Pastor Leon’s SOAP:  Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer
October 18, 2026: SOAP #6162: Job 3-4; Acts 8-9

SCRIPTURE:  Acts (NIV) 9:19 …Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. 20 At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. 21 All those who heard him were astonished and asked, “Isn’t he the man who caused havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?” 22 Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ. 23 After many days had gone by, the Jews conspired to kill him,

OBSERVATION:   What a change!  Paul was on a trip to Damascus to take those who believed in Jesus as prisoner and take them before the religious court, probably to kill them.  That is the way it started, but Jesus interrupted Paul’s trip and Paul came to believe that Jesus was the promised Messiah for which the Jews were waiting.  Before leaving Damascus, he preached powerful sermons proving that Jesus is the Christ.  He even became a target of being potentially killed.

I just received a testimony of some SOAP ministers baptizing recent converts in Guinea-Conakry.  A large group of people came to them wanting to give their lives to Jesus and be baptized.  Among them were 5 blind people and 10 in wheelchairs.  They were led by a man who had been taking some previous SOAP workers to jail, but on their way to jail, they prayed for a man, the leader’s brother who was in a wheelchair.  He was healed and they were set free to go their way.   Now this same leader was leading thousands of people to be saved and water baptized.  Yes, the blind and lame in the group were all healed!  

APPLICATION: No one can change lives like Jesus!  When He comes into a person’s life and is given the place as Lord, He makes changes!  

Please pray for the continued baptisms in Guinea-Conakry and for a new crusade starting in Senegal. 

PRAYER:  Lord, what a special blessing it is to be a “new creation” in you.  Life is not boring with you because every day you have something new for us.  Being faithful in reading your word, in prayer, in consciously being aware of your presence all day long keeps us spiritually alert for a new adventure with you.  Amen.

Pastor Leon
Making friends for time and eternity! 
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Pastor Leon’s SOAP:  Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer
October 16, 2026: SOAP #6160: Malachi 3-4; Psalm 148; Acts 5

SCRIPTURE:  Acts (NIV) 5:12 The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. 13 No-one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. 14 Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. 15 As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. 16 Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by evil spirits, and all of them were healed.

OBSERVATION:  Ever since I was a young boy in church and heard the stories in the gospels and the book of Acts, I believed that God could do the same today.  Believing in God’s miracle-working power was unquestionable to me.   

And now, for the past two years, I have been receiving reports every week, many times two or three each week, of miracles just like in the New Testament days.  Healings, and miracles, salvations, and water baptisms.

APPLICATION:  The prayers that have been prayed for Africa, the lives that died in carrying the gospel to Africa, the missionaries who have been buried there—they are all seeds sown into the fertile African earth.  They are starting to sprout, and the African church is coming alive to the glory of God! 

Like the early church, they are short on Bibles, but full of the Holy Spirit who is the author of the Bible!  Many new believers gather three times each week, and many receive the SOAPs as a daily text message on their phone. 

PRAYER:  Lord, we pray for Pastors Ezekiel and Elijah who are from Sierra Leone but are now in Guinea-Conakry doing water baptisms.  We pray for Pastor John and the SOAP ministry team in Guinea.  Give them a strong anointing as they minister to people who are being saved as they watch the baptisms and your healing power moving among them!  May you be glorified in their ministry as You do what only You can do!  Amen

Pastor Leon
Making friends for time and eternity!   
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Pastor Leon’s SOAP:  Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer
October 14, 2026: SOAP #6158: Nehemiah 11-12; Psalm 1; Acts 3

SCRIPTURE:  Acts (NIV) 3:1 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. 2 Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. 4 Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” 5 So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. 6 Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”

OBSERVATION:  Peter and John were not out looking to heal someone, or to have a large gathering where they could preach about Jesus and call people to faith in Christ.  But that is what happened.  It started as they were moving through a normal day.  Nothing big was planned.  They were just doing what was common for them to do.  It was nothing out of the ordinary.  They were just being faithful in doing something ordinary.  But their ordinary day was interrupted by an ordinary beggar with an ordinary request.  Then the Holy Spirit turned their ordinary day into an extra-ordinary day!  Now we can read the rest of the story in Acts 3. A crippled man was healed and many people became followers of Jesus! 

APPLICATION: The Holy Spirit specializes in taking the ordinary things I faithfully do and using them to bring glory to Jesus!  I may not know how my faithfulness in doing the little things might affect someone who is watching.  It may be just a smile, or a gentle touch, or a short prayer, (baking a cake, fixing a leaky roof, writing a letter, making a phone call, etc.) but the Holy Spirit can do something big in someone’s life with something small from me.  Whatever it is you do, do it in the name of Jesus!  Give Him glory!  Many of the big things God does, starts with a believer doing a small thing!

PRAYER:   Jesus, knowing that you are watching my life makes me want to be faithful.  May my life please you and bring you joy.  And knowing that there may be someone watching close by — someone who may need encouragement, or a kind word — this also makes me want to be faithful.  Amen

Pastor Leon
Making friends for time and eternity!   
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Pastor Leon’s SOAP:  Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer
October 13, 2026: SOAP #6157: Nehemiah 9-10; Acts 2

SCRIPTURE:  Acts (NIV) 2:1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 ALL OF THEM were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. …
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for ALL who are far off—for ALL whom the Lord our God will call.”

