The Beautiful Masterpiece God Sees by Pastor Joseph Cortes Have you ever stopped to think about how our Heavenly Father sees us? Many years ago, I preached on the precious blood of Jesus Christ and how God looks upon those who belong to Him. The more I think about it, the more amazed I become. Without the blood of Christ, I would not even want to imagine how God would look upon sinful humanity. But because of what His only begotten Son accomplished at Calvary, everything has changed. The blood of Jesus Christ has made possible something we could never accomplish through our own efforts. It has cleansed us, made us righteous before God, and opened the way for us to have fellowship with our Heavenly Father. While thinking about this, I began looking for a piece of artwork that would help illustrate what I was trying to explain. Years ago, artists sometimes painted on thin canvases that allowed the paint to bleed through to the other side. If you turned one of those paintings around, you would see something entirely different from the beautiful picture on the front. The backside might be covered with blotches, stains, overlapping colors, and strange pathways where one color ran into another. There would be no real beauty to admire. You might not even recognize what the artist was trying to create. But turn that same canvas around, and suddenly everything changes. What appeared to be a confusing collection of colors becomes a beautiful work of art. The painting might be something you treasure, perhaps even something priceless. It is the same canvas, the same paint, and the same colors, yet the difference between the front and the back is remarkable. Now I want you to think about that painting in relation to your life as a believer in Jesus Christ. The backside of that canvas represents our sinful condition, our imperfections, our failures, and everything about us that could never measure up to God's perfect righteousness. If we were judged according to our own goodness, we would have nothing to offer Him. Scripture makes that clear. But here is the wonderful truth I want you to understand. When our Heavenly Father looks upon those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ, He sees us in light of what His Son has accomplished. He does not look upon us as condemned sinners trying desperately to make ourselves acceptable. He sees us through the righteousness of Christ, secured by His precious blood.

In an Age of Deception, Return to the Word by Pastor Joseph Cortes For those who study Bible prophecy, biblical literacy becomes even more important. When Jesus spoke about the end times, one of His repeated warnings concerned deception. Before discussing many of the prophetic events that receive so much attention today, Jesus said, “Take heed that no man deceive you” (Matthew 24:4). That warning deserves our attention. Before wars, famines, earthquakes, and many of the signs people often watch for, Jesus warned His followers about being deceived. Perhaps we should pay very close attention to that order. One of the greatest dangers of the last days may not simply be failing to recognize prophetic events. It may be failing to recognize spiritual deception while those events are taking place. A person may understand world events and still be doctrinally deceived. Someone may follow every development in the Middle East, watch every political alliance, study every technological advancement, and still fail to recognize teaching that contradicts the Gospel. This is especially important in the world in which we now live. Technology allows information to travel around the earth almost instantly. A false teaching that once might have reached a few hundred people can now reach millions within hours. Artificial intelligence can generate convincing religious articles, videos, and arguments. Social media can elevate charismatic personalities regardless of whether their teaching is biblically accurate. A speaker can sound confident, compassionate, spiritual, and knowledgeable while still being wrong. That is why Christians cannot build their theology from headlines, short video clips, personalities, algorithms, or viral posts. We must know the Book. Knowing the Bible does not mean that we will understand every passage perfectly or never have questions. There are difficult passages of Scripture, and believers will continue learning throughout their lives. But there is a tremendous difference between humbly growing in biblical understanding and becoming spiritually dependent upon other people to tell us what the Bible says because we rarely open it ourselves.

Faith Repair Shop: The miracle of the water to wine, Jesus’ first, was more than just to keep the party going, which I’ve always thought was pretty nice of Him, but it was partly to teach that new wine doesn’t get put into old wineskins, as the old skins might break, leak and be wine be lost. Briefly, this was to show that a NEW covenant was upon the scene to fulfill the old and to pay attention to the new wine, Jesus, as the old would be fulfilled and put away, the law, that is. Compare that with the Old “law-based” Covenant with the new Grace-based. Jesus was proclaiming that the new messianic age of the Kingdom of Heaven had drawn near. Another beautiful and illustrative teaching was in the multitude feedings. There were 2 specific narratives; one to feed 4000 people and the other to feed 5000. You can find these in Matthew 14:15ff & 15:32ff and Mark 6:35ff & 8:1ff (The ff’s mean “and following). Some scholars have attempted to explain that these were duplicate accounts, but that’s too easily explained away, as one of the accounts occurred on Jewsish soil and the other on Gentile soil, just to the north and east of Galilee. The point? One of the lessons, anyway, was to show that Jesus the Christ was the bread of life for both Jew AND Gentile. To try and rationalize this miracle, or to OVER-analyze it, is robbery OF said point/lesson. Just read it for the lesson. Furthermore, remember Paul mentioning there is no long color, race, creed, nationality, etc., but just one race, the Christ race, and all of us are brothers and sisters in & under Christ? That’s a big deal as we all argue and belittle one another on who’s a true Jew and who’s not. It doesn’t really matter if we’re all under the heading of Christ Follower. That’s my denomination and that’s why I call myself a Paulanist. He said to follow him as he follows Christ. That’s good enough for me. For the rest, Jesus clarifies both feeding accounts in Mark 8:19-21 where He’d asked how much was gathered at each event and the disciples answered Him. Jesus said, “. . . How is it that you do not understand?” Events as such cause us to dig deeper and the Holy Spirit will assist us in our comprehension. ***For instance, consider the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida (Mk. 8:22ff). Jesus healed him in 2 stages. After the first “eye-spit” and “hands laying,” the man saw men as walking trees, but his sight was a bit better. Jesus layed hands once more and BAM, that cat could see VERY clearly.

Alright, Addison. Me and Gerry are sharing our website stuff in different places. We shall see what new blood they might bring in here.

by Pastor Joseph Cortes Once again, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is making discoveries that are causing scientists to rethink what they believed about the early universe. The more they look into the heavens, the more surprises they find. And for those of us who believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God, these discoveries remind us of something Scripture declared thousands of years ago: the heavens are the work of God's hands. In Genesis 1:16, we read something remarkable: “And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.” Think about those last five words: “He made the stars also.” The Bible describes something so vast and wonderful in just a few simple words. The countless galaxies, billions upon billions of stars, and the great expanse of the heavens all testify to the power and wisdom of our Creator. According to a recent scientific report, the James Webb Space Telescope has discovered evidence of carbon, oxygen, and other heavier elements in galaxies believed to have existed only about 500 million years after the Big Bang. This surprised researchers because their models suggested these elements would take longer to become so widespread. Once again, scientists are having to reconsider their understanding of the universe's early history. The traditional explanation is that the earliest stars formed primarily from hydrogen and helium. Over time, nuclear reactions inside those stars produced heavier elements, including carbon and oxygen. When some of these stars died, they released those elements into space, where they eventually became part of later generations of stars and planets. But the new discoveries suggest this process may have happened much faster than previously expected. Another question involves what scientists call Population III stars. These are the first generation of stars predicted by the Big Bang model, believed to have formed almost entirely from hydrogen and helium. Yet no Population III star has ever been conclusively identified. Scientists now suggest these stars may have disappeared quickly as the early universe became enriched with heavier elements. In other words, the models are being adjusted to explain discoveries that were not expected.