Gender Confusion!

For Thursday, March 19, 2026:

Genesis 1:27b NLT: “Male and female He created them.”

Mankind was never androgynous. God created both men and women. They are distinctly different, separate. Male and female didn’t evolve from some non-sexual being. Think about it – how could they have reproduced? Besides, that philosophy would contradict the Bible. “Male and female He created them.”

Gender confusion – there’s a lot of it in today’s society. We never used to see it, but today, it’s prevalent. In our effort to love the sinner but hate the sin, gender confusion has made its way into the mainstream. As I was growing up, we never heard about same sex relationships. Nowadays, many gays and lesbians are “out,” accepted by many as an alternate lifestyle. A few years ago, I heard a news story about people transitioning from one sex to the other. Now there are thousands! Surgeons can alter the body, but not the DNA. So even fully transitioned individuals will continue to test as their sex at birth. This is a worst-case scenario of our culture’s depravity, the amount and the degree of gender confusion today.

In God’s creative mind, the differences between men and women are not accidents. The differences are good and meaningful; different functions, different job descriptions. Ever wonder which is superior, the man or the woman? According to God, a man is absolutely superior at being a man. A woman is absolutely superior at being a woman. But when a man tries to be a woman or a woman tries to be a man, you have something inferior.

God commanded, “Be fruitful and multiply.” Every living thing that He created obeyed. Blades of grass, plants and trees dropped seeds to multiply. Animals, both cold and warm-blooded, multiplied. Mankind was told to multiply, fill the earth, subdue it, and have dominion. Believers go with God’s plan. Non-believers muck it up.

Pastor Norton Lawellin

The Father’s House

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Truth & Freedom Church

Kingdom!

For Wednesday, March 4, 2026:

John 14:3 NLT, Jesus speaking about our next life in the Kingdom: “When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.“

Jesus said he would prepare a place for loyal believers, and when that’s ready, he’ll meet us with open arms as we transition to the next reality. At that time, it might have seemed like a lot was going wrong around Jesus. But he’s not worried, and he doesn’t want the believers to worry either. It’s all going to work out for the best!

Think about it. If Jesus hadn’t been betrayed, he wouldn’t have been arrested. Without the arrest, there would have been no mock trial in the kangaroo court where he was found guilty and eventually crucified. We usually think of death as a bad thing, but this time Jesus took the sins of the world to the place of the dead, and mankind was given a fresh start! With our sins forgiven, we could once again seek residence in God’s eternal heavenly Kingdom! You see, everything that happened was part of God’s vast eternal plan!

It all played out exactly as Jesus knew it would, a series of illogical steps in exactly the right order that allowed God’s plan to come to fruition. God knows exactly what he’s doing, wouldn’t you say?

Pastor Norton Lawellin

The Father’s House

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Truth & Freedom Church

Jesus' Dilemma!

For Saturday, August 2, 2025:

John 12:27 NLT, Jesus speaking: “Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But this is the very reason I came!”

One cannot look forward to crucifixion with joy. Not only is death is the end result, but it’s a horrendous and callous way to take someone’s life. The floggings in the hot sun that preceded the actual crucifixion may have been a blessing for the victim. In their weakened state, death would come quickly. The Romans had perfected this hideous manner of execution.

Jesus was known for healing the sick, raising the dead and casting out demons. He was an excellent teacher of the Bible, expositing scripture with clarity that had been missing for centuries. But his main purpose in coming to Earth was to be the sacrifice for the sins of the world. If he’s a sacrifice, that implies death, and no one looks forward to dying. But it would be a perfect fit with the Father’s plan for rescuing mankind. So what to do? Do you see the dilemma?

Of course we all know how the story ends. Jesus was obedient, and he chose to take the sins of the world to the place of the dead. Believers are the beneficiaries of his actions. What those around him didn’t quite understand was that he’d be back in three days, full resurrected, brought back to life! Jesus’ followers could see him and hear him speak for another forty days before he ascended back to the Father. The followers could bring their friends and show them the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection. Fence sitters would leap to the “Jesus Camp!”

Jesus commissioned us to make disciples of all nations, and we can retell this story any time it might be helpful!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Rotten Apple!

For Friday, July 18, 2025:

John 12:6b NLT: “Judas Iscariot was a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples’ money, he often stole some for himself.”

As the New Covenant was being introduced to Israel, it was Jesus and the 12 leading the way. We accept Jesus, the heaven-sent Son of God, without question. The other 12 require a second look.

They were a diverse lot, ranging from tax collector to fishermen. To say they were religiously uneducated would be an understatement. It was on-the-job training as they ministered alongside Jesus, adopting his theology and philosophy as they taught others.

