KneEmail - a devotional by Mike Benson associated with Forthright Magazine
Kneemail - Jesus
IF YOU WANT to be saved from your sins, just believing in Jesus is not enough... The first time the Gospel is ever preached is in Acts chapter 2. Peter preaches Jesus as a miracle-working teacher whom the Jews had...
THE BIBLE ACKNOWLEDGES the problem of anxiety... An awful lot of people's answer to anxiety is medication. I certainly don't want to make light of the very serious issues of anxiety with which many people must cope in their...
A MAN IN his sixties was walking down the street of a modern subdivision... In his hand was a scrap of paper from a doctor's office with a name and address scribbled in pencil. As the man approached the house,...
MAY I KINDLY ask a few questions for your personal study and reflection...? How many churches did Jesus promise to build? Matthew 16:18 Did He say, "I will build a church?" Did He say, "I will build My churches?" Since...
TO BE "SAVED" means to be made safe... It implies that the unsaved person is in danger. Mark 16:16 speaks of salvation and safety from sin. When the term saved is used in reference to a Christian, it means he...
I HAVE A vivid recollection of that day... My wife came in the room, turned on the TV set and then spoke in shaken tones. She said, "They've flown a jet-liner into one of the World Trade Center towers in...
A MAN IN Moscow will be going to jail for 11 years because of his claim that he could resurrect the dead... Grigory Grabovoy was found guilty of 11 cases of fraud. He habitually preyed on people grieving the death...
THE DAY OF Jesus' resurrection was a day of disbelief... The apostles thought the first report of Jesus' resurrection was "nonsense" and they "would not believe" (Luke 24:11). Two other disciples spent significant time with Jesus on that day without...
IN AMERICA, TRUTH in religion is considered an oxymoron... There is no truth in religion, we are told. It's all a matter of taste or opinion. You like chocolate, I like vanilla. You like Christianity, I like Islam. If Buddhism...
JESUS DOESN'T FORCE us to be His disciples... Never does He coerce anyone into His service. His invitation is free, His offer of eternal life is free, the opportunity to serve Him is free. He freely took the initiative in...
So many celebrities have died recently, it reminds one of the death, in 1715, of King Louis XIV of France, after a reign of 72 years. He had called himself "the Great." The monarch had made the infamous statement, "I...
WITH THE DEATH of Michael Jackson, the media buzzes with details of his popular career and his bizarre life: star of the family group, the Jackson Five, the changes in his music, his marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, his...
HE HAD WORK to do... He was active and involved. But He also knew that He couldn't do it all without meeting alone with the Father. He refused to be tyrannized by the immediate and urgent. He knew that the...
WHY TELL PEOPLE to keep quiet about the most stupendous, incredible, world-shaking thing that had happened in their lifetime--that God had come down into human flesh and lived among them like a typical man...? Because it wasn't yet Jesus' time...
CHRIST IN THE New Testament... In MATTHEW He is the King of the Jews. In MARK He is the Servant of God. In LUKE He is the perfect Son of man. In JOHN He is the Son of God. In...
I HAVE TO confess that initially this passage made me scratch my head... Based upon what is recorded earlier in Matthew 3, John's question to the Lord in Matthew 11 really didn't make sense. It appeared, at least on the...
PEOPLE USED TO travel between the UP (Upper Peninsula) and LP (Lower Peninsula) of Michigan by ferry until they built a bridge along the Straits of Mackinac... In 1934, the Michigan Legislature created the Mackinac Straits Bridge Authority to study...
AS JAMES STEWART, in his book, The Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ, wrote: "Everyone who studies this narrative has the strange feeling that the tables are being turned, before their very eyes. And that what they are seeing, is...
JESUS HAD POWER (Colossians 1:16, 17)... "Wonder-working power (Luke 5:17). He could walk on water, raise the dead, and instantly heal those afflicted with horrible, life-long disease. He could cast out demons, feed thousands with but a few loaves...
THE SALMON NEARLY leaped onto to their hooks... That was a far cry from the day before when the four anglers couldn't even seem to catch an old boot. Disappointed but not discouraged, they had climbed aboard their small seaplane...
THE TAX COLLECTORS of Jesus' time were some of the most despised people in the land, considered untrustworthy, cheats, and traitors... Yet it was Levi (Matthew) whom Jesus called to follow Him. This brave man arose from his tax office...
HAVE YOU EVER felt truly alone...? After my father died, I gathered with our family at a funeral home to choose the casket and arrange specifics for the memorial service. As I drove away from the funeral home, I made...
THE BIBLE DOES describe the physical appearance of many people... Moses was said to be a beautiful child. People spoke of King Saul as being handsome, standing a head taller than anyone in Israel. David and Solomon were both "ruddy,"...
ONE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE has generated a religious-like zeal in his supporters, framing his campaign in mystical, spiritual-sounding rhetoric of "Hope" and "Change..." Some have observed messianic overtones in the lofty claims made about him by others, and those he has...
IN THE NEW York Times Magazine, Nancy V. Raine told a story she heard twenty-five years earlier from a friend named George... In those days, work crews marked construction sites by putting out smudge pots with open flames. George's four-year-old...
A 7-YEAR-OLD GIRL named Jessica was playing outside of her house one day when a pit bulldog came up in her yard... She went over to pet him and he attacked her--knocking her down and immediately clamping down on her...
NEAR THE VILLAGE of Gevas in eastern Turkey, while shepherds ate their breakfast, one of their sheep jumped off a 45-foot cliff to its death... Then, as the stunned shepherds looked on, the rest of the flock followed. In all,...
MY NINE-YEAR-old daughter, Jennifer, was looking forward to our families' mini-vacation... But when our vacation arrived, she became ill, and a long anticipated day at Sea World was replaced by an all-night series of CAT scans, X-rays, and blood work...
DURING THE FILMING of the classic 1958 western, Big Country, one of the actors, Charlton Heston, thought he could help the director by improving the dialogue in one scene... During a break he walked over to William Wyler, the director,...
JESUS TOLD THE twelve to get into a boat on the Sea of Galilee... As they started across the sea, everything was smooth and calm, and Jesus went to sleep. Suddenly a huge wind blasted on the sea and the...
IN THE SPRING of 1861, Southern officials, believing him loyal to their cause, commissioned Alfred Thomas Archimedes Torbert as a Lieutenant in the Confederate Army... However on the day of his confirmation, Torbert was serving as a Colonel in the...
CROWDS EXCITE... Crowds have the appearance of success. The modern church is into crowds. Get crowds! Jesus feared crowds. Jesus ran from crowds (John 6). Jesus came to preach. Jesus left crowds to preach! Baffling! But the crowds wanted a...
JESUS WINS THE World's All-Time Most Distinguished Teacher award... It is not a plaque someone presented to Him but simply recognition by millions who have sat at His feet for nearly 2,000 years: He had not classroom, except the one...
THE BLOOD... The blood that cost Him His life means life for me. The blood that brought Him pain in shedding it brings me eternal peace. The blood that, when He shed so much of it, surely caused Him sickness...
KNOWING THAT THE church is built (Matt. 16:18) upon the foundation of Jesus Christ, and thus that it will stand forever (Dan. 2:44), will cause Christians to appreciate the fact that time and culture cannot alter the makeup of the...
LAST VETERANS' DAY, I bought a poppy from those nice ladies outside the post office... That night an 18-year-old girl spotted the flower attached to my shirt pocket and asked what it was for. I was a little taken aback....
OFTEN, ESPECIALLY DURING times of temptation, we draw great assurance from the fact that we have a High Priest in heaven Who knows how we feel, One Who was tempted in every way we are tempted, and yet He overcame,...
SOCRATES TAUGHT FOR 40 years... Plato taught for 50, Aristotle for 40 and Jesus only three; yet those three years infinitely transcend in influence the combined one hundred and thirty years of teach of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, three of...
AN ENGLISH WRITER has said, "The early Christians did not go around saying, 'Look what the world is come to...' Rather they went out with great joy and said to all men, 'Look what has come to the world!'" There...
THE ILLEGAL ACTIONS of the Jewish leaders brought about the death of Christ...but those actions also brought about the completion of his resurrection and atonement... The trial of Christ was unfair. It was illegal. And that is one of the...
JESUS THEN PERFORMED one of His most dramatic miracles as He called Lazarus out of the tomb... You see, the Master was not really late at all. He only appeared to be overdue. He arrived at the precise moment necessary...
THE NEW TESTAMENT indicates that Jesus' body was prepared for burial according to "the custom of the Jews" (John 19:40)... This would involve washing the corpse. One recalls how the body of Dorcas was washed in preparation for her burial...
AFTER A HIJACKED plane slammed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, many people inside the building were trapped by a cloud of thick, blinding smoke... Police officer Isaac Hoopi ran into the blackness, searching for survivors, and heard people...