Josh Kreger

Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. This verse really hits home for me because at times in my Christian life I have had an incredibly hard time having faith. In the past, lack of faith has been one of my hardest battles as a Christian. It seems so natural for me to just not have faith which makes since especially when you look at Romans 7:18 (NRSV) For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For me, the thing that I will, is to have faith in God, but my flesh is at constant odds with that. Luckily for me Paul also says “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Romans 8:13” in Christ I now have the power to deny my flesh and to walk in the Spirit and therefore to walk in faith. Only when I am in Chri

Luke 8:11‭-‬15 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.  The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.  And the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of testing fall away.  And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature.  As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience. I have heard this parable so many times that it is difficult for me not to just glaze over it. However, when I do look at it with a fresh mind it is amazing what God can do with it. First off “Those by the wayside” we know that these had not yet believed when the dev

Colossians 2:6-7 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. In this verse Paul is telling the Church in Colossi what the will of God is for their life after coming to salvation in Christ. In Colossians 1:9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding See Paul prayed for them to know the will of God then he proceeds to write the letter to colossi and tell them what His will is for them. Far too often we pray that God would do something then we just sit around and wait for Him to do it. When we could be actively trying to answer our prayer. It’s weird at first to hear the words “answer your own prayer” but what we need to realize is that God can and very often dose use us to accomplish what we pray to Him for. In verse

Matthew 22:32 IBS  Matt 22:32 'I AM THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, THE GOD OF ISAAC, AND THE GOD OF JACOB' God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." When Jesus makes this statement he was talking to Sadducees who believed that there wasn't going to be a resurrection. These Sadducees had very hard hearts and they only came to Jesus because they were trying to trick Jesus. Christ made this statement basically to just prove once and for all that there is going to be a resurrection. Jesus says that God isn't a God of the dead, but one of the living. This is a crazy thought to think, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob arnt dead but rather alive and living in paradise. When close friends of ours die in Christ we often don't realize that they truly arnt dead, but maybe more alive then thay ever had been. When I die I want people to not look bad at me like I am dead, but rather alive and living well with Christ!

Galatians 3:2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? In this verse Paul is asking the Galatians a rhetorical question and is just meaning for them to start thinking about the genius of their faith. This is something that we can all can benefit from doing. Any time that we as Christians start getting faith and works confused we immediately start loosing the effectiveness of our ministry. When you first hear this you might think to yourself "well atleast others will benefit from my ministry, right?" But so often we fail to realize that the Lord doesn't what to use our ministry to just benefit other, but rather He wants it to benefit us as well. If God only cared about getting the ministry done then He could just speak the words then it would be done and that would even be much more efficient, but rather He decides to use us an imperfect and sinful people to do His ministry. Always remember this

Acts 12:5 So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. This verse really spoke to me recently in that Luke the author of Act gives a verse that is very specific in what it is communicating to the reader. Luke is merely giving facts, but not just any facts. Luke wants to let the reader know what the key facts are in this story. 1 that Peter was in prison: earlier on in the chapter luke tells us why Peter is was imprisoned, that is because king Herod of the Jew's knew that it made the majority of the Jews happy if he would persecute them; so he did and that's what led us to Peter's arrest. 2 Luke is telling us the second key fact in this story, but it almost seems as if this fact was going to take care of the other one. Luke puts even more ennfucise on this point and you can almost see the hope that comes from what he writes "but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church." Luke wants to let the reader know tha