Vetrix (Vetrix Series Book 1)

Posted on April 6, 2017 by billbushauthor

Two alien species. One threat to Earth.
But who is the real threat and who can be trusted?

Twelve-year-old Flipper didn’t believe in aliens – until he was kidnapped by one.

When he wakes up one morning on the planet Vetrix he is trapped in the midst of an inter-planetary war. As Flipper struggles to survive and find a way back to Earth he discovers he may be a descendant of one of the warring species and that his intervening in the war may be his destiny, if destiny is decided by a computer program.

On Earth, Allison begins having dreams that turn out to be real experiences. When she watches a purple man disappear with her cousin, Flipper, no one believes her. Allison’s best friend Josh agrees to help and together the two sixth-graders begin their own investigation that leads them to the truth behind the Roswell Incident of 1947 and current alien activity on Earth.

As they try to figure out how to expose the secret colony of aliens and their plans to destroy the human race, Allison attempts to use her dreams to locate and rescue Flipper.

Purchase an autographed copy of Vetrix:

Watch the Book Trailer
Read the First Chapter

Book 2: Earth
Book 3: Zentron
Book 4: Sevitan

The original cover from 2017:

Vetrix (Flipper Book 1) by [Bush, Bill, Bush, Blake]

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Prayer

Posted on May 18, 2025 by billbushauthor

How should I pray?

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” – Matthew 6:9-13

God created each of us with an instinct to pray.

If we want to have a meaningful relationship with God, we need to learn how to talk to him. Thankfully, with minimal coaching and practice, anyone can become proficient in prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer, Jesus’s example of how to pray in Matthew 6:9-13, gives us five insights for mastering the practice of prayer.

  1. “Father”: Leverage Your Connection.  When we recognize that God in heaven is our loving Father, it transforms our conversation.

The Lord’s Prayer begins with praise (hallowed be your name) and so should ours. It changes our view of God from genie to the father whose best interests will shape our conversations.

  • “Kingdom”: Embrace God’s Agenda.  The power of prayer is not primarily in asking God for what you want but in aligning your life with His agenda. When we know God’s purpose, we can pray for things, and God will say yes.

There are a number of requests to which God promises a yes, if we just ask, including wisdom (James 1:5), the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13), escape from temptation (Luke 22:40; 1 Corinthians 10:13), and the ability to promote Jesus (Matthew 9:37-38).

Only when we get these first two areas of prayer right can we begin to ask God for what we need.

  • “Give”: Acquire Resources.  When deciding what requests to make, we must simply answer the question, “What do I need to do my job?” When we align ourselves with God’s purpose in life, Jesus promised that he would give us everything we need to accomplish everything God wants us to do (see also James 4:2-3).

Some answers are postponed because it’s not yet time or we’re not yet ready. But many of our prayers are postponed because we’ve imposed barriers on God’s approval. The last two items of the Lord’s Prayer reveal the most common barriers that postpone a yes.

  • “Forgive”: Remove Barriers.  Sometimes our prayers are hindered because we haven’t forgiven someone who has hurt us. Anger, resentment, and bitterness are barriers between God and us as much as between others and us.

Forgiving others frees us to have an open relationship with God. When we forgive others as God forgave us, our prayers will flow more freely and be answered more readily.

  • “Deliver”: Follow a Guide.  Sin is another barrier to answered prayers. When we’re purposefully participating in behaviors that dishonor God and degrade our human dignity, it’s hard for us to have open communication with God.

God will forgive our sins if we simply confess them to Him (1 John 1:9). Jesus’s death on the cross saved you. But if you don’t confess, sin will weigh you down.

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Deeper Morality

Posted on May 11, 2025 by billbushauthor

What does it take to be a “good” person?

“I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom off heaven.” – Matthew 5:20

Can we live a life that God considers “righteous”?

Yes, not because we can do more personal improvement, but because we can improve our personal motives. In Matthew 5:20, Jesus was asking not for a broader righteousness but for one that’s deeper.

