Peace!

For Saturday, May 30, 2026:

Colossians 1:21 NLT: “God made peace with you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions.”

The Hebrew language often describes a person’s character in terms of their closeness to God. If someone is sinning, they are said to be far from God. If that person changes their ways and repents, they are said to be closer to God.

Be at peace with your God. It’s the easier, safer road, and you’ll smile more

Pastor Norton Lawellin

The Father’s House

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Truth & Freedom Church

Peace with God!

For Wednesday, May 27, 2026:

Colossians 1:20b NLT: “God made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.”

Sin and God’s goodness cannot coexist. But God’s desire is that everyone would repent and return. He wants us all to join him in the hereafter. Therefore, sin needs to be removed, blotted out from Heaven’s Book of Life registry. What could possibly pay the penalty for the sin of the world?

God, who has all resources at his command, knew that the earthly sacrifice of his Son was the only thing that could satisfy the debt. So Jesus went to the work of substitutionary atonement, paying for the trespasses of mankind through the ages. Past sins, present sins, and even future sins were paid for. Believers in Jesus have been granted special grace. When heaven looks up our name in the Book of Life, the column marked “sin” will be blank. No scratch-outs; no erasure marks; simply blank white space, as if we had never sinned. That’s how thorough Jesus’ forgiveness is!

As believers, we’ll be a part of the heavenly group only present because of the Son. “I’m with that guy sitting just to the right of the Father. He said he’d prepare a place for me in his Father’s Kingdom.”

And heaven will reply, “We’ve been expecting you!”

Pastor Norton Lawellin

The Father’s House

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Truth & Freedom Church

Restoration!

April 20, 2026, Monday Message:

John 14:23 NLT, Jesus speaking: “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them.”

As his ministry wraps up, Jesus wants to reassure the believers of what’s coming next. First off, there IS life after this life. Death is not the end! Jesus said so, so we know it’s true!

As Christians, we talk of dying and going to heaven, but my Bible says that’s kind of temporary. At the end of this age, God will create the New Heaven and the New Earth. By then, mankind will have really messed up the planet, and God will be the restorer, putting things back to the way they were designed. I’m thinking “Garden of Eden” specs, but only God knows what needs to be done.

The fully restored New Earth isn’t for all mankind. It’s a sanctuary for believers only. Everyone who lives here will have the same God. There will be no false gods. Mankind will all be on the same page, so to speak. There are no more wars. Everyone will love their neighbor. We will know shalom, the peace of God that surpasses our current understanding.

Jesus says, “We will come and make our home with them.” In other words, we’re not going somewhere to live with God. God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is going to walk the earth alongside us! God has it all planned, and it will be marvelous, beyond all expectations!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

The Father’s House

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Truth & Freedom Church

For Sunday, March 1, 2026:

Hebrews 13:20-21 NLT: “Now may the God of peace—who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood—may he equip you with all you need for doing his will. May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to him. All glory to him forever and ever! Amen.”

This is not only a beautiful prayer of conclusion, but also a commissioning of the Hebrew people to continue doing the will of Jesus. Oddly, the author of Hebrews is uncertain. It was thought that Paul wrote this, but it doesn’t seem to be his writing style. Some experts say the style is more similar to Luke in Acts. Perhaps Paul wrote it in Hebrew and Luke translated it to Greek? Interesting. The writings have been included in the collective works of Paul for 20 Centuries. Nowadays, the authorship isn’t as important as the fact that it reinforces other writings in the Bible and contradicts nothing. If it was Paul, he would have been leaving to plant churches in Asia Minor, so saying goodbye makes sense.

The prayer is also what we should pray for each other—that the Almighty would equip you with everything you need to accomplish his will, and that good things, things pleasing to God, would be the result.

May the Lord walk alongside each of you as you go about his work today!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

The Father’s House

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Truth & Freedom Church

Love!

For Saturday, February 14, 2026:

John 13:34-35 NLT, Jesus speaking: “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.”

"They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love.” We’ve all heard the song. Loving one another seems like a good idea, but did you realize that this is a command issued by the one who saves us?

