Daily Devotional 10-8-2021
Col 3:12 Therefore, as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, When we need to talk with others about their faults, we should ask for God’s help to resist our tendency to hammer people into submission by dwelling on their failures. Of course, we sometimes need to show them where they have sinned and fallen short of God’s ways. But that should not be the primary focus of our words, because judgment inevitably discourages. With God’s help we can instead offer hope by drawing attention to the wonderful news that God has forgiven our sins through Christ and is eager to help us change our ways.
Daily Devotional 10-5-2021
Exo 34:6 The LORD passed in front of him and proclaimed: The LORD—the LORD is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, The words merciful and gracious convey the idea of “overwhelmingly gracious.” long-suffering: The idea of the Hebrew idiom is that God is very slow to anger. In our idiom, we would say He has “a very long fuse.” The Hebrew word for goodness means “loyal love”; the word for truth means “faithfulness,” “truth,” and “constancy.”
Daily Devotional 9-22-2021
Rom 12:12 Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer. No matter what our present circumstances may be, we can and should rejoice in our hope—the coming of our Savior, the redemption of our bodies, and our eternal glory. We are exhorted to be patient in tribulation—that is, to bear up bravely under it. Such all-conquering endurance is the one thing which can turn such misery into glory. We should continue steadfastly in prayer. It is in prayer that the work is done and victories are won. Prayer brings power in our lives and peace to our hearts. When we pray in the Name of the Lord Jesus, we come the closest to omnipotence that it is possible for mortal man to come. Therefore we do ourselves a great disservice when we neglect to pray.
Daily Devotional 9-10-2021
1Ti 1:16 But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst of them, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his extraordinary patience as an example to those who would believe in him for eternal life. In fact it was just for this purpose – that is, to demonstrate God’s plan to save sinners – that Paul himself was saved. As the worst of sinners, Paul represents the extreme example. If God was patient and gracious enough to save Paul, He is patient and gracious enough to save anyone. All who follow can look back at Paul as a prototype or pattern. The ultimate sinner became the ultimate saint; God’s greatest enemy became His finest servant. Somewhere between these extremes fall all the rest. In studying Paul’s pattern, Christians can therefore learn about themselves.