I've had an Epiphany!

Isaiah 42:14-21 14 I have been silent for a long time. I have kept still. I have restrained myself. Like a woman giving birth, I will scream. I will gasp and pant. 15 I will dry up mountains and hills. I will make all their grass wither. I will turn rivers into islands. I will dry up pools. 16 I will lead the blind on a way they do not know. Along paths they do not know I will direct them. Ahead of them I will turn darkness into light and rough places into level ground. These are the promises I will accomplish for them. I will not abandon them. 17 They will be turned back and be completely disgraced— those who trust in an idol, those who say to molten images, “You are our gods.” 18 You deaf ones, listen! You blind ones, watch carefully so you can see! 19 Who is so blind as my servant or so deaf as my messenger whom I sent? Who is so blind as my covenant partner and so blind as the servant of the Lord ? 20 You see many things, but you do not observe. He opens his ears, but he does n...

Hebrews 4:15   We do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. You may have heard of the term captology. It’s a technology that is designed “to change people’s beliefs and behavior.” Social media has used it to get us to upload our pictures and divulge our personal information so that others can know where we vacation, what diet we are on, how funny our cat is, or how frustrated we might be with our lives. The technology is used to get us to click on links, buy stuff, or watch the next YouTube video and the next and the next so that we watch all accompanying commercial ads, of course. The designers understand human nature and have a well-laid-out plan to manipulate our behavior (http://captology.stanford.edu/resources/thoughts-on-persuasive-technology.html). Changing people’s beliefs has been going on for centuries. Someone has been at work on that sinc...

Genesis 12:1-8 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Get out of your country and away from your relatives and from your father’s house and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great. You will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse anyone who dishonors you. All of the families of the earth will be blessed in you.” 4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him. Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. 5 Abram took Sarai his wife, Lot his brother’s son, and all the possessions they had accumulated and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to travel to the land of Canaan. Eventually they arrived in the land of Canaan. 6 Abram passed through the land until he came to the Oak of Moreh at the place called Shechem. The Canaanites were in the land at that time. 7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your descenda...

John 11:33-37 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.   “Where have you laid him?”  he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” We all boarded the plane at the same time. The flight attendant scanned all the boarding passes, and everyone walked down the Jetway. If you looked at the people, they all looked normal. But, of course, they were different: men, women, children, old, young, and from different ethnic backgrounds. When we were comfortable in our seats, the attendant welcomed us all on board and welcomed one special passenger. When she announced his name, most did not know who he was, but then she said that he was a veteran who had earned the Medal of Honor for his valor on the battlefield. We were...

Genesis 3:1-15 1 Now the serpent was more clever than any wild animal which the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent , “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden, 3 but not from the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden. God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it. You shall not touch it, or else you will die.’” 4 The serpent said to the woman, “You certainly will not die. 5 In fact, God knows that the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was appealing to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate. She gave some also to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 The eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together and...