"That night my mom prayed, asking God for provision aloud as she often did. And I, out of nowhere, told my mom that we were going to see a lady walking..."
"Jesus made His home in Capernaum, not Nazareth. Why refer to Him as a carpenter from Nazareth? That’s inaccurate. It would be more accurate to call Him the Prince from Galilee, or the King-in-waiting who lived in a great house in Capernaum. "
"I find it strange that people refer to Jesus as the Carpenter from Nazareth. That’s unfair; we don’t call the Apostle Paul the Tentmaker from Tarsus! I once worked on a sheep ranch in Texas, but people don’t call me the shepherd from Val Verde."
"Many people have a distorted image of Jesus as a lonely figure who spent His days in solitude. Are you sure that's right?
Yes, He indeed spent seven brief times in solitude for prayer. But that's not the whole picture. Jesus spent most of His time in the company of people. He was a people person."
"As a tax collector, Levi was an opportunist. Seeing the popularity and influence that Jesus had, he assumed, as did most Jews, that Jesus would soon be crowned King and drive out the Romans. Where would that leave Levi? He had to do something big, and he had to do it fast."
"How would our convictions change if we shifted the paradigm? What if we began to see Jesus as his contemporaries saw Him, not as a poor carpenter, but as the Heir to the Throne and the Promised King of Israel?"
"God desires his children to reverence him, to worship him, to honor him, and to show him the respect he deserves as our Father in heaven, but also as God, the Most High."