Daily Devotional 3-4-2022
Jas 1:5 Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God—who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly—and it will be given to him. We don’t have to face the problems of life in our own wisdom. If, in the time of trial, we lack spiritual insight, we should go to God and tell Him all about our perplexity and ignorance. All who are thus exercised to find God’s purposes in the trials will be liberally rewarded. And they need not worry that God will scold them either; He is pleased when we are teachable and tractable. We all lack wisdom. The Bible does not give specific answers to the innumerable problems that arise in life. It does not solve problems in so many words, but God’s word does give us general principles. We must apply these principles to problems as they arise day by day. That is why…
Daily Devotional 2-27-2022
Heb 5:13-14 CSB Now everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced with the message about righteousness, because he is an infant. (14) But solid food is for the mature—for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil. It is unsatisfactory to remain a baby in spiritual matters. This is true because a spiritual infant, living on milk… is inexperienced with the teaching about righteousness. It is not so much that a spiritual “infant” lacks information – though at first he obviously does – but rather that he has not yet learned to put “the teaching about righteousness” to effective use. He lacks the skill which goes with maturity and which results in the ability to make appropriate moral choices. Such ability is exactly what is possessed by those who… have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. That kind of person can handle solid food. Once…
Daily Devotional 2-22-2022
Joh 1:16 CSB Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness, All who believe on the Lord Jesus receive supplies of spiritual strength out of His fullness. His fullness is so great that He can provide for all Christians in all countries and in all ages. The expression grace for grace probably means “grace upon grace” or “abundant grace.” Here grace means God’s gracious favor which He showers on His beloved children.
Daily Devotional 9-25-2021
Joh 15:7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. The emphasis in these verses is positive: remain with Jesus and bear much fruit. Effective prayer is based on faith in Christ and on His words remaining in believers. Christ’s words condition and control such a believer’s mind so that his prayers conform to the Father’s will. Since his prayer is in accord with God’s will, the results are certain – it will be given you. Fulfilled prayers bring glory to the Father because, like Jesus, His disciples are doing the heavenly Father’s will.
Daily Devotional 9-20-2021
Psa 42:11 Why, my soul, are you so dejected? Why are you in such turmoil? Put your hope in God, for I will still praise him, my Savior and my God. But faith always has the last word. Don’t be discouraged. Don’t be unsettled. Hope in God; you will be delivered from your enemies and from your depression as well. And you’ll praise Him once again as your Savior and your God. As someone has said: The remedy—challenge depression, look up, hope. The Christian life is alertness, upward striving, activity, the running of a race. It is never downcast eyes, folded hands and the acceptance of defeat.
Daily Devotional 9-13-2021
Deu 7:6 For you are a holy people belonging to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be his own possession out of all the peoples on the face of the earth. The basis for the command to destroy the Canaanites lay in God’s election of Israel. The word translated chosen means “to be chosen for a task or a vocation.” God had selected Israel as His means of sanctifying the earth. Thus, they were holy (set apart for God’s special use) and were His treasured possession. Since the Canaanites were polluting the earth, and since they might endanger Israel’s complete subordination to the will of the Lord, they either had to repent or be eliminated. And as stated, for 400 years they had refused to repent.
Daily Devotional 9-9-2021
Rom 15:14 My brothers and sisters, I myself am convinced about you that you also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another. Though he has never met the Roman Christians, he is confident that they will welcome his admonitions. This confidence is based on what he has heard of their goodness. In addition, he is assured of their knowledge of Christian doctrine, which qualifies them to admonish others.
Daily Devotional 7-26-2021
1Jn 2:5 But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Obedience to God’s Word results in a rich and full experience of God’s love: God’s love is truly made complete in him. In John 14, an obedient disciple is promised a special experience of the love of the Father and Son. Since a Christian is already the object of God’s saving love, this additional, experiential realization of the divine affection may be properly said to make God’s love complete in him. That is to say, an obedient believer has a deep, full-orbed acquaintance with “God’s love.” Since God is love, to know God intimately is to know His love intimately.
Daily Devotional 7-24-2021
1Ti 6:12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. Fight the good fight is the language of athletic contests. Timothy was to give his best effort to this most worthwhile of struggles, the struggle to further the faith. This would involve the complete appropriation at all times of the fact that he possessed eternal life. No way this suggests that Timothy could gain eternal life by his own efforts. To Paul, Christ’s life is the possession of each Christian, not only throughout eternity, but now. It is this new life in Christ to which every Christian is called and which Christians confess by baptism and by word. Timothy’s good confession in the presence of many witnesses could refer to his ordination but more likely speaks of his…
Daily Devotional 7-20-2021
Gal 6:7-8 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. (8) Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Although it is true in a general sense that we reap whatever we sow, it follows an exhortation on Christian giving. Viewed in that light, we see that sowing to the flesh means spending one’s money on oneself, one’s own pleasures and comforts. Sowing to the Spirit is using one’s money for the furtherance of God’s interests. Those who do the former reap a harvest of disappointment and loss right here on earth because they learn as they grow older that the flesh they lived to please is decaying and dying. Then in the age to come they lose eternal rewards. Those who sow to the Spirit will…