OBSERVATION:  The same Holy Spirit that empowered Jesus while living as the Son of Man, is the same Holy Spirit that came upon the early church as described above.  And it is the same Holy Spirit promised to ALL who are “far off”—that includes today, and that includes me!  2000+ years later and 6,700 miles away, the Holy Spirit is the same! 

APPLICATION:  Jesus, as the Son of Man, was limited to being in one place at a time.  He died on one cross and rose from one grave.  When He ascended to heaven, He promised to send the omnipresent Holy Spirit!  THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER!  He is with SOAP readers wherever we are, on every continent and every island in the ocean.  Even those who may be in space.  He makes the Word alive in our hearts and lives in us!  

PRAYER:  Jesus fill me anew with the Holy Spirit.  And keep me full!  Holy Spirit, work through me.  Glorify Jesus through me.  Amen

Pastor Leon
Making friends for time and eternity!   
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Pastor Leon’s SOAP:  Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer
October 15, 2026: SOAP #6159: Nehemiah 13; Malachi 1-2; Acts 4

SCRIPTURE:  Acts (NIV) 4:10   then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 He is “‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.’ 12 Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

OBSERVATION:  What a dirty trick it would have been for God the Father to send his son to die for the sins of man if there had been another way for man to be saved.   Jesus was convinced that there was no other way.  He had to die or man could not be free from sin.  In this verse Peter is speaking before the religious leaders of Israel.  Peter and John had been arrested because of a healing done in the name of Jesus who these leaders had recently crucified.

APPLICATION:  God the Father was so convinced that there was no other way for man to be saved that He sent His only son to die for my sins.  Jesus was so convinced that there was no other way that He was willing to suffer the great agony of the cross.  The apostles were so convinced that they were willing to go to jail and give their lives for telling others that Jesus is the ONLY way. 

Now it is my turn. 

PRAYER:  Lord, You are the only way.  There is no other name under heaven by which we can be saved!   Lord, I believe that you are the only way.  Now help me act like it is true.  Holy Spirit, help me tell others.   Amen

Pastor Leon
Making friends for time and eternity!   
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Pastor Leon’s SOAP:  Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer
October 11, 2026: SOAP #6155: Nehemiah 5-6; Psalm 146; Luke 24

SCRIPTURE:  Luke (NIV) 24:1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
4  While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5  In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?

OBSERVATION:  The women were looking for Jesus.  The last time they saw him, He was being crucified and then placed in the tomb.  According to their understanding of the nature of the things they had witnessed, coming to the tomb made perfect sense.  But according to Jesus word that He would rise from the dead on the third day, what the angle said was most logical! 

Living people do not make their homes in cemeteries, and Jesus was alive!

APPLICATION:  Jesus was not only alive then, HE IS STILL ALIVE!   Sunday morning gatherings should not be funeral services, but resurrection celebrations!  Do not expect to find a living Jesus in a dead church. 

We are not gathering to hear what Jesus did 2,000 years ago, we are gathering to celebrate what He did this past week!   We gather in expectation of what He will do this coming week!   The best thing about our gatherings is that the One we worship is actually present!   Under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the preacher takes words written 1000s of years ago and makes them applicable to our lives today!  

PRAYER:  Lord, make Your presence easily recognizable as we gather as Your church.  What really makes our gatherings to be Your church, is Your presence.  Encourage us with the testimonies of others.  Stir our hearts as we worship you.  Stir our minds as we hear your word, spoken, or read, or preached.  May we leave knowing that we have been in Your Presence.  Amen

Pastor Leon
Making friends for time and eternity!   
On Facebook:  Today’s SOAP from Pastor Leon
Also on:  https://soapsbyleon.com

Pastor Leon’s SOAP:  Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer
October 10, 2026: SOAP #6154: Nehemiah 3-4; Luke 23

SCRIPTURE:  Luke (NIV) 23:32 Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

OBSERVATION:  About verse 34, Albert Barnes wrote, “The power and excellence of the Christian religion. No other religion teaches men to pray for the forgiveness of enemies; no other disposes them to do it. Men of the world seek for revenge; the Christian bears reproaches and persecutions with patience, and prays that God would pardon those who injure them, and save them from their sins.”

APPLICATION:  What is it that disposes Christians to pray for their persecutors?  First would be the command in the Bible to “Pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44) 

Second would be the example of Jesus as seen in verse 34 above.  He is our Lord and we want to be like Him. 

And the third, and the greatest, would be the presence of Jesus living in our heart…for that is the essence of Christianity: Jesus living within the lives of those who are born again. 

PRAYER:  Jesus, be yourself living in me.  Grow within me your inclination to be loving and forgiving.  By your Holy Spirit teach me to respond in ways that represent you, that bring you joy and honor.  Bring to my mind the truth that I am just passing through this world and that soon, in your presence, I will either rejoice or regret my actions here.  Amen

Pastor Leon
Making friends for time and eternity!   
On Facebook:  Today’s SOAP from Pastor Leon
Also on:  https://soapsbyleon.com