Maranatha Grace Church

Brothers and Sisters,

The story of the Lost Son in Luke 15 teaches us that humility is the key to happiness. 

 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! (Luke 15:17) The young man did not set out in the first place to squander his fortune, but slowly he found himself attracted to a lifestyle that he knew was wrong. Only after many difficulties the story tells us ""he came to his senses to find happiness in the arms of his father." Every human being is lost without God, and  must return to God.  

Please read Luke 14 - 16.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

One of my favorite childhood Sunday School songs was "This little light of mine".  We were singing about something more than a little light. 

³³ “No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light. ³⁴ The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. ³⁵ Therefore take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness. ³⁶ If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, the whole body will be full of light, as when the bright shining of a lamp gives you light.”

Please read the chapters Luke 11 - 13.

May the :ord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

Can we trust the word of God? Yes, we can trust the word of God. Should we trust the word of God? Yes, we must trust God's word; it is the truth.

Please read Luke 8 - 10. 

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

We've  received the baptism of the Holy Spirit in order to do some specific works for God. 

¹⁷ And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:

¹⁸ “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
¹⁹ To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” (Luke 3)

Please read Luke 3 - 7.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

 ¹⁵ And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. ¹⁶ He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. ¹⁷ And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; ¹⁸ they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Mark)

Please read Mark 16 - Luke 2

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

³⁷ And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last. ³⁸ Then the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. ³⁹ So when the centurion, who stood opposite Him, saw that ^]He cried out like this and breathed His last, he said, “Truly this Man was the Son of God!”

 ⁴⁴ Pilate marveled that He was already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him if He had been dead for some time. ⁴⁵ So when he found out from the centurion, he granted the body to Joseph. (Mark 15)

Both Jesus' death and his resurrection were unique in the story of humanity. 

Please read Mark 13 - 15.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters, 

⁴¹ Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. ⁴² Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrans. ⁴³ So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; ⁴⁴ for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.”

The rest of the story will be fully  known when we get to heaven. But I am pretty sure that the poor widow did get a reward for giving out of her poverty. 

Please read Mark 10 -12.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

When was the last time you asked Jesus a serious question about your church?  I believe that the life of the Christian is not subjected to blind chance. God is in charge of our lives. So, when things happen, it is not wrong to ask Jesus why, just like the disciples did because they wanted to do better next time.

²⁸ And when He had come into the house, His disciples asked Him privately, “Why could we not cast it out?”

²⁹ So He said to them, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.” (Mark 9)

If we want to overcome our natural unbelief, we must stay close to God in prayer and fasting. 

Please read Mark 7 - 9.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

In Mark 4:13-20 we find the key to all parables. What kind of people are we?

¹³ Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable? ¹⁴ The farmer sows the word. ¹⁵ Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. ¹⁶ Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. ¹⁷ But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. ¹⁸ Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; ¹⁹ but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. ²⁰ Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”

Please read Mark 4 - 6.

My the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters, 

Mark shows us the compassion of Jesus in healing the sick and those afflicted by demons. He has compassion for them. While you are reading the story of Jesus' healing of the sick, please bring the people who are sick among us in prayer to Jesus by faith. He is still willing to heal the sick, for  "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 3:8).

 Please read Mark 1 - 3.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

The Great Commission

¹⁶ Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. ¹⁷ And when they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some doubted [that it was really He]. ¹⁸ Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority (all power of absolute rule) in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. ¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations [help the people to learn of Me, believe in Me, and obey My words], baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always [remaining with you perpetually—regardless of circumstance, and on every occasion], even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28)

Please read the chapters Matthew 24 - 28.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

¹² Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. ¹³ “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’"

¹⁴ The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. (Matthew 21)

If we make of the house of the Lord a house of prayer, the sick people will come to our church and they will be healed in the name of Jesus. This must be an individual reality before it can become  a collective reality. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit, you must  make of your life a consecrated life of prayer, then when all of us come together in worship the blind will see, the lame will walk, the sick will be healed, the demon oppressed will be delivered.

Please read all three chapters Matthew 21 - 23.

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

Why do you think that Jesus touched the eyes of the blind men to give them their sight back in Matthew 20:34? Couldn't he just healed them at a distance as a lot of TV preachers would want us to believe? . I think that Jesus touched much of the people that he healed  because he valued community very much. The human touch is important for healing. 

³⁴ Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him. (Matthew 20).

Please read Matthew 18 - 20. 

May the Lord richly bless you!

Brothers and Sisters,

Nowadays everyone can have their own Bible, or more than one Bible to read. But in time past, Bible reading was a communal activity where the church gathered together to read or listen to the word of God being read. When we read a few chapters of the Bible together as friends, brothers and sisters, we come close to recreate that atmosphere. 

Please read Matthew 15 - 17.

May the Lord richly bless you! 

Brothers and Sisters,

The following are words of Jesus in Matthew 12:

⁴³ “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. ⁴⁴ Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. ⁴⁵ Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”

Keep your house occupied by the Holy Spirit; pray, fast and meditate on God's word.

Please read all three chapters of Matthew 12 -14.

May the Lord Jesus richly bless you!