With a dozen random members on the leadership team, we would be naive to not expect one rotten apple in the barrel. Judas Iscariot was that guy. In his Gospel, John calls Judas a thief. Apparently, he stole from the group for personal gain, and apparently, this was well known within the group. Jesus must have known too, but other matters were higher up on his agenda. And if Jesus was eventually destined to give his life to atone for the sins of the world, someone would need to betray him, and that task had Judas’ name written all over it! I mean, Jesus didn’t just show up one day and say, “Kill me now!” No, fulfilling his Father’s plan turned out to be highly confrontational!

Friends, we need to always look at the big picture. Yes, Judas was a bad guy, but he was the one to fulfill God’s rescue plan for mankind! While you’re cursing Judas, remember to praise God!

No one is worthless; they can always serve as a bad example!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Vast Eternal Plan!

April 14, 2025, Monday Message:

John 12:23 NLT, Jesus speaking: “Now the time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory.”

Jesus, being fully God and fully man, can see into the future. He knows the fickle crowd who shouted, “Hosanna,” will soon be chanting, “Crucify him!” His assignment is to take the sins of the world to the place of the dead. Three days later comes the resurrection, and eventually Jesus returning to the Father. If that’s God’s plan, he’s “in” for the whole distance.

Once again, Jesus uses an agricultural analogy, hoping to make it easier for the layperson to understand. You simply bury some little seeds, and they give you a big field of wheat. Like those little seeds, Jesus will die, and today we have 2.3B Christians worldwide.

Those who love the world will belong to the world in which Satan is currently running rampant. Those with their eyes on eternity will move into the next reality with Jesus, living in the presence of the Father. God WILL separate the sheep from the goats!

This whole scenario fulfills God’s vast eternal plan for the rescue of mankind, from the Triumphal Entry to Jesus’ demise to the resurrection and the New Covenant. Jesus has much to teach in the time remaining. We call it “Holy Week!”

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Moses!

For Saturday, January 11, 2025:

Exodus 2:1 NLT: “About this time, a man and woman from the tribe of Levi got married.”

God is always thinking ahead, planning ahead. God’s ways are not like our ways. He’s not just a step ahead of us – He’s thousands of steps ahead of us!

While in Egypt, a man and a woman were born into families from the tribe of Levi. Eventually, they would meet and be married. Next comes a baby, a boy. But Pharaoh had ordered that male Hebrew babies were to be killed. So what to do?

When mom could no longer hide the infant, she waterproofed a basket, placed the baby in it, and floated it among the reeds in the Nile, the same place Pharaoh’s daughter and her maids came to bathe. They spotted the basket and took possession of the baby, who was crying. Hungry!

The baby’s older sister had watched the whole scene unfold, and she offered to find a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby. So unbeknownst to the royal family, sister brought the baby’s actual mother to care for him, and she was paid for her help! Baby thrived and was eventually returned to Pharaoh’s daughter, who named him Moses and raised him in the palace as her own son.

God knew that the Hebrews would need to be liberated from the cruel Egyptians, and God had a plan. Far in advance, he knew just how this would all play out. The surprising thing is that God’s prep for the Hebrew rescue was put in motion three generations before it actually came to fruition.

God has a plan, and only God knows the timing!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Asylum!

For Sunday, January 5, 2025:

Matthew 2:13 NLT: “After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,’ the angel said. ‘Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.’”

As an infant, our Savior/Son-of-God became a nonresident alien in a foreign land seeking political and religious asylum! Wow! That’s a big bunch of words to describe such a little child!

But it’s a good thing the family left. Herod had gone berserk! Jesus, born King of the Jews, was such a perceived threat that Herod ordered every Hebrew child under the age of two to be killed! There was heartbreak throughout the land.

Herod eventually died and the Holy family returned to Israel. It all worked out according to God’s plan, leaving us with a little more compassion for those seeking political and religious asylum!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Born Again!

For Saturday, September 14, 2024:

John 1:13 NLT: “Believers are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.”

The other day I was trying to write using my computer, and nothing was working right. Files would disappear; unexpected spaces would appear within words; nothing would “save.” Embarrassingly, it had been weeks since I totally shut down my computer, and as you probably already guessed, the solution was to completely shut down and reboot. After that, everything worked fine. I’m sure there’s a technical term, but I think my device just got confused; too much going on!

When new believers give up the world and return to God, he gives us a fresh start, a reboot. The Bible calls it being born again. This is where we get the term Born-again Christians. Making a commitment to follow Jesus is a dividing line drawn in your life. Your standards and value system were one way before Jesus. But after Jesus, everything changed. It’s better this way. Life makes sense this way. Living according to God’s plan is the better way.