2K years ago, the prevailing attitude was to look out for #1. But the followers of Jesus were different. They looked out for each other. They were kind to their neighbors, even to those who weren’t following the Messiah. This command of Jesus was a new and innovative way of living. It was more gentle and helpful to others. It was doing the next right thing. People liked what they saw and wanted to join. This helped the early church grow through attraction.

The government at the time was the Roman Empire. Rome did nothing to help the people. Citizens had to help each other. The Roman army had two things on its agenda: keeping peace in the region and loyalty to Caesar. Christians were pretty quiet about their dislike for Caesar, and exceeded expectations for keeping peace. So for the most part, the army left Christians alone. Their love for one another meant that they did not fuel conflict in Israel.

So do what Jesus did. Be nice, be kind, be helpful and do the next right thing. These aren’t just good ideas. These are commands from the mouth of Jesus. Out of love for what Jesus did for mankind, we should obey, keeping his commands high on our agenda. In the end, it works out better for everyone. If we love our neighbors, they’re more likely to love us in return!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

The Father’s House

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Truth & Freedom Church

Zechariah's Prophecy!

For Friday, December 5, 2025:

Luke 1:67 NLT: “Then baby John’s father, Zechariah, was filled with the Holy Spirit and gave this prophecy.”

As Zechariah’s voice returned, he was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke prophecy concerning his newborn. This is not something he just thought up. This is God – the Holy Spirit – speaking through Zechariah.

Let’s review the high points. “The Lord has visited and redeemed his people. He has sent us a mighty Savior. God fulfilled his promise, his covenant with his people. We will be saved from our enemies and all who hate us. We will be rescued from our enemies. We can serve God without fear. And baby John will be called the prophet of the Most High, because he will prepare the way for the Lord. He will tell God’s people how to find salvation through forgiveness of their sins. God’s tender mercy, the morning light from heaven, is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace.”

Wow! Those are pretty big tasks, especially for a newborn, but history proves prophecy. We know baby John as John the Baptist, who indeed prepared the people for the ministry of Jesus. Jesus quashed Satan and his demons. Jesus personally died to redeem us. His life was the penalty for the sins of the world, now paid in full. Therefore, our relationship with Father God improved exponentially.

After Jesus, everything was different. After Jesus, everything was better, a lot better!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

The Father’s House

Truth and Freedom Church

Forgiven forever!

For Tuesday, November 25, 2025:

Romans 5:1 AMP: “Since we have been justified [that is, acquitted of sin, declared blameless before God] by faith, [let us grasp the fact that] we have peace with God [and the joy of reconciliation with Him] through our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed).”

Christians are saved by grace, God’s gift to us, through faith, believing in the Father and his Son, Jesus. On the cross, Jesus took away the sins of the world. Through this monumental miracle, we were given a clean slate, a fresh start, a do-over on living our lives. Prospective believers are asked to commit to a decision of believing and accepting God’s gift of reconciliation. Through Jesus, our sins are separated from us as far as the east is from the west. Our sins are at the bottom of the deepest ocean. In the book of life, the column titled “sin” will be blank. No scratch-outs; no eraser marks; just blank white space.

Believers will find that they have been redeemed, bought back from Satan. Jesus paid the price to rescue us. So now in our minds, we need to discard the image of being a perpetual sinner. We need to look, act and live out the role of someone whose sins no longer exist! Believers are holy. Believers have joined the Jesus Team!

We may not be perfect, but day by day we’ll grow closer to God. Progress, not perfection. Pray to love the Lord more today than yesterday. Accept with gratitude God’s gift of salvation and eternal life. Shout out, “Jesus, I’m with you!”

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

The Father’s House

Truth and Freedom Church

Shalom – Peace of the Lord!

For Friday, October 24, 2025:

John 14:27 ESV, Jesus speaking: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

God dispersed mankind after the Tower of Babel incident, and gave different languages to different groups. The number of words varies. Sometimes more words are required. For example, the different native Inuit tribes of Alaska and western Canada have 40, 53, and as many as 70 different words for snow. Light, fluffy snow; wet, heavy snow. In English, we have to describe it. In Inuit, they have a distinct word for each. Scandinavian natives have over 300 words relating to snow! Now I’m really confused!

