Observing Lord's Supper

1Corinthians 11:23 

"For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered

unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in

which he was betrayed took bread:" 

    Note that the Apostle received the words of institution by direct revelation. The Lord’s Supper is intended not only to commemorate the supreme act of Calvary, but to enable us spiritually to incorporate into ourselves the very life and death of Jesus, so that we may truly be crucified with Him and nevertheless live."That I may know Him and the fellowship of His sufferings." We are liable to condemnation if we do not recognize the, Body of Christ; that is the Church the unity of which is broken and concealed when there is discord. If we judge ourselves, we escape the judgment and chastisement of the Almighty.
    What love! what purposes! what efficacy! what results! The Lord Himself gave Himself up for us. We celebrate His death. At the same time, it is the end of God's relations with the world on the ground of man's responsibility, except the judgment. Christ death has broken sin's hold; We must stand on our faith and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, until our Lord returns. It is this which we proclaim in the ordinance when we keep it. Besides this, it is in itself a declaration that the blood on which the new covenant is founded has been already shed; it was established in this blood. Therefore the Spirit of God, (The Holy Spirit) is set before us, which attaches man's heart to Him as our Comforter and guide.
Amen!

Reading: (1 Cor.11:23-34)
Ref: (HG SB, DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

Obligation Of Purity

1John 3:3  

"And every man that hath this hope in him 

purifieth himself, even as he is pure."

     John has said that a Christian is on the way to seeing God and being like him. A Christians knows that someday he will stand before God, and he must keep himself ready for it. The man who knows that God is at the end of the road will make all life a preparation to meet him.

    As we have seen Gnostic false teachers produce more than one way to justify sin. They say that the body was evil and that, therefore, there was no harm in desiring its lusts, because what happened to it was of no importance. They also say that the truly spiritual man was so armored with the Spirit that he could sin to his heart's content and take no harm from it. False!!!

    He tells us what sin is! It is the deliberate breaking of a law which a man well knows. Sin is to obey oneself rather than to obey God. What sin does! It undoes the work of Christ. "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," (John1:29). To sin is to bring back what he came into the world to abolish.
    He tells us why sin is! It comes from the failure to abide in Christ. It simply means this, so long as we remember the continual presence of Jesus, we will not sin; it is when we forget that presence that we sin. We sin for the pleasure that we think it will bring to us; however, the devil sins as a matter of principle. The New Testament does not try to explain the devil and his origin; but it is quite convinced, and it is a fact of universal experience that in the world there is a power hostile to God; and to sin is to obey that power instead of God.
    He tells us how sin is conquered. It is conquered because Jesus Christ destroyed the works of the devil. The New Testament often dwells on the Christ who faced and conquered the powers of evil . He has broken the power of evil, and by his help that same victory can be ours. My Friends, no one is superior to the moral law. The more Obedient one is, the more Disciplined they will become.

Amen!

Reading: (1John 3:3-8)

Ref: (HG SB, DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry 

Don't Become Over Confident

1Corinthians 10:7  

"Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, 

The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play"

     The history of Israel shows that people who enjoyed the greatest privileges of God were far from being safe from temptation. Paul reminds the Corinthians, that it is no guarantee of being safe from temptation. Let's look into the temptations and the failures that Paul singles out.
     There is the temptation to idolatry. We do not worship idols so blatantly now; but if a man's god be that to which he gives all his time and thought and energy, men still worship the works of their own hands more than they worship God.
    There is the temptation to fornication. So long as a man is a man there come to him temptations from his lower self. Only a passionate love of purity can save him from impurity.
    There is the temptation to try God too far. Consciously or unconsciously many a man gambles on the mercy of God. At the back of his mind there is the idea, "It will be all right; God will forgive." It is at his peril that he forgets that there is a holiness as well as a love of God.
     There is the temptation to grumble. There are still many who greet life with a whine and not with a cheer. My friends, temptation will come. That is part of life. It is something designed, not to make us fall, but to test us, so that we emerge from it stronger than ever. Any temptation that comes to us is not unique. Others have endured it and others have come through it, "So Can We."  No man needs to fall to any temptation, for with the temptation there is the way out, and the way out is not the way of surrender nor of retreat, but the way of conquest in the power of the grace of God. 

