The book of Esther is an astonishing story of courage and love that points us toward the story of Jesus. In this three-day plan, Dr. Kwasi Amoafo explores how the Old Testament story of Esther parallels the gospel and is a stunning picture of our spiritual redemption through Jesus, who identified with us, intervened for us, and saved us when we were impotent to save ourselves.
The expression, remaining in Christ, has frequently been misunderstood by Bible readers, as though it were a special, mystical, and indefinable experience. But in John 15:1-17, Christ helps us to understand that remaining in Him is not such a mystical and indefinable experience after all. In this passage, first, Christ helps us to understand what it means to remain in Him. Second, Christ helps us to understand the methods that strengthen our remaining in Him. Third, Christ describes three ways in which our lives are marked by our remaining in Him.
1 John 4:7-21 teaches us much about the love of God. The Apostle John gives us the gospel’s definition of God’s love, and he reminds us of how, through the gospel, God permanently displayed His love to us. In this passage John also reminds us of how the gospel empowers us to demonstrate to God, and to others, this love of God in our own Christian lives.
In Matthew 6:24-34 Christ explains how the gospel reveals the reason for our worrying, and most important of all, He helps us to understand how the gospel rescues us from the reality of worrying.
Do you wonder if, when, or how God will fulfill His promises to you? Do you hope to live a fruitful life, faithfully serving God with what you have, where you are? In this three-day reading plan, Dr. Kwasi Amoafo points out how the story of Ezra mirrors the story of Jesus, making him an excellent model to follow as we strive to glorify God with our lives.
In Luke 15, Christ shows us that the reason we all need the gospel is because of the hopelessness of our sin. He reminds us of the amazing, and even scandalous, love of God our Saviour, that is displayed in the gospel, and He teaches us the only way we can receive the salvation of God that He offers to us through the gospel.
Luke 9:51-62 teaches us that we can outright decline to follow Jesus, or we can allow ourselves to be distracted from following Jesus, or more importantly, we can be determined to follow Jesus.
Jonah 1:1-17 and Mark 4:1 & 35-41 give us a gospel view of first, the inevitability of our storms of life, second, the intensity of these storms, and third, how the identity of Jesus Christ, our greater Jonah, enables us to successfully face these storms of life.
Mark 1:40-45 shows us how, through the gospel, Christ touches us with His salvation to heal us of our spiritual sickness of sin, and He ends our spiritual separation from God.
We can either allow our hardships to drag us down into hopelessness, or in our hardships, we can allow the gospel to lift us up into the New Testament hope that we have in Christ.
John 9 presents to us, first, a revelation of the real identity of Christ, second, the different responses that people bring to Christ and His gospel, and third, the result of seeing the identity of Christ.