He’s calling us to righteous motives because true righteousness grows out of motives. If I keep the law by not killing, I’m still liable for destroying a life by gossip. If I love my neighbors, it’s likely good for me, but if I love my enemies, it’s likely because I’m good. The law can only manage behavior, but Jesus wants to transform our character.

Thus, Jesus told us not only to not murder, but to deal with our anger. Far more families are destroyed by gossip than homicide. Far more businesses fail through slander than manslaughter.

Jesus said that instead of focusing on not committing adultery, we should not lust; to the point he suggests we amputate our offending limbs. Obviously, this is hyperbole and not to be taken literally. Yet that doesn’t mean it should be taken lightly, particularly with pornography in everyone’s pocket.

Jesus punctuates his call to righteousness in Matthew 5 by telling us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (vs 48).

The word perfect indicates mature or holistic. Jesus was saying we should love holistically, maturely, and openly as God does if we want to carry out his agenda in our culture.

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Son of Man

Posted on April 27, 2025 by billbushauthor

Is Jesus really fully human and fully divine?

“Behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man.” – Daniel 7:13

Son of Man is found 107 times in the Old Testament, 93 of those in the book of Ezekiel. The term can be friendly, but it’s never flattering.

Its use is consistent throughout the entire O.T. with the exception of Daniel 7:13, where Daniel saw a divine figure brought into God’s presence in a stunning power move, as we see in the next verse (Daniel 7:14): “He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.”

Son of Man shows up 85 times in the New Testament, mostly in the Gospels and mostly Jesus using the term for himself.

How can Jesus be the exalted Son of Man who humbles himself on the human plane? That is precisely the point of the Incarnation (Jesus coming to earth in human form). It’s the promise of the Old Testament that God would come to his people and change their destiny.

When we humble ourselves, God exalts us. It’s a hard and fast rule in Scripture. Jesus modeled this spiritual law throughout his life. Son of Man is therefore the perfect title for Jesus. Identifying himself with frail and fragile humans gives space for God alone to exalt him.

That’s why Daniel 7:13 is the only sufficient source for Jesus’s self-designation as Son of Man. It’s a title of humility, to be sure. Yet it’s also the rightful recognition of his role at God’s right hand.

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New Covenant

Posted on April 20, 2025 by billbushauthor

What advantages do Christians have under the new covenant?

“This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” – Jeremiah 31:33-34 (full)

“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” – Jeremiah 31:33-34 (partial)

Jeremiah, known as the weeping prophet, was beaten, mocked, arrested, and threatened for proclaiming God’s words. In Jeremiah 38:6, the king’s officials lowered Jeremiah into a muddy cistern.

Many Bible scholars have noted the similarities between Jeremiah and Jesus. People compared Jesus to Jeremiah (Matthew 16:14), they both wept over Jerusalem (Jeremiah 13:17; Matthew 23:37-39), and Jesus cited Jeremiah’s words on the very spot they were first uttered (Matthew 21:13; Jeremiah 7:11).

In today’s verse, Jeremiah predicts a new and better covenant; a new hope echoed by other Old Testament prophets including Ezekiel (Ezekiel 36:26-27) and Joel (Joel 2:28,32).

The new covenant is different and better from the old covenant (the law) in three ways, according to Mark Moore in Core 52:

  1. Everyone would know God personally without a mediator (Hebrews 4:16; Exodus 29:45; Leviticus 26:12).
  2. Our sins are forgiven through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus (Hebrews 10:19-22).
  3. The internalization of God’s law through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Joel 2:28-32; Acts 2:17-21).

The entire book of Hebrews is an exposition of the superiority of the new covenant. That book can be confusing because it’s written from a Jewish perspective to Jewish converts. Nonetheless, the topic was so substantial (and shocking) that it deserved an entire book of the New Testament to answer our question, “What advantages do Christians have under the new covenant?”

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Atonement

Posted on April 13, 2025 by billbushauthor

How does Jesus’s death cover my sin?

“He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” – Isaiah 53:5

Over half of the uses of the word atonement in the Bible are in a single book—Leviticus—where it describes the role of a sacrifice to cover the sins of the people. Atonement basically means that you owed a debt and somebody else paid it for you.

