Good vs Evil!

For Thursday, May 7, 2026:

Colossians 1:13-14 NLT: “For the Father has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom (with his blood) and forgave our sins.”

The Father rescued us through the Son’s actions, and the Spirit keeps us on the Holy path! We hear about “God’s vast eternal plan,” and this is part of it. The rescue of mankind was no accident. It was well planned out by God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It’s perhaps easier for us to think of them as three separate entities, but they are of one mind. Mankind was living in the darkness of Satan’s world, but Jesus showed us light. The story of Jesus’ actions is called the Gospel or Good News.

Here’s how the story develops: Humans were floundering like fish without enough water. Our lives had no goal, no purpose. Not surprisingly, very few ever made it to heaven. But the Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. All! How’d that happen? I can picture God saying, “What went wrong? What happened here?”

Let me explain. There is good in this world, and there is evil. God is good, and Satan and his demons are evil. Those who have bonded with Jesus belong to God. The rest are subject to constant tempting by Satan. In fact, we’re all subject to the devil’s temptations, and the result is always pain and misery. But Christians have a higher standard, something to live up to. If Christ is our model, we have his reward in our sights, which is eternal life in the Father’s Kingdom. Eternity is a long time!

Paul advised us to focus our eyes on the prize!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

The Father’s House

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Truth & Freedom Church

Family Business!

For Friday, May1, 2026:

Romans 8:14 NLT: “All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.”

In this life, we don’t get to choose our families. We stick with them not because they’re always desirable, but because they’re blood-relatives. You may have heard that blood is thicker than water, meaning that family ties are strong. But what if you could choose your family? In a way, we can!

Believers have been adopted into the holy family. John writes, “But to all who believed Jesus and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.” Since we can choose to follow Jesus, we can choose to be members of his family. We are “born again” into the family of God!

We used to sing a song with the words, “Come join the family, the family of God.” That implies more than just joining a church or aligning with a denomination. There’s really only one church, the church of Jesus the Messiah. That’s the family to join. Jesus’ invitation is open!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

The Father’s House

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Truth & Freedom Church

Passover!

For Wednesday, April 1, 2026, Passover:

Genesis 17:7 NLT, The Father’s words: “I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you, from generation to generation. This is the everlasting covenant: I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you.”

The simplified version is, “I will be your God, and you will be my people!” This was God’s promise, God’s covenant with Abram and his descendants. God’s word is always good; God’s word is always truth. God will never renege on his promises. Hence, His commitment to the Hebrew people suffering under slavery in Egypt. It’s a long story, so I’ll jump right to the end,

God called Moses to approach Pharaoh, telling him to “Let my people go!” Pharaoh refused, so God set 10 disastrous plagues loose upon Egypt, the last being the death of the firstborn of everything. That’s right, the firstborn of all – livestock and people – would be visited by the angel of death. This was Pharaoh’s breaking point. He not only let the Hebrews go; he demanded that they get out of town! Of course, he later changed his mind, and most of the Egyptian army was lost in the Red Sea incident.

As for the Hebrews, God told them to have a lamb dinner the night before, and then mark their doorposts with the lamb’s blood. This would be a sign for the angel of death to bypass that house, hence the name, “Passover.” They were told to eat standing up, with their walking-stick in hand and their togas tucked inside their belts. God wanted everybody prepared for when it was time to go.

The Israelites were told to teach their children about God’s goodness as he rescued them from Egypt. Teach about the oppression, the plagues and about God’s eventual deliverance of them back to the Promised Land.

God’s words to Abram: “I will give the entire land of Canaan to you and your descendants. It will be their possession forever, and I will be their God.”

Jesus’ words to believers: “I will never leave you or forsake you!”

Pastor Norton Lawellin

The Father’s House

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Truth & Freedom Church

Arrested!

For Thursday, October 2, 2025:

Mark 14:46 NLT: “Then a crowd of men armed with swords and clubs grabbed Jesus and arrested him.”

The leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders had been planning Jesus’ demise for quite some time. They didn’t want to arrest Jesus in the Temple. It would seem wrong. It would look bad if a temple teacher were arrested. “Keep police action out of our worship space!”

One of Jesus’ defenders produced a sword and sliced off an ear of the High Priest’s slave. Jesus restored the ear, to which I would say, “Look at what just happened. The man you’re arresting can heal whatever’s wrong and cure any disease! Perhaps we should rethink this!”

But without knowing it, the Pharisees were fulfilling God’s plan. The blood of Jesus was to be the sacrifice for the sins of the world. Mankind would thereby be redeemed. It would be a rough couple of days for Jesus, but after that, his mission would be complete. (“It is finished!”)

Jesus would have to walk through the fire by himself. (50) “All his disciples deserted him and ran away.” God was keeping them safe. If they stayed close to Jesus, they too would have been killed as accomplices. But God was counting on the disciples to function as leaders of “The Way,” the new Christian church! They needed to be preserved!

The church that the disciples established still exists nowadays, with many franchised locations. We worship at one each week. Thankfully, God had the disciples temporarily step back. When Jesus rose from the grave, they regrouped and came back stronger than ever. 2K years later, people are still signing up for the Jesus team!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Walls Torn Down!