Amen!

Reading: (1 Cor. 10:1-13

Ref: (HG SB, DSB) 

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

One More For The Lord

1 Corinthians 9:22-23 

"To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all

things to all men, that I might by all means save some.  And this I

do for the gospel's sake, that I might be

partaker thereof with you."

    Paul’s one aim was to gain men. He uses the words repeatedly. To gain one more for his Lord, he would forgo comfort, a salary, and rest for himself. He would allow no competitor for an earthly prize to supersede himself in his sacrifices for this crown of rejoicing. He points to the denials, the hard training, and the severe discipline to which men who took part in the games subjected themselves to. No one thought it strange that they should sacrifice so much for the chance of winning;(v24-25). So why should he be counted eccentric, who sought the certain reward of gaining new lovers of his Master’s cross?
    He tells us that he lived in constant dread of becoming a castaway. He had no fear of being rejected from God’s love; who had used him so wonderfully, and he had no fear that God would cease to do so, and should cast him aside in favor of someone more unselfish,, more free from that which would excite prejudice. If Paul was so eager to surrender his rights and bruise his body that he might attain the prize of soul-winning. My Friend, you nor I could never be another Paul. But the question arises can we not do better in the area of soul winning as individuals and as His Church. 

Amen!

Reading: (1 Cor. 9:16-27)

Ref: (HG SB, MSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

Leave Their Judgment To God

1Corinthians 5:12-13  

"For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them

 that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore

put away from among yourselves that wicked person."

 
     Paul's epistle is telling the Corinthians and us that we are not to judge those outside the Church. "Those outside" was a Jewish phrase used to describe people outside the Chosen People. We must leave their judgment to God who alone knows the hearts of men. But the man within the Church has special privileges and therefore special responsibilities; he is a man who has taken an oath to Christ and can therefore be called in question for how he keeps it.
    It is to be noted that these three basic sins are representative of the three directions in which a man sins. (1) Fornication is a sin against a man's own self. By falling to it he has reduced himself to the level of an animal; he has sinned against the light that is in him and the highest that he knows. He has allowed his lower nature to defeat his higher and made himself less than a man.  (2) Greediness is a sin against our neighbors and our fellow men. It regards human beings as persons to be exploited rather than as brothers to be helped. It forgets that the only proof that we do love God must be the fact that we love our neighbors as ourselves. (3) Idolatry is a sin against God. It allows things to usurp God's place. It is the failure to give God the first and only place in life.
    So Paul comes to an end with the definite command, "So thou shalt put the evil away from among  you," That quotation comes from  (Deut. 17:7, Deut. 24:7). There are times when a cancer must be cut out; there are times when drastic measures must be taken to avoid infection. It is not the desire to hurt or the wish to show his power that moves Paul; it is the pastor's desire to protect his infant Church from the ever-threatening infection of the world.
Amen!

Reading: (1Cor. 5:9-13)
Ref: (HG SB, DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry 

"Remember Me"

1Cointhians 4:17  

"For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son,

and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance 

of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach 

every where in every church."

    Paul says an amazing thing. In effect he says, "I call upon my children to take after their father." It is so seldom that a father can say that. For the most part it is too often true that a father's hope and prayer is that a son will turn out to be all that he has never succeeded in being. Most of us who teach cannot help saying, not, "Do as I do," but, "Do as I say." But Paul, not with pride, but with complete unselfish-consciousness, can call upon his children in the faith to copy him.

    Then he pays them a delicate compliment. He says that he will send Timothy to remind them of his ways. In effect, he says that all their errors and mistaken ways are due, not to deliberate rebellion, but to the fact that they have forgotten. That is so true of human nature. So often it is not that we rebel against Christ; it is simply that we forget him. So often it is not that we deliberately turn our backs upon him; it is simply that we forget that he is in the scheme of things at all. Most of us need one thing above all; a deliberate effort to live in the conscious realization of the presence of Jesus Christ. It is not only at the sacrament but at every moment of every day that Jesus Christ is saying to us, "Remember Me." 
    There is a love which can ruin a man by shutting its eyes to his faults; and there is a love which can mend a man because it sees him with the clarity of the eyes of Christ. Paul's love was the love which knows that sometimes it has to hurt in order to amend. Jesus said, "By their fruits you shall know them." The world is full of talk about Christianity, but one deed is worth a thousand words. 
Amen!

