Who's First?

For Saturday, May 23, 2026:

Colossians 1:18 NLT: “Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, firstborn over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything.”

The Bible says that the church is the bride of Christ, making Jesus the head of the church. Without Jesus, there would be no reason for any church to exist. Mankind could have just stayed with Synagogues. It’s important that we understand the difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

Under the Old Covenant, mankind was expected to conform to God’s commandments, sometimes called the Law of Moses since God sent most of the commandments through his servant Moses. The grading scale was tough: Live life 100% right, pass; miss one, fail. Any sin disqualified a person from accessibility to heaven.

God’s desire, though, is that none would perish, so he gave us a chance to repent and return. We call this the New Covenant. God’s Son Jesus died to atone for the sins of the world. In other words, He gave us a second chance, a do-over! Forgiven believers, those who would put their faith in Jesus, are given an opportunity to see heaven from the inside!

Abbott and Costello asked, “Who’s on first?” The answer should always be, “Jesus!” He’s responsible for creation, the forgiver of mankind’s sins and head of the church! Jesus is first in everything!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

The Father’s House

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Truth & Freedom Church

Jesus = Father = One!

For Tuesday, May 12, 2026:

Colossians 1:15a NLT: “Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.”

I love the story of a little girl putting her crayons to work in the church’s gathering space.

Pastor: What are you drawing?

Girl: I’m making a picture of God!

Pastor: Do you realize that no one knows what God looks like!

Girl: They will when I’m done!

Paul calls Jesus a “visible image” of God. Jesus was created for interaction with humans. He lived alongside us after coming to earth as a little baby. He taught God’s commandments as his own, taught Torah, and healed a great many who needed healing and casting out of demons. Finally, he took the sins of the world to the place of the dead, leaving believers forgiven, reconciled with God!

The word translated “image” could mean an engraving or some kind of picture. And it could also mean “manifestation.” There is a God we cannot see, but seeing Jesus is what God would be like if he were visible. Not only can’t God be seen, but he is unknowable past a certain point. It’s through Jesus that we can learn about God.

Jesus said, ”I and the Father are one.” He’s not only teaching a fact. He’s showing us things about the Father that we could never discern on our own. Jesus also said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus will lead believers into the hereafter. We can follow him into heaven, into eternity!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

The Father’s House

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Truth & Freedom Church

Wash Your Soul too!

May 26, 2025, Monday Message:

Luke 11:41 NLT, Jesus speaking: “Clean the inside by giving gifts to the poor, and you will be clean all over.”

I tell my grandchildren to wash their hands before we eat. God told the Jews to wash their hands before a meal. The Pharisees called it a commandment or a law, and they came up with an elaborate ceremony ensuring its implementation. Sure, it pleases God if we don’t put germs and dirt into our God-given bodies. But God’s words weren’t about religion; they were about keeping mankind healthy!

Jesus was invited to a Pharisee home for a meal, and he skipped the hand-washing part. To say the Pharisees went nuts would be an understatement! Time for Jesus to separate man-made ceremonies from common sense!

The Pharisees washed their dishes, inside and out, but only cleaned their bodies on the outside. The inside portion, their souls, were a filthy mess. Obsessed with their concern for observing the Law, they overlooked God’s commands telling them to love their neighbors. That principle was huge with Jesus, who taught that the most important commandment was loving the Lord, and the next, like it or equal to it, is to love our neighbors. A person could perform a perfect religious ceremony that would be meaningless if they showed no compassion for their fellows.

Today is Memorial Day in the US. We remember and honor our ancestors. We remember and honor those who gave their lives so that we could live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. I don’t like wars, and there are currently about 80 conflicts in our world where people are shooting at one another with real bullets! Wars are typically about power and money. And wars become good people defending themselves against evil aggression. How much better our world would be if everyone could love their neighbors like Jesus taught, rather than shooting at them!

God will eventually have his way!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Idols!

December 9, 2024 Monday Message:

Deuteronomy 5:8 NLT, Moses quoting God who spoke from within the fire: “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind, or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea.”

We opened up the “Commandments” can-of-worms yesterday, so let’s continue down that path. Our God Yahweh claims the title of “God,” and no other entity can claim that title. We are to have no others, which works out well since there really are no others!

