Key Thought

Today's Prayer

Holy and loving God, my Abba Father, thank you for blessing me with citizenship in your Kingdom. Reign over my heart and use me for your glory for "Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever!" In Jesus' name. Amen.

Today's Verses in Context

Then the guards took Jesus from Caiaphas' house to the {Roman governor's} palace. It was early in the morning. The Jews there would not go inside the palace. They did not want to make themselves unclean, because they wanted to eat the Passover meal. So Pilate went outside to the Jews. He asked, "What do you say this man has done wrong?" The Jews answered, "He is a bad man. That is why we brought him to you." Pilate said to the Jews, "You Jews take him yourselves and judge him by your own law." The Jewish leaders answered, "But your law does not allow us to punish a person by killing him." (This happened so that what Jesus said about how he would die would be true.) Then Pilate went back inside the palace. Pilate called Jesus to him. He asked Jesus, "Are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus said, "Is that your own question, or did other people tell you about me?" Pilate said, "I am not a Jew! It was your own people and their leading priests that brought you before me. What have you done wrong?" Jesus said, "My kingdom does not belong to this world. If it belonged to this world, then my servants would fight so that I would not be given to the Jewish leaders. But my kingdom is from another place." Pilate said, "So you are a king!" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. That is true. I was born for this: to tell people about the truth. That is why I came into the world. And every person that belongs to the truth listens to me." Pilate said, "What is truth?" When Pilate said this, he went out to the Jewish leaders again. Pilate said to them, "I can find nothing to charge against this man. But it is one of your customs for me to free one prisoner to you at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to free this 'king of the Jews'?" They yelled back, "No, not him! Let Barabbas go free!" (Barabbas was a rebel.)

Related Scripture Readings

But our homeland is in heaven. We are waiting for our Savior to come from heaven. Our Savior is the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change our humble bodies and make them like his own glorious body. Christ can do this by his power. With that power Christ is able to rule all things.

You have come to a new place. It is not a place like the mountain that the people of Israel came to. You have not come to a mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire. You have not come to a place with darkness, sadness, and storms. There is no sound of a trumpet or a voice speaking words {like those people heard}. When the people heard the voice, they begged to never hear another word. They did not want to hear the command: "If anything, even an animal, touches the mountain, it must be killed with stones." The things those people saw were so terrible that Moses said, "I am shaking with fear." But you have not come to that kind of place. The new place you have come to is Mount Zion. You have come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to an excited gathering of thousands of angels. You have come to the meeting of God's firstborn children. Their names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all people. And you have come to the spirits of good people who have been made perfect. You have come to Jesus—the One that brought the new agreement from God to his people. You have come to the sprinkled blood that tells us about better things than the blood of Abel. Be careful and don't refuse to listen when God speaks. Those people (Israelites) refused to listen to him when he warned them on earth. And those people did not escape. Now God is speaking from heaven. So now it will be worse for those people who refuse to listen to him. When he spoke before, his voice shook the earth. But now he has promised, "Once again I will shake the earth. But I will also shake heaven." The words "once again" clearly show us that everything that was made will be destroyed. Those are the things that can be shaken. And only the things that cannot be shaken will continue. So we should be thankful because we have a kingdom that cannot be shaken. We should be thankful and worship God in a way that will please him. We should worship himwith respect and fear, because our God is like a fire that can destroy.

"And when you pray, don't be like those people that don't know God. They continue saying things that mean nothing. Don't pray like that. They think that God will hear them because of the many things they say. Don't be like those people. Your Father knows the things you need before you ask him. So when you pray, you should pray like this: 'Our Father in heaven, we pray that your name will always be kept holy. We pray that your kingdom will come, and that the things you want will be done here on earth, the same as in heaven. Give us the food we need for each day. Forgive the sins we have done, the same as we have forgiven the people that did wrong to us. Don't let us be tempted (tested); but save us from the Evil One (the devil).'