Reading:(1Cor. 4:16-21)
Ref: (HG SB, DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

Spiritual Truths To The Indwelling Spirit Of God

1Corinthians 2:16  

"For who hath known the mind of the Lord, 

that he may instruct him? But we 

have the mind of Christ."

    Paul says it like it is! He simply says; "the only person who can tell us about God is the Spirit of God."  There are feelings which are so personal, things which are so private, experiences which are so intimate that no one knows them except a man's own spirit. Paul says that the same is true of God. There are deep and intimate things in him which only his Spirit knows; and that Spirit is the only person who can lead us into really intimate knowledge of God. 

    Even then it is not every man who can understand these things. Paul speaks about interpreting spiritual things to spiritual people. There are those who are spiritual, and the man that is spiritual is the man who is sensitive to the Spirit and whose life is guided by the Spirit. 
    Paul speaks of the man who is "natural." He is the man who lives as if there was nothing beyond physical life and there were no needs other than material needs, whose values are all physical and material. A man like that cannot understand spiritual things. A man who thinks that nothing is more important than the satisfaction of the sex urge cannot understand the meaning of chastity; a man who thanks that the gathering of material things is the supreme end of life, cannot understand generosity; and a man who has never a thought beyond this world cannot understand the things of God. To him they look mere foolishness. No man should be like this; but if he embraces "the immortal longings" that are in his soul he may make himself so that when the Spirit of God speaks  he will not hear.
    It is easy to become so involved in the world that there exists nothing beyond it. We must pray to have the mind of Christ, for only when he dwells within us are we safe from the invasion of the demands of material things. 
Amen!

Reading: (1Cor. 2:10-16)
Ref: (HG SB, DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

 

A Life Worth Living

1Corinthians 1:26  

"For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many 

wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, 

not many noble, are called:" 

    Remember when the sons of Jesse passed before Samuel, and the King says, "The Lord hath not chosen these. And Samuel said unto Jesse, are here all thy children?" (1Sam. 16:10-11). So does the successive regiments of people, on which the world relies pass before Christ. The wise, the mighty, the noble, the great, the things that are! The warriors with whom He will win the world to Himself are the nobodies, the ciphers, the people who the world hates. Do not depreciate yourself, but give yourself to Him; He will find a niche for you and make your life worth living. 
    My Friend, God has put you into union with Christ Jesus. Everything we need for life and godliness is in Him; only let us make all that we can of our wonderful position and possessions.
  As Paul entered Corinth, he appears to have deliberately determined that his theme would be the crucified Lord, and expressed in the simplest phrases. When we speak the truth as it is in Jesus, the Spirit is ever at hand to enforce our testimony by His demonstration and power. 
Amen!

Reading: (1 Cor. 1:26-31)
               (1 Sam. 16:1-13)
Ref: (HG SB, DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

  

A Divided Church

1Corinthians 1:10  

"Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions 

among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together 

in the same mind and in the same judgment." 

    He softens the rebuke which is given, not as from a schoolmaster with a rod, but as from one who has no other emotion than love.  It should have shown them how wrong their  disputes and divisions were. They were brothers and they should have lived in brotherly love. He bids them to make up their differences. He wishes them to be joined together, like joining together bones that have been fractured or joining together a joint that has been dislocated. The disunion is unnatural and must be cured for the sake of the health and efficiency of the body of the Church 
    There were those who claimed to belong to Paul. No doubt this was mainly a Gentile party. Paul had always preached the gospel of Christian freedom and the end of the law. It is most likely that this party were attempting to turn liberty into license and using their new found Christianity as an excuse to do as they liked. They had forgotten that the representation of the good news brought the essentials of the Christian ethic. They had forgotten that they were saved, not to be free to sin, but to be free not to sin.