Anything other than the real God is a figment of our imagination, simply a pretend, made-up god. We are forbidden from worshiping anything other than the one true God.

What is an idol? 2,000 years ago, silversmiths would craft statuettes, figurines that people could purchase, put up on their mantles and then worship and pray. Other than the silver, these objects were worthless. Nowadays an idol can be anything that diverts our attention from worshiping the real God. Ending a worship service sooner so that we can get to our football game? That qualifies. Jobs that require working Sunday morning get in the way of worship. When my children were younger, they played sports. A tournament would be scheduled over a weekend, with the finals being played on Sunday mornings. I never understood that, or why there wasn’t a larger outcry against that. To me, choosing between a soccer match and honoring our creator doesn’t require much thinking. God wins every time!

Think about it – erecting an idol to a non-god makes no sense! What the Bible teaches us about the super-natural world is all true. There are devils and demons, there are angels and God’s angel-army, but there is only one Supreme Being, our Creator, Almighty God! The commandments, like the Bible, are about truth!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

New Commandment!

For Friday, October 11, 2024:

1 John 4:21 NIV: “Those who love God must also love their fellow believers.”

God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are pretty locked in on this “Love” command. But what if your fellow is a jerk? Really shouldn’t happen, should it? But we are told to forgive. How many times? Peter asked if seven was enough, but Jesus said 70 x 7 was a better answer.

Here are some of Jesus’ final words before going to the cross: “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” This really wasn’t a new command. It had been around for 3,000 years, but God’s command wasn’t being honored. Jesus spent his whole life trying to change that. He was constantly encouraging people to be kind and helpful, to show compassion and offer forgiveness to one another. That’s what he did. It was kind of a new concept to these believers, because they hadn’t been obeying it.

But this is how the first church, The Way, grew rapidly. Members were sharing and taking care of one another. People liked what they saw, and wanted to become a part of it. Christianity grew through attraction.

Like the song says, “They will know we are Christians by our love!”

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Family!

For Friday, May 24, 2024:

Ephesians 6:3 NLT: “If you honor your father and mother, ‘things will go well for you, and you will have a long life on the earth.’”

This is the first commandment with a promise. According to God, honoring your father and mother is not only the right thing to do, but it reenforces the natural order of life, God’s plan. The saddest funerals are when a child has died and his parents are among the mourners. God’s natural order and simple logic should have us expecting children to outlive their parents!

Progeny are given the spirit of independence to leave home, select a mate and start a new family. But an important thing, according to this commandment, is to also not forget the old family. We can glean a great deal of wisdom from their experience of living a long life. I wish I had appreciated what good people my parents were when they were still alive.

I have become a fan of the extended family, several generations living under one roof. One of our daughters and her son have lived with us from time to time. Life seems better when they are here. If they have traveled away, I feel like something is missing!

Honoring your parents is a lot like loving your neighbors. We need to be kind and helpful. We need to be available to do the next right thing. Honoring parents can be a lot of work! Are you up for the task?

Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Greatest Commandment!

For Saturday, February 17, 2024

Mark 12:28b NLT: “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

Jesus was taking questions now, Some in the crowd wanted to know more about God and the Kingdom, while others were hoping to trick Jesus into making a misstatement. Jesus accepted the challenge.

We’re all familiar with the 10 Commandments. God sent Moses down the mountain with those commands etched in stone. But those who read scriptures discovered 613 things God said to do, commandments if you will. Some made sense, other did not. Their purpose might have been to set the Hebrew people apart from other nations. But this teacher of religious law had a legitimate question. Imagine trying to place 613 items in the proper order! Which items were most important?

Jesus was taking no chances, so he quoted from Deuteronomy 6 in the Jewish Scriptures, our Old Testament. “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength.” The second is equally important: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Knowledge is the key. To love the Lord, you must have an understanding of who He is and what He has done for us. To me, God is the Creator. He made the universe, the solar system, the planets and stocked them with plants, birds, fish and animals including his crowning achievement: human beings! We exist because of God’s plan. Loving your neighbor is not difficult. Be nice, be kind, be helpful. Figure out the next right thing to do.