We are blessed by being given a do-over, a fresh start at life. Jesus lets us take a Mulligan on the back nine!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Cock-a-doodle-do!

March 25, 2024 Monday Message:

Mark 14:67 NLT: “The girl noticed Peter warming himself at the fire. She looked at him closely and said, ’You were one of those with Jesus of Nazareth.’”

If Peter had acknowledged being a disciple of Jesus, he would have been arrested on the spot. Instead he denied Jesus to save his own skin. I believe God had something to do with that.

Peter would be the one to spearhead Jesus’ ministry after Jesus returned to the Father. Peter was the one disciple who demonstrated the leadership skills needed to become a leader of “The Way.” Although a wee bit impulsive, Peter possessed the tenacity to step forward and take charge. Perhaps those two traits go together.

So Peter denied Jesus, the rooster crowed and it seemed that all was lost. But God is still on the throne, directing all the action at this point. Everybody was fulfilling God’s vast eternal plan. Jesus would be taking the sins of the world to the place of the dead, thereby absolving mankind. Peter was preserved to become leader of The Way. The Temple hierarchy and Roman soldiers would enforce the false accusations against Jesus. The pieces were all falling into place to complete Jesus’ mission in coming to our planet.

If you want to help with ministry, look for where God is already working and jump in there. Be a part of the winning team!

Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Mission Accomplished!

For Tuesday, March 19, 2024:

Mark 14:55 NLT: “Inside, the leading priests and the entire high Sanhedrin council were trying to find evidence against Jesus, so they could put him to death. But they couldn’t find any.”

Jesus, who had done nothing wrong, would face six trials or judgments, three before a religious court, and three before a Roman court. No one could find any evidence against Jesus, but his adversaries persisted.

Nowadays we would call this a “kangaroo court,” an unjust group which is without proper authority and characterized by dishonesty. This trial of Jesus was totally illegal according to Jewish law. Just like in our country, there was much in the Jewish legal process to protect the rights of the accused. Those rights were deliberately ignored by those who were determined to put Jesus to death.

Surprisingly, Jesus’ oppressors couldn’t even put together a decent case for their position. Their witnesses kept contradicting each other!

Remember that Jesus was on a mission trip to earth. While he taught and healed people, I believe his primary mission was to take the sin of the world upon himself, deliver it to the place of the dead, thereby leaving believers pure, forgiven, acceptable to join the Lord in heaven.

As bad as this all seems, it was fulfilling God’s plan for mankind’s rescue. We should be grateful to Jesus for obedience, for following God’s masterplan for our rescue. And we should thank the Lord for a second chance, for an opportunity to repent and return.

When this entire scenario draws to a close, Jesus could shout out, “Mission accomplished!”

Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

God = Truth!

For Wednesday, July 26, 2023:

Romans 3:4 NLT: “Even if everyone else is a liar, God is true. As the Scriptures say about him, ‘You will be proved right in what you say, and you will win your case in court.’”

Humans have faults, shortcomings. Mankind sometimes sins. But do not assign human traits to the Lord! God never lies! God never sins! If you look up “truth” in the dictionary, Jesus’ picture should be there.

If we don’t understand what God is doing, the shortcoming is ours, not God’s. God’s plan will one day be complete, and perhaps then that vast eternal plan will make sense to us. But it doesn’t really matter if we understand or not, because we already know that God is truth.

Spurgeon writes: “The general consensus of opinion is nothing to a Christian. Christians believes God’s word, and we think more of that than of the universal opinion of men.”

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus in the City Fellowship

Father's Plan!

For Saturday, June 24, 2023:

Matthew 20:18-19 NLT: “Listen,” Jesus said to the 12, “we’re going up to Jerusalem, where the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die. Then they will hand him over to Gentiles, to the Romans, to be mocked, flogged with a whip, and crucified. But on the third day he will be raised from the dead.”

Jesus was both fully God and fully human. I find it interesting how Jesus (God) can speak of Jesus (man) as if he was another person. In this scripture, Jesus (God) is predicting the horror to befall the Son of Man, a name Jesus called himself. His pronouns are he and him.

Jesus, in addition to being mankind’s savior, was also functioning as a prophet. He knew what the future days would bring. He knew the persecution coming his way, ultimately resulting in death. He also knew that he would overcome death, rising on the third day. So in the end, everything would turn out OK!

God’s plan was for Jesus to take mankind’s sin problem upon himself, take that sin to the grave, and leave the believers suitable to spend eternity in the presence of the Father. We call it “The Great Exchange.” This is the best gift ever!

Sunday’s coming. On the third day, the tomb will open and Jesus will walk away from it all, just as his Father planned!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus in the City Fellowship