreciate the wonder of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, and we will feel that our greatest privilege in life is to serve this awesome, glorious, holy God.

Jesus Christ is the Servant who gets the will of God done. He said to His disciples, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21). Those who know Jesus are to go out into a broken world and show the compassion of Christ. We are to proclaim the truth of what God has done in Jesus, so that people who do not know Him may come to enjoy the freedom that He gives.

Christ sends His servants to all the nations of the earth. As we go and minister in His name, the blessing of God will come to many people, and Christ will see the fruit of the travail of His soul and be satisfied.

Jesus Christ offers to meet the deepest thirsts of your soul. He offers to bring you into a relationship with God in which your sins are forgiven and you begin to experience His power to live in a way that pleases Him. This life will continue beyond death for eternity.

You cannot buy this gift, but you can receive it. In order to receive it, you must lay aside the idea that there is something that you can offer to God. You must ask Him to give you what you do not have. Faith is like a hand being opened to receive what Christ offers, and He stands ready to give to all who are willing to receive.

The problem of the human heart is that it is defaced with the graffiti of sin. Our great need is that the law of God should be written on our hearts so that what He commands becomes what we desire. Only God can write His law on our hearts, and He came to us in Jesus Christ to make this possible. “If anyone thirsts,” Jesus said, “let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37-38).

Knowing how to handle discouragement is a key to sustaining a lifetime of ministry. Unrealistic expectations usually lead to deep disappointment, and the Bible reminds us that there are no instant formulas for success in God’s work. Ministry often advances through tears and learning that principle will help you when you face discouragement.

Remember that God values the tears of a person who cares about His kingdom. He often brings the most fruitful ministry out of a broken heart. God is faithful. And one day He will wipe away every tear from our eyes (Revelation 7:17).