People need a savior. It was as clear in the Old Testament as it is today. What wasn’t clear until Jesus was that such a Savior would suffer on behalf of his people rather than cause suffering for his enemies. The expectation was that the Messiah would conquer Israel’s enemies, not lay down his own life.

Isaiah 53 is one of four poetic portions of the book of Isaiah that have been labeled as “suffering servant” songs (42:1-9; 49:1-13; 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12).

In Acts 8, an Ethiopian eunuch, reading Isaiah 53, asked Philip to explain the passage. Philip went on to proclaim Jesus as the suffering servant.

Jesus saw himself as the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 (Mark 10:45; Luke 22:37) and in each of the gospels spoke of his death as beneficial for others (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45; Luke 22:19-20; John 12:24, 32).

Every New Testament author except James and Jude describes the substitutionary effect of Jesus’s death (Matthew 20:28; John 11:49-52; Acts 20:28; Romans 3:23-25; 2 Corinthians 5:14-15; Galatians 3:13-14; 1 Timothy 2:5-6; Titus 2:14; Hebrews 9:22, 28; 1 Peter 1:18-19; 1 John 2:2; Revelation 5:9).

There’s a clear and unified voice in the New Testament: through Jesus’s suffering and death, the penalty of our sin was paid. We can therefore live in freedom from sin.

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Wisdom

Posted on April 6, 2025 by billbushauthor

How do I become wise?

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” – Proverbs 1:7

Psalm 1:7 is the theme for the entire book of Proverbs.

Wisdom in the Bible is the ability to practically live out God’s truths in a way that brings health you, your family, and your community.

Biblical wisdom always manifests itself in action. Joshua’s wisdom empowered him to lead the people of Israel (Deuteronomy 34:9), Ezra’s wisdom enabled him to administrate a community (Ezra 7:25). By wisdom, Daniel lived ethically in exile among enemies (Daniel 1:4).

Fear is not the opposite of love. Fear and love are frequently lodged in the same verse (Psalm 103:13; 33:18; 103:11). The crucial question is what we should do when we fear someone. The biblical answer is to obey (Ecclesiastes 12:13; Job 28:28; Psalm 111:10).

As with wisdom, fear of the LORD brings practical and spiritual benefits: Friendship of the LORD (Psalm 25:14); Fearlessness (Deuteronomy 3:22); Comfort of the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:31); Holiness (2 Corinthians 7:1); Health (Proverbs 10:27; 14:27); Praise for God (Psalm 22:23, 25; 40:3; Revelation 19:5; Psalm 34:7-9).

Solomon, the author of Proverbs, was the wisest man to ever live. Jesus was wisdom itself.

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Blessedness

Posted on April 3, 2025 by billbushauthor

How can I be happy?

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” – Matthew 5:11-12 (full)

“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.” – Matthew 5:11-12 (partial)

The longing for happiness is a primal human drive. Jesus presents His path in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). He starts with eight simple statements in Matthew 5:2-12 called the beatitudes, containing the word blessed, which means happy, fortunate, or lucky.

What Jesus said will make us happy is counterintuitive.

Blessed are the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3) – Isn’t it true that those with a deep connection with God seem to have peace even without prosperity?

Blessed are those who mourn (5:4) – Isn’t it true that God often seems closer in times of trouble?

Blessed are the meek (5:5) – Isn’t it true that those with humble and quiet strength eventually outlast the boisterous and brash?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (5:6) – Isn’t it true that the passion for righteousness is more gratifying than the passions of the world?

Blessed are the merciful (5:7) – Isn’t it true that people of mercy are often more respected than people of power?

Blessed are the pure in heart (5:8) – Isn’t it true that a pure heart is a reward of its own?

Blessed are the peacemakers (5:9) – Isn’t it true that the Nobel Prize goes to peacemakers over warriors?

Blessed are those who are persecuted…on my account (5:10) – Isn’t it true that those who suffer for following Jesus are on par with those who’d been persecuted for following God?

Jesus presented himself not only equal to God but as the embodiment of God’s Torah. He followed the beatitudes with comments on six specific Old Testament laws: “You have heard that it was said…But I say” (verses 21-22, 27-28, 31-32, 33-34, 38-39, 43-44). Moses received the law. Jesus is the law.