Sometimes we need more words. Here, Jesus is speaking about “shalom,” a Hebrew concept, written down in Greek and then translated for us into English. As the saying goes, something is lost in the translation!

Since it’s “the peace of the Lord,” perhaps “serenity” would be closer to the original meaning. The concept requires faith, believing that with God in charge, everything will be OK. Trust in the Lord... If we survive the world's tribulation, we’ll still be alive, and that’s good! If we don’t survive, Jesus will welcome us into God’s eternal Kingdom, and that’s also good! Either way, we’ll be OK. If you’re a believer, worry isn’t necessary and would be a waste of time!

"Shalom” is a traditional Hebrew coming and going prayer, a blessing for each other. “May the peace of the Lord be with you.” Free of worry and fear and trusting in God Almighty, life will be good. After all, believers have been adopted into the Holy Family!

Shalom!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

World Peace!

For Sunday, September 21, 2025:

Luke 19:42 NLT, Jesus speaking as he enters Jerusalem: “How I wish today that you of all people would understand the way to peace. But now it is too late, and peace is hidden from your eyes.”

Peace on earth is elusive. When God sends his Son to offer peace, right now is the right time to hop on the peace train. Immediately! If we’re not on board, the train may leave the station without us!

Jesus is prophesying a rough time for non-believers in Jerusalem. But Jesus is personally out of time. He already has “return to the Father” on his agenda. His disciples will have to continue the “eternal peace campaign” in his absence.

This will all happen “because you did not recognize it when God visited you.” That’s why our mission is to tell all people that indeed, the Son of God visited us on our planet. He walked alongside mankind. He died as the offering for all the sins of the world. And he will come again, to announce victory! Expect victory! Expect Jesus to win! Those with him will be ushered into the next reality, God’s Kingdom. Jesus will have a place ready for loyal believers!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Plotting to Kill!

July 7, 2025, Monday Message:

John 11:48 NLT, Jewish High Council discussing Jesus: “If we allow him to go on like this, soon everyone will believe in him. Then the Roman army will come and destroy both our Temple and our nation.”

Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the dead, brought him back to life! Jesus made quite a show of the whole thing. After being informed of Lazarus’ illness, Jesus tarried for two more days, I believe to make a point and to better show God’s glory! When Jesus finally arrived, he was cautioned not to open the tomb. Lazarus had been dead for four days and the smell would be horrible. Throwing caution to the wind, Jesus ordered the tomb opened and commanded, “Lazarus, come out!” As Lazarus exited the grave, his body appeared bound up for the hereafter. So Jesus commanded, “Unwrap him and let him go!”

Now this isn’t something you see every day, someone four days dead walking out of a tomb! So everybody was talking about it, shouting the news and exalting the heavenly powers of Jesus of Nazareth. Some people began shifting their allegiance from the Temple to Jesus and his radical ministry. And as I’ve said before, when people leave the Temple, their tithes go with them!

Note that the High Council didn’t say that Jesus had done anything wrong. Only that if they allowed Jesus to continue, they feared that they’d be out of business! Jews had a special deal with Rome. If they kept peace in their region, Rome would allow their religion to continue. This was a unique concession on the part of Rome, since their Caesar wanted to be thought of as a god. But somehow the Jews were allowed to have their own God! The Council feared that the success of Jesus would threaten their sweetheart deal!

The high priest Caiaphas counseled the others: “It’s better that one man should die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed.” So from that time on, the Jewish leaders began to plot Jesus’ death. This was a sad time in the Jewish religion, where the leadership got so off track that they would consider murder. Little did they know that they were plotting the murder of the Son of God!

In fact, they were doing exactly what God wanted. As Jesus died, he would take the sins of the world to the place of the dead, thereby cleansing mankind and making them suitable for spending eternity alongside God Almighty! Heaven awaits!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Resurrected!

June 30, 2025, Monday Message:

John 11:4 NLT: “When Jesus heard about it he said, ‘Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this.’”