    It was Paul's claim that he set before men the Cross of Christ in its simplest terms. To decorate the story of the Cross with rhetoric and cleverness would have been to make men think more of the language than of the facts, more of the speaker than of the message. It was Paul's aim to set before men, not himself, but Christ in all his Glory! 

Amen!

Reading: (1Cort:10-17)

Ref: (HG SB, DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

Christ' Commission To The Church

John 20:21 

"Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: 
as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." 

    It is most likely that the disciples continued to meet in the upper room where the Last Supper had been held. They knew the bitterness of the Jews, and they were afraid that their turn would come next. So they were meeting in terror, listening fearfully for every step on the stair and for every knock at the door. As they sat there, Jesus was suddenly in their midst. He gave them the normal everyday eastern greeting: "Peace be unto you." Then Jesus gave the disciples the commission which the Church must never forget.
    He said that as God had sent Him forth, so He sent them forth: "as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you." It means that Jesus Christ needs the Church which is exactly what Paul meant when he called the Church the body of Christ. "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ," (1Cor 12:12).
    Jesus had come with a message for all men and now He was going back to his Father. His message could never be taken to all men, unless the Church took it. The Church is to be a mouth to speak for Jesus, feet to run His errands, and hands to do His work. Therefore, the first thing this means is that Jesus is dependent on his Church. 

    It means that the Church needs Jesus. A person who is to be sent out needs someone to send him; he needs a message to take; he needs a power and an authority to back his message; he needs someone to whom he may turn when he is in doubt and in difficulty. Without Jesus, the Church has no message; without Him the Church has no power; without Him the Church has no one to turn to when up against it; without Him the Church has nothing to enlighten her mind, to strengthen her arm, and to encourage her heart. This means that the Church is dependent on Jesus! 
    The sending out of the Church by Jesus is parallel to the sending out of Jesus by God. But no one can read the story of the Fourth Gospel without seeing that the relationship between Jesus and God was continually dependent on Jesus' perfect obedience and perfect love. Jesus could be God's messenger only because He rendered to God that perfect obedience and love. It follows that the Church is fit to be the messenger and the instrument of Christ only when she perfectly loves Him and perfectly obeys Him. The Church must never change His message. She must never be out to follow man made policies; she must be out to follow the will of Christ. The Church fades whenever she tries to solve some problem in her own wisdom and strength, and leaves out the will and guidance of Jesus Christ.
Amen!!

Reading: (John 20:19-23)
Ref: (HG SB, DSB) 

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

   
 

The Night At The Garden Of Gethsemane

John 18:11  

"Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into 

the sheath: the cup which my Father hath

 given me, shall I not drink it?" 

    When the last meal was finished and when Jesus' talk and prayer with his disciples were ended, he and his friends left the upper room. They were bound for the Garden of Gethsemane over the brook Cedron. Often Jesus and his disciples had gone there for peace and quiet. Judas knew that he would find Jesus there and it was there that he had decided it would be easiest to engineer the arrest. There is something extremely surprising about the force which came out to arrest Jesus. 
    John said that there was a company of soldiers, together with officers from the chief priests and Pharisees. The officers would be the Temple police. The Temple authorities had a kind of private police force to keep good order, and the Sanhedrin had its police officers to carry out its decrees. The officers, therefore, were the Jewish police force. But there was a band of Roman soldiers there too. Even if we take this word to mean the smallest force, what a force to send out against an unarmed Galilean carpenter! 
    Few scenes in scripture show us the qualities of Jesus as does the arrest in the garden. It shows us his courage; when they arrived, Jesus stepped out. "Whom seek ye?"  "Jesus of Nazareth," they said. Back came the answer: "I am he." The man they had thought they would have to search for was standing before them with glorious defiance. Here is the courage of the man who will face things out.  It shows us his authority. There he was, one single, lonely, unarmed figure; there they were, hundreds of them, armed and equipped. Yet face to face with him, they retreated and fell to the ground. There flowed from Jesus an authority which in all his loneliness made him stronger than the might of his enemies. 
    It shows us that Jesus chose to die.  Here again it is clear that he could have escaped death if he had wished to. He could have walked through them and gone his way. But he did not. He even helped his enemies to arrest him. He chose to die It shows his protective love.  It was not for himself that he took thought; it was for his friends. "Jesus answered, I have told you that I am he: if therefore you seek me, let these go their way:" (John 18:8).  Jesus' protecting love surrounded his disciples even in Gethsemane. It shows his utter obedience. "Shall I not drink," he said, "the cup that God has given me to drink?" This was God's will, and that was enough. Jesus was himself faithful unto death. My Friends, how can man die better than facing fearful odds and giving his life for his friends?
Amen! 