True happiness is in Jesus. Loyalty to Jesus offers nothing less than inheritance of the kingdom of God. To know God and follow his commands always leads to the blessed life.

Is it any wonder the crowds stood stunned at the end of the Sermon on the Mount (7:28-29)?

The sermon’s big theme turned culture on its head. Lucky are the unlucky as long as they align themselves with Jesus’s words. Christians are part of an upside-down kingdom where losers are winners, the dead live, the poor are rich, and those who pick up a cross experience resurrection.

Why does this actually work? Here’s the secret: happiness comes with having a higher purpose, not possessions or protection.

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Jesus Rejected

Posted on March 30, 2025 by billbushauthor

If Jesus was rejected by his own people, why should I accept him?

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” – Psalm 118:22

Jesus quoted Psalm 118:22 during his final debate in the temple (Mark 12:10), after the parable of the tenants, where the tenants beat everyone the owner sent to check on his vineyard, culminating in them killing the owner’s son (Mark 12:1-12).

The chief priests, teachers of the law, and elders looked for a way to arrest Jesus because they understood He was speaking about them, God, and claiming himself as the Messiah.

Peter quoted it in his first defense before the Sanhedrin (Acts 4:11) and later embedded it in his first letter (1 Peter 2:7). Paul referenced it in Ephesians 2:20, describing the foundation of the church.

They argued that Jesus’s humiliation led to his exultation, a universal biblical principal: When people humble themselves, God lifts them up (James 4:10).

Just when his enemies thought they’d rid themselves of Jesus, come to find out, the humiliation they caused was essential to establishing him as kind of kings. Imagine the stir in the spiritual world when his spiritual enemies realized they had been duped into instigating their own downfall.

As followers of Christ, our path is the same—paved with humiliation ordained by God and essential to our exaltation and establishment as keystones in the temple of God—his church.

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Messiah

Posted on March 23, 2025 by billbushauthor

Is there proof that Jesus is the Messiah promised by God?

“The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” – Psalm 110:1

Did you know that Psalm 110 is quoted more in the New Testament than any other passage?

The Old Testament has dozens of messianic predictions, so when Jesus burst on the scene, Jews of his day already had an idea of what the Messiah would look like.

When Jesus claimed the title of Messiah without meeting expectations, heads turned and tempers flared.

Only Jesus has fulfilled Psalm 110. He’s a human descendent of David who was anointed as both king in the royal lineage and high priest in the line of Melchizedek.

Jesus used Psalm 110:1 to stake his claim to divinity (Matthew 22:41-46), as did Peter (Acts 2:34-36), Paul (Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1), and the author Hebrews (Hebrews 1:3; 8:1; 10:12p 12:2).

When Jesus asked Peter who he thought he was, Peter answered, “You are the Christ (Messiah), the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:15-16).

The question “Who is Jesus? is the single most important question one will ever answer.

Who do you say He is?

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Good Shepherd

Posted on March 16, 2025 by billbushauthor

If the Lord is my shepherd, what’s my obligation to those I lead?

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.” – Psalm 23:1-3

Shepherd is the primary metaphor in the Bible for God as our leader. We see that in Psalm 23. Written by David, who grew up as a shepherd, the great king of Isreal recognized God as the ultimate shepherd.

Old Testament leaders’ rampant disregard for their sheep led to a longing for a better shepherd, the promised Messiah.

Three authors of the New Testament refer to Jesus’s role as a shepherd (Hebrews 13:20-21; 1 Peter 2:25; Revelation 7:17).

David risked his life and killed bear and lion to protect his sheep, foreshadowing the Good Shepherd, God incarnate, who laid down his life for his sheep (John 10:11).

A true shepherd, a true leader, serves not to get something from the sheep but to sacrifice for his flock. Apostles, evangelists, pastors, and elders have the privilege of leading and feeding the sheep if they’re willing to lay down their lives for the sheep.

Shepherding is noble only when we suffer. This is a theological twist that’s incomprehensible to those who don’t know the Good Shepherd—our God who suffered on our behalf.

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