Love God and love your neighbor. It’s not that hard!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus in the City Fellowship

Love!

For Tuesday, October 24, 2023:

Romans 13:8 NLT: “Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.”

After carefully researching scripture, Jews found 613 things that God told them to do. Turns out there’s a lot more than just the 10 Commandments! That was a problem though, because most people can’t keep track of 613 things!

Jesus set us up to succeed by giving us a condensed version that we know as the Summary of the Law. “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second most important commandment is this: ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment more important than these two.”

So love God and love your neighbor. Nothing is more important than this. It was God’s Son who taught us this!

By the way, if you’re leading a group somewhere, including church, set the congregation up for success. If you tell them to sing along, put the words on the screen. Lead the song in a comfortable key, not too high, not too low, so that everyone can participate – so they can succeed. Any task should be a little challenging, but not unachievable.

So be joyful, be helpful and do the next right thing for both God and your fellows. That’s what Jesus said to do!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus in the City Fellowship

Love = Life!

For Tuesday, May 9, 2023:

1 John 3:14 NLT: “If we love our brothers and sisters who are believers, it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead.”

Jesus’ new command – to love one another as he loved us – is huge! And it’s not really new. But it seems this Old Testament directive wasn’t being taught by religious leaders, and wasn’t being practiced by those who otherwise believed in our Creator God. Jesus wanted to put ‘loving our fellows’ on the top line of a believer’s daily agenda! He was determined that the next generation of believers would be kind, helpful and forgiving. Jesus wanted to leave the world a little better than when he arrived!

John writes that showing love for our brothers and sisters is a sign we have passed from death to life. Of course he’s referring to eternal death, separation from the Father, becoming eternal life in the presence of the Lord and all the Saints. With God is where you want to spend eternity, so love your neighbors to the max!

Growing up in a church, we learned about the 10 Commandments. In the Bible, we find there are actually 613 Commandments, things God said we are to do. That’s a little complicated for most people, so I prefer to focus on Jesus’ summary: Love God and love your neighbors! If you do that, you’ll be OK! You’ll be with Jesus!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus in the City Fellowship

Know Jesus!

For Thursday, April 27, 2023:

1 John 3:5-6 NLT: “You know that Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him. Anyone who continues to live in Christ will not sin. But anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or understand who he is.”

Jesus was born into a community with a huge religious awareness. The people believed in God and held the scriptures and prophesies as sacred. The religious leaders known as Pharisees rigidly honored God’s commandments. In fact their mission had become enforcing those rules, catching someone doing something wrong and calling them on their errant behavior, and that was wrong!

Pharisees should have known Leviticus 19:18: “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.” The Pharisees were missing love, compassion and forgiveness. They were purporting to know all about God and religion, but had left out a key part of scripture. Their rigid enforcement of God’s commands had become a sin unto itself. It’s obvious the Pharisees didn’t truly know Jesus or understand who he is!

So friends, lighten up, show compassion, love your neighbor and make forgiveness your watch-word. When in doubt, do what Jesus would have done.

Pastor Norton Lawellinh

Jesus in the City Fellowship

Sabbath!

For Wednesday, March 29, 2023:

Matthew 12:7 NLT, Jesus speaking: “You would not condemn my innocent disciples if you knew the meaning of this Scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.’”

Some Pharisees, thinking they were enforcing God’s commandment, chided Jesus and his disciples for gathering a little grain on the Sabbath. Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6: “I want you to show love and mercy, not offer sacrifices.” No disrespect to God, but the disciples needed sustenance. We shouldn’t let the day of the week sidetrack love and mercy for our fellows.

Q: If you came out of church and saw that someone had a flat tire, would you help them change it? (assuming you knew how…) According to Jesus, our answer should be a resounding ‘yes.’ Love, mercy and compassion should be a part of our Sabbath. Figure out what would be helpful. That’s what Jesus would do, and that’s honoring God and his Son!

The commandment reads, “Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” While still honoring the Lord, nowhere does it say that we shouldn’t perform a simple task that would be helpful. Temple priests worked on the Sabbath. Your pastor works on the Sabbath. It’s a good day to put Jesus’ principles into action: Love God and love your neighbor!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus in the City Fellowship