Reading: (John 18: 1-11)
Ref: (HG SB, DSB)

May God Bless You 

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

    
 

Jesus Life Was The Cross

 John 17:4-5 

 "I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which 

thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me 

with thine own self with the glory which I had 

with thee before the world was." 

    Jesus life had a climax, and that was the Cross. To him the Cross was the glory of life and the way to the glory of eternity. "And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified." (John 12:23). What did Jesus mean when he repeatedly spoke of the Cross as his glory and his glorification? Other say there is more answers than one. However I do not agree! Jesus Life Was The Cross!! Because The Cross Was His Glory. Amen!!
    It is one of the facts of history that again and again it was in death that the great ones found their glory. It was when they died, and how they died, which showed people what and who they really were. They may have been misunderstood, undervalued, condemned as criminals in their lives, but their deaths showed their true place in the scheme of things. Abraham Lincoln, Joan of Arc, Apostle Paul, John The Baptist. I could go on writing names down, but there is a lot of people that has given their life for others.      
    Again and again a martyr's majesty has appeared in death. It was so with Jesus, for even the centurion at the foot of the Cross was left saying: "Truly this was the Son of God" (Matt 27:54). The Cross was the glory of Jesus because he was never more majestic than in his death. The Cross was his glory because its magnet drew men to him in a way that even his life had never done, and Christ is still drawing men to him through the Holy Spirit of God. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends," (John 15:13).
Amen!

Reading: (John 17:1-5)
Ref: (HG SB, DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

 

The Test Of Love

John 14:15-17

"If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and

 he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you

 for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot

 receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth

him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth

 with you, and shall be in you."

    There is only one test of "Love, and that is Obedience." It was by obedience that Jesus showed his Love of God. Therefore it is by obedience that we must show our love of Jesus.We know all too well how there are those who protest their love in words but who, at the same time, bring pain and heartbreak to those whom they claim to love. There are children and young people who say that they love their parents, and who yet cause them grief and anxiety. There are husbands who say they love their wives and wives who say they love their husbands, and who yet, by their inconsideration's and their unkindness brings pain the one to the other. To Jesus real love is not an easy thing. It is shown only in true obedience. 
   Nowadays comfort has to do almost solely with sorrow; and a comforter is someone who sympathizes with us when we are sad. Beyond a doubt the Holy Spirit does that, but to limit his work to that function is to sadly belittle him. We often talk of being able to cope with things. That is precisely the work of the Holy Spirit. He takes away our inadequacies and enables us to cope with life. The Holy Spirit substitutes victorious for defeated living.  
    So what Jesus is saying is: I am setting you a hard task, and I am sending you out on a very difficult engagement. But I am going to send you someone, a comforter , who will guide you as to what to do and enable you to do it. My Friends, do not lean on your own understanding! There is a Comforter for you to lean on "The Holy Spirit." 
Amen!

Reading: (John 14:15-17) 
Ref: (HG SB, DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

In Heaven There Is Room For All

John 14:2-4

"In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would

have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and

prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive

you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be

also  And whither I go ye know and

the way ye know."

    There is a very simple and very lovely meaning here. There are many abiding places in my Father's house which simply means, that in heaven there is room for all. An earthly house becomes overcrowded; an earthly inn sometimes turns away weary traveler's because its accommodations are exhausted, or they just don't want to give up a room. It is not so with our Father's house, for heaven is as wide as the heart of God and there is room for all. Jesus is saying to his friends: and to all that was around Him "Don't be afraid" Men may shut their doors upon you. But in heaven you will never be shut out."
    "If it were not so," My friends, this tells us the honesty of Jesus. No one could ever claim that Jesus had lured anyone into Christianity by misleading promises or under false pretenses. Jesus told men bluntly that a Christian must bid farewell to comfort. He told them of the persecution, the hatred, the penalties they would have to bear. He told them of the cross which they must Carry.   
    Jesus said: "Where I am, there you will also be." Here is the truth put in the simplest way; for the Christian, heaven is where Jesus is. We do not need to speculate on what heaven will be like. It is enough to know that we will be for ever with him. When we love someone with our whole heart, we are really alive only when we are with that person. That is the way it is with Christ. In this world our contact with him is some what shadowed, for we cannot see, or touch Him; but we talk to Him In Prayer, We sing to Him in Church, and He talks to us through His Holy Word. My Friend, the best definition  I can give you, is to say that heaven is that state where we will always be with Jesus. 
Amen!

Reading: (John 14:2-4)
Ref: (HG SB, DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

   

"Washing" A Pardon From Sin

John 13:8  

"Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. 

Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, 

thou hast no part with me." 

    At first Peter refuses to allow Jesus to wash his feet. Jesus tells him that unless he accepts this washing, he will have no part with him. Peter then begs that not only his feet, but his hands and his head should also be washed. But Jesus tells him that it is enough that his feet should be washed. The difficult sentence and the one with an inner meaning, is: "Jesus saith to him, He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit: and ye are clean, but not all," (John 13:10). My Friends, Jesus said that because He knew who would betray Him. 
    Let's look at this event in three ways: (1) Was Peter rejecting salvation from his sins by not wanting Jesus to wash his feet? The word "wash" or "washing" represents free forgiveness or pardon from sin, and the "newness of life." (2) Did Peter look at this as a physical cleansing instead of spiritual? If so Peter was focused on himself, and missed the whole point of Christ's illustration; "that being Humility." (3) Jesus warned Peter that he would be disobeying the Lord if he did not allow the Lord to wash his feet. In other words , Peter would be standing apart from Christ, renouncing Him as Lord.
    My Friends, when you are standing in Church during the Alter call and you know the Holy Spirit is working in your heart, drawing you to Jesus Christ, or your are backsliding into your old nature. The three statements above could fall on you like they could have fallen upon Peter, but Peter excepted and wanted to be washed all over his body. My Friend, what will be your choice?    
    Jesus was well aware that he was about to be betrayed. His knowledge of being betrayed. might so easily have turned Him to bitterness and hatred; but it made His heart run out in greater love than ever. The astounding thing was that the more men hurt Him, the more Jesus loved them. It is so easy and so natural to resent wrong and to grow bitter under insult and injury; but Jesus met the greatest injury and the supreme disloyalty, with the greatest humility and the supreme love. The nearer we are to suffering humanity, the nearer we are to God.  
Amen!

Reading: (John 13:1-20)
Ref: (HG SB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

   

A Kings Welcome

John 12:12-13  

"On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard 

that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, Took branches of palm trees, 

and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: 

Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh 

in the name of the Lord."

    News and rumor had gone out that Jesus the man who had raised Lazarus from the dead was on his way to Jerusalem. There were two crowds, the crowd which was accompanying Jesus from Bethany, and the crowd which surged out from Jerusalem to see him; and they must have flowed together in a surging mass like two tides of the sea. Jesus came riding on a ass' colt. As the crowds met him they received him like a conqueror. And the sight of this tremendous welcome sent the Jewish authorities into the depths of despair, for it seemed that nothing they could do would stop the tide of the people who had gone after Jesus. This is an incident so important that we must try to understand just what was happening. 
    In such a situation it was obviously impossible for Jesus to speak to the crowd. His voice could not have reached such a large assembly of people. So he did something that all could see; he came riding upon an ass' colt, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass," (Zech. 9:9). There is no doubt at all that Jesus' claim was a messianic claim! 
    The point is that a king would come riding upon a horse when he was waging war; but he would come riding upon an ass when he was coming in peace. This action of Jesus is a sign that he was not the warrior figure men dreamed of, but the Prince of Peace. No one saw it that way at that time, not even the disciples, who should have known so much better. "Here was the one who was to come." But they looked for the Messiah of their own dreams and their own wishful thinking; they did not look for the Messiah whom God had sent. Jesus drew a dramatic picture of what he claimed to be, but none understood the claim.
    My Friends, we cannot leave this passage without noticing the simplest thing of all. Seldom in the world's history has there been such a display of magnificent deliberate courage as the Triumphal Entry. We must remember that Jesus was an outlaw and that the authorities were determined to kill him. Common sense would have warned him to turn back and make for Galilee or the desert places. If he was to enter Jerusalem at all, all caution would have demanded that he enter secretly and go into hiding; but He is Jesus, and He came in such a way as to focus every eye upon Himself. It was an act of the most superior courage, for it was the defiance of all that man could do; and it was an act of the most powerful love, for it was love's last appeal before the end; "God's Love For All Humanity." 
Amen!

Reading: (John 12:12-19)
Ref: (HG SB, DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr. 

The Cross Life Ministry

   

The Voice That Wakes The Dead

John 11:15  
"And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, 
to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless 
let us go unto him." 

    Jesus began by saying that Lazarus was sleeping. To the disciples that sounded like good news, for there is no better medicine than sleep. But the word sleep has always had a deeper and a more serious meaning. Jesus said of Jairus' daughter that she was asleep (Matt.9:24); at the end of Stephen's martyrdom we are told that he fell asleep (Acts 7:60). Paul speaks about those who sleep in Jesus (1Thess. 4:13); and of those witnesses of the Resurrection who are now fallen asleep (1Col. 15:6). So Jesus had to tell them plainly that Lazarus was dead; and then he went on to say that for their sake this was a good thing, because it would produce an event which would strengthen them even more firmly in their faith. 

    The final proof of Christianity is the sight of what Jesus Christ can do. Words may fail to convince, but there is no argument against God in action. It is the simple fact that the power of Jesus Christ has made the coward into a hero, the doubter into a man of certainty, the selfish man into the servant of all. Above all, it is the plain fact of history that again and again the power of Christ has made the bad man good. 
    That is what lays so tremendous a responsibility on the individual Christian. The design of God is that every one of us should be a living proof of his power. Our task is not so much to argue about the Gospel of Jesus Christ in words, but to demonstrate in our lives what Christ has done for us! The death of Lazarus brought a crisis to Jesus, and he was glad, because it gave him the opportunity to demonstrate in the most amazing way what God can do. My Friends, for every crisis

there is an opportunity! 

Amen!

Reading: (John 11:11-16)

Ref:        (HGSB, DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry 

 
 

Light For The Blind

John 9:1-2 

"And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth.
And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, 

this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?"

    This is the only miracle in the gospels in which the sufferer is said to have been afflicted from his birth. In Acts we twice hear of people who had been helpless from their birth (the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple in Acts 3:2, and the cripple at Lystra in Acts 14:8). When they saw him, they used the opportunity to put this problem before Jesus.

    The Jews connected suffering and sin. They worked on the assumption that wherever there was suffering, somewhere there was sin. So they asked Jesus their question. "This man," they said, is blind. Is his blindness due to his own sin, or to the sin of his parents?" How could the blindness possibly be due to his own sin, when he had been blind from his birth? 
    Jewish theologians had the strange notion of prenatal sin. They actually believed that a man could begin to sin while still in his mother's womb.  This is the text they used to support their view. "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him," (Gen. 4:7). But the argument does show us that the idea of prenatal sin was known.     In the time of Jesus certain Jews did believe that a man's affliction, even if it be from birth, might come from sin that he had committed before he was born. It is a strange idea, and it may seem to us almost fantastic; but at its heart lies the idea of a sin-infected universe.
    The alternative was that the man's affliction was due to the sin of his parents. The idea that children inherit the consequences of their parents' sin is woven into the thought of the Old Testament. "I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;" (Ex. 20:5). Let us also look at, (Ps. 109:14) "Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out." 
     Isaiah talks about their iniquities and the "iniquities of their fathers, and goes on to say: I will measure into their bosom payment for their former doings, "Your iniquities, and the iniquities of your fathers together, saith the LORD, which have burned incense upon the mountains, and blasphemed me upon the hills: therefore will I measure their former work into their bosom,"(Is. 65:7). One of the keynotes of the Old Testament is that the sins of the fathers are always visited upon the children. It must never be forgotten that no man lives to himself and no man dies to himself. When a man sins, he sets in motion a train of consequences which has no end. My friends, The bottom line is God wants His people to understand that the ultimate fate of each person was and still is determined by his or her individual relationship with Him. (Ezek. 18).
Amen!

Reading: (John 9:1-5)
               (Ezek. 18:1-32)

Ref: (HGSB, DSB) 

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

            

Discipleship

John 8:31-32 

"Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue

 in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;  And ye shall

 know the truth,  and the truth shall make you free."  

    Discipleship begins with belief. Its beginning is the moment when a man accepts what Jesus says as true, all that he says about the love of God, all that he says about the terror of sin, all that he says about the real meaning of life. Discipleship means constantly remaining in the word of Jesus. 

    The Christian is the man who all his life listens for the voice of Jesus and will take no decision until he has first heard what he has to say. The life a Christian should be spent learning more and more about Jesus. A closed mind is the end of discipleship. No one can hear or read the words of Jesus once, and then say that he understands their full meaning. To remain in the word of Jesus means constantly to study and think about what he said until more and more of its meaning becomes ours. Discipleship issues in knowledge of the truth. To learn from Jesus is to learn the truth. "You will know the truth," said Jesus. What is that truth? There are many possible answers to that question but the most comprehensive way to put it is that the truth which Jesus brings shows us the real values of life. 

    The fundamental question to which every man has consciously or unconsciously to give an answer is: "To what am I to give my life? To a career? To the amassing of material possessions? To pleasure? To the service of God?" In the truth of Jesus we see what things are really important and what are not. My Friends, Discipleship results in freedom. "The truth will make you free." "In his service is perfect freedom." 

Amen!

Reading: (John 8:31-36)

Ref: (HG SB)

        (DSB)

May God Bless You

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry

   
 

 

Let Not The Spirit Of Christianity Die!!

John 8:5-7  

"Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus 

stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though 

he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, 

he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He 

that is without sin among you, let 

him first cast a stone at her." 

 
     The dilemma into which they sought to put Jesus was this: If he said that the woman ought to be stoned to death, two things followed. First, he would lose the name he had gained for love and for mercy and never again would be called the friend of sinners. Second, he would come into collision with the Roman law, for the Jews had no power to pass or carry out the death sentence on anyone. If he said that the woman should be pardoned, it could immediately be said that he was teaching men to break the law of Moses, and that he was condoning and even encouraging people to commit adultery. That was the trap in which the scribes and Pharisees sought to entrap Jesus. But he turned their attack in such a way that it recoiled against themselves.
    This incident shows vividly and cruelly the attitude of the scribes and Pharisees to people. They were not looking on this woman as a person at all; they were looking on her only as a thing, an instrument whereby they could formulate a charge against Jesus. They were using her, as a man might use a tool, for their own purposes. To them she had no name, no personality, no feelings; she was simply a pawn in the game whereby they sought to destroy Jesus.
    "It is always wrong to regard people as things; it is always unchristian to regard people as cases." The Bible is found of names. God says to Moses: "I know thee  by name" (Ex. 33:17). God said to Cyrus; " that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. " (Is. 45:3).
     It is extremely unlikely that the scribes and the Pharisees even knew this woman's name. To them she was nothing but a case of shameless adultery that could now be used as an instrument to suit their purposes. "The minute people become things the spirit of Christianity is dead."
     God uses his authority to love men into goodness; "to God no person ever becomes a thing." We must use such authority as we have always to understand and always at least to try to mend the person who has made the mistake; and we will never even begin to do that unless we remember that every man and woman is a person, not a thing! 
Amen!!

Reading: (John 8:1-11)
Ref: (HG SB)
        (DSB)

May God Bless You 

And Your Family

Minister Robert A. Lail Sr.

The Cross Life Ministry