For Wednesday, October 1, 2025:

Hebrews 10:21-22 NLT: “Since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.”

God desires to live among the people he created. The Bible says that God loves us! The problem arises that there can be no sin in the presence of the Lord. By definition, sin and God don’t go together. What to do?

The presence of the Lord was in a special inner room, the Holy of Holies or the Most Holy Place. The entrance was covered by a large, very heavy curtain. Mankind could visit the Temple where God was exalted, but we had separate spaces.

Enter Jesus. After Jesus, everything is different. After Jesus, everything is better! As he died on the cross, Jesus took the sins of the world to the place of the dead and left them there. Mankind had been forgiven, redeemed, purchased back from Satan’s pawn shop, Jesus himself being the ultimate sacrifice for the world’s sins. And since mankind was no longer carrying a sin-burden, there was no longer a need for separation from God. The giant curtain was torn from top to bottom, a sign that God was doing the tearing! There was now nothing separating the creation, mankind, from our Creator God. He says our sins are forgiven and forgotten, and God is never wrong!

If we’re expecting company, my wife wants our place to look nice, so I go outside to mow the lawn and straighten up the yard. I work hard. Then I hear, “You’ll need a shower before they get here!” We want to look our best when meeting someone for the first time! Fortunately, we have Jesus to clean us up before we meet the Father!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

One and Done!

For Tuesday, September 2, 2025:

Hebrews 9:27-28 NIV: “Just as each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment, so also Christ was offered once for all time as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. He will come again, not to deal with our sins, but to bring salvation to all who are eagerly waiting for him.”

2,000 years ago, the Jewish High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies annually to offer a blood sacrifice for the sins of all the people. Remember that “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness.” (v22) That is no longer necessary.

Jesus didn’t ascend to heaven, return to earth, and repeat the process over and over. That would amount to Jesus dying repeatedly. But this is a “one and done” event. He has removed sin by his own death as a sacrifice. That’s a permanent solution. When heaven calls us home, believers are good to go!

Christ was offered once as a sacrifice to take away the sins of many people. The next time we see him, it will be to deliver salvation to the loyal and sincere. Jesus will gather his flock. He has already prepared a place for us. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Atonement Substitution!

August 25, 2025, Monday Message:

Hebrews 9:22b AMP: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness [neither release from sin and its guilt, nor cancellation of the merited punishment].”

If we violate a law in our land, there is always a penalty. Sometimes it’s a fine we must pay. More severe crimes require incarceration, e.g. time spent in prison. A judge may require both if he is so inclined. A capital crime like first-degree murder may require capital punishment, the life of the one who committed that crime.

Capital punishment stirs up a perpetual debate. Some people believe that killing another human is wrong, regardless of their crime. Others believe that punishment fits the nature of the most severe crimes. If the crime was extremely vicious, the thought is that the criminal is unredeemable.

In Moses’ day, people practiced substitutionary atonement. Livestock were valuable, and the offender could offer up a sheep or a goat to square things up for their sin. In a way, it doesn’t make sense for an animal to lose it’s life to cover the owner’s sin, but that’s how it was done. If the sinner was not prosperous enough to own livestock, they could sacrifice a couple of birds.

Jesus changed everything! On the cross, he took the sins of the world to the place of the dead, and consequently mankind was freed from its sin problem. There were no longer animal sacrifices. Jesus dying for our sins is the highest example of substitutionary atonement. Anything else would be redundant and unnecessary, as if we didn’t trust Jesus to be the ultimate sacrifice.

It’s as if Jesus was saying, “Count my blood as the sacrifice for the sins of the world. Forgive these sinners! Let’s make a forever place for them in the Kingdom.” Because without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Blood!

For Thursday, January 23, 2025:

Exodus 7:19 NLT: Then the Lord said to Moses: “Tell Aaron, ‘Take your staff and raise your hand over the waters of Egypt—all its rivers, canals, ponds, and all the reservoirs. Turn all the water to blood. Everywhere in Egypt the water will turn to blood, even the water stored in wooden bowls and stone pots.’”

Pharaoh was unimpressed with Moses’ shepherd’s-staff changing into a serpent. He had court magicians who could perform a similar illusion. Their staffs didn’t really change, but the perception would have been the same.

It was time to get serious. Turning all of Egypt’s water into blood should get everyone’s attention! Water in little bowls and pots changed. Water in little streams and lakes changed. But the biggest impact was that the Nile River changed into blood. A major water supply was gone, all the fish died so a source of food disappeared and river transportation came to a standstill.

Remarkably, Pharaoh’s magicians concocted a trick yielding similar results. So Pharaoh remained unconvinced. His heart remained hard just as God foretold. More would be required to convince Pharaoh to not only release the Hebrew people but for him to beg them to leave! And don’t forget God’s other purpose, to let all of Egypt witness the glory of the one true God!

More would be required to showcase God’s omnipotence. We serve an omnipotent all-powerful God. What could possibly be next? Frogs? Really?

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship