Michael Murray was born in — wait a minute… Why am I writing this in the third person??? Can I start over?!
Hi, I’m Michael. I don’t have life figured out yet. I’m still a mess. But I believe that every single person matters to Jesus. And I believe that he invites us all to follow him, one shaky step at a time.
While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax…
Instead of calling him Doubting Thomas, maybe we should call him Rational Thomas or Realistic Thomas.
One of the twelve disciples, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin), was not with the others when Jesus came. They told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he replied, “I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in his hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in his side.” (John 20:24–25, NLT)
Instead of calling him Doubting Thomas, maybe we should call him Rational Thomas or Realistic Thomas.
Thomas was still reeling and heartbroken over the events that took place a few days before. And now his friends were telling him Jesus was…
What does it mean for Jesus’ love to be wide, long, high, and deep?
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. (Ephesians 3:17–18, NIV)
Happy Easter! (A little late, but it’s always a good time to celebrate the events of Easter morning!)
Over the past couple of days, I’ve been pondering the above verse. What does it mean for Jesus’ love to be wide, long, high, and deep?
Whenever I see this verse, I think of the song “Your Love Is Deep”. It’s a song…
In Mark 3, religious leaders try to use a disabled man against Jesus.
[Jesus] looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. (Mark 3:5–6, NIV)
Today, we’re in chapter 3 of our brief survey of the book of Mark. From the opening chapter, Mark paints a picture of Jesus as the Suffering Servant. Wherever Jesus goes, he brings new life to people in need. …
Is it easier to forgive the sins of a person or to heal their body?
While [Jesus] was preaching God’s word to them, four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn’t bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus. (Mark 2:2–4, NLT)
It was the scheme of a lifetime.
The four men — lifelong buddies — got word that Jesus was back in Capernaum. They had heard about all the amazing things Jesus had done. He was freeing people of diseases. A feverish woman hopped out…
A tale of two prayers
In Luke 18, Jesus tells the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. Jesus told this story to an audience “who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else” (v. 9, NLT).
It’s a simple tale of two men who went to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector, and their prayers couldn’t have been any more different. But as miles apart as these men were, they shared one thing in common: They both wanted to please God.
It can be easy to read the Pharisee’s prayer and…
Following Jesus means following him into the suffering.
I had to get a new phone last weekend.
I’m one of the few people on earth who still has a flip phone. Because of my disability, the buttons on a flip phone are much easier to use. But on Saturday, all the buttons stopped working. (I probably dropped it one too many times.) It was torturous because I was still receiving text messages, but I couldn’t open them. (Okay, maybe describing the situation as “torturous” is a bit dramatic, but it felt like it!)
On Sunday, I went to the store and purchased the only flip phone in stock…
Intro to The Gospel of Mark.
(Note: The following article was written before today’s riots took place. Given where we find ourselves, I think it’s even more important to embrace Jesus as the Suffering Servant.)
The Christmas tree has been taken down. The new calendar has been put up. (My mom got me a page-a-day calendar of Mr. Rogers’ quotes. Today’s is “We are all neighbors.” I can already tell it will help lower my blood pressure.) There is something about a new year that feels hopeful. Or at least, we hope for it to be hopeful.
We’re going to begin the year by spending some…
Now through January 4th.
Happy New Year!
I hope you had a very Merry Christmas, and your new year is off to a great start.
Many Christians approach the new year with a resolution to read the Bible more. It’s a good goal, as long as we’re not doing it out of a place of guilt. The Bible became life-changing for me only when I stopped reading it out of obligation and started reading it to get to know Jesus better.
In 2020, I published my first devotional book, Nobody Left Out: Jesus Meets the Messes. …
“There is no peace on earth,” I said.
I heard the bells on Christmas day,
Their old familiar carols played
And wild and sweet, The words repeat
Of peace on Earth, good-will to men
If there’s one Christmas carol that sums up 2020 for me, it’s “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”
The lyrics come from a poem Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote in 1864. (Isn’t that an amazing name, by the way?!)
It has been musicalized many times, including by the Christian band Casting Crowns. But my favorite version is the one my friend David Burleson wrote for the Christmas EP God at First Sight. (You can…
Michael Murray
Just a broken, messy guy trying to follow Jesus one shaky step at a time. Born with cerebral palsy. Get my free 5-day devotional here ➜ https://bit.ly/36wHUj6.