In fact Lazarus DID die, but was raised back to life by Jesus. I’ve always been intrigued by that next reality. The line between life and death isn’t as rigid as we think. In the grocery store check-out line, you can read headline after headline about people who started that journey, but were somehow called back. Those stories fuel tabloids.

Their stories are always similar. The person travels down the transition tunnel, bright light at the end, and is finally overcome by a peaceful feeling that everything will be OK. Quite a contrast to all the crying and sadness at funerals!

Jesus sent advance teams of disciples to every town he planned to visit, telling them to heal the sick, cast out demons and raise the dead! So raising the dead might not have been commonplace, but it was certainly possible, through the power of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Using Lazarus, Jesus was about to show everyone that death is not the end. Death is the same soul that we know and love, still alive but in a different reality.

If God calls you back to life, it’s because you’re not yet finished. He has more for you to do. As someone who was brought back to life, Lazarus could give firsthand testimony about God’s love and Jesus’ power! No one had ever witnessed the miracle of being raised from the dead through any other religion. But now Lazarus, Mary, Martha and everyone present that day could give eyewitness testimony to the truth!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Wars!

September 30, 2024 Monday Message:

2 Samuel 2:26 NLT: “Abner shouted down to Joab, ‘Must we always be killing each other? Don’t you realize that bitterness is the only result? When will you call off your men from chasing their Israelite brothers?’”

Nowadays we think of Israel as one country. But historically, Judah and Israel were separate and opposing nations, David leading Judah while Ish-bosheth led Israel. That’s right, tribes of God’s Chosen People were fighting one another with real pointy spears! Finally Abner and Joab, the military leaders, said, “Enough killing!” The conflict was not settled, but they agreed to go their separate ways. This was about 900 years before Jesus, so Middle East conflict has been ongoing for over 3,000 years that we can document.

The irony is that at the time those battling one another were all related, probably cousins. By the time Jesus arrived, Israel was united. But right in the middle of their country were the Samaritans, again cousins, but considered unclean by the Jews. Complicating matters was Rome, who occupied most of the world at the time. Israelites weren’t sure who to battle first, the Samaritans or the Romans!

God, through his servant Moses, led the Hebrew people to the edge of the promised land, Canaan. A Rabbi once told me, “It’s our land; God gave it to us!” And that is Israel’s position as war once again breaks out in the Middle East.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas and other Palestinian militants invaded Israel from Gaza, killing over 1,100 and capturing about 250, some of whom are still being held. As you’d expect, Israel retaliated. It wasn’t pretty. Then, months ago, Iranian backed Hezbollah started lobbing rockets from Syria into Northern Israel. Their rockets have gone deeper and deeper into Israel, until Israel felt it had no choice but to retaliate. Now Houthis from Yemen have been attacking shipping in the Red Sea, and have longer range missiles reaching Southern Israel. Again, Israel is retaliating.

In an unrelated incident, I have felt for some time that the US and its NATO allies are battling Russia, North Korea and China in what could be the beginning of WWIII. For now, the fighting is all taking place on Ukrainian soil, and Putin doesn’t seem interested in backing down. (That’s just my opinion, not from the Bible!)

The point is that Jesus said there will be wars and rumors of wars until he returns, and we have war in spades! There are over 40 different war-like conflicts in the world today. But each day we’re one day closer to the second coming. We’ve been given signs to watch for, but trust me, everyone will be surprised when it happens!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship

Grace and Peace!

For Sunday, July 21, 2024:

2 Peter 1:2 NLT: “May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord.”

Followers of Jesus Christ don’t stand in one place for long. The longer we worship Jesus, the more appreciative we become. Grace – our free gift from Above – is continually poured out upon us in ever increasing amounts. Therefore our love, understanding and knowledge of our Savior continues to increase as well.

"Peace” refers to the inner peace that comes from knowing the Lord, and possessing the faith and confidence that God’s way is the best way. God and his Son Jesus can and will do everything as promised. As believers, we’ve signed on to the “God team.” It’s proven to be a good decision, and believers would all make the same decision again!

This is the peace that passes all understanding!

Pastor Norton Lawellin

Jesus In the City Fellowship