Daily Devotional 3-7-2022
2Co 8:2 During a severe trial brought about by affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. These Christians had been going through a great trial of affliction. Ordinarily, people thus tested would seek to save their money to provide for their future. And especially so if they were not very prosperous, as was the case with the Macedonians. They did not have very much money at all. Yet their Christian joy was so overflowing that when the need of the saints in Jerusalem was presented to them, they reversed all ordinary behavior and gave in a most liberal manner. They were able to combine affliction, joy, poverty, and liberality.
Daily Devotional 12-5-2021
Pro 15:13 CSB A joyful heart makes a face cheerful, but a sad heart produces a broken spirit. This refers to a happy heart. Inner joy shows on a person’s face, but inner grief depresses a person’s morale (crushes the spirit). Happiness and depression are issues of the heart. What a person is inwardly has more lasting impact on his emotional state than do his circumstances. Some people hold up under difficult circumstances better than others because of inner strength.
Daily Devotional 11-21-2021
Joh 16:33 I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.” Jesus’ instructions about these things (John chapters 14-16) were intended to sustain them, to give them peace in Him. Believers have a dual existence: they are in Christ and in this world. In union with Jesus, His disciples have peace, but the world exerts a hostile pressure. The world system, the enemy of God and His people, opposed Jesus’ message and ministry. But Jesus won the victory over the system; He has overcome the world. As the “strong man” who came and ruined Satan’s kingdom, Jesus is the Victor. Jesus wanted the disciples to remember this fact and to rejoice in His victory. Take heart! means “Be courageous.” Because He won they, in union with Him, can win also.
Daily Devotional 11-16-21
Joh 14:27 “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful. In New Testament times the normal way to say good-bye was Peace. In His death Jesus provided a legacy for His disciples: My peace I give you. They would have “peace with God” because their sins were forgiven and the “peace of God” would guard their lives. The world is unable to give this kind of peace. Fear of death and fear of the future are removed as Jesus’ followers trust in Him. Thus they need not be troubled.
Daily Devotional 11-7-2021
Heb 2:1 For this reason, we must pay attention all the more to what we have heard, so that we will not drift away. Paul pauses to inject the first of several solemn warnings that are found in the Epistle. This is a warning against drifting away from the message of the gospel. Because of the greatness of the Giver and because of the greatness of His gift, those who hear the gospel must give more serious attention to it. There is always the danger of drifting away from the Person and slipping back into a religion of pictures. This means drifting into apostasy—the sin for which there is no repentance.
Daily Devotional 10-14-2021
2Co 1:20 For every one of God’s promises is “Yes” in him. Therefore, through him we also say “Amen” to the glory of God. All the promises of God, no matter how many they are, find their fulfillment in Christ. All who find in Him the fulfillment of God’s promises add their Amen. Open our Bibles at a promise, we look up to God, and God says, “You can have all that through Christ.” Trusting Christ, we say, “Amen” to God. God speaks through Christ, and we believe in Christ; Christ reaches down and faith stretches up, and every promise of God is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. In and through Him we appropriate and take them to ourselves and say, “Yes, Lord; I trust You.” This is the believing yes. All of this is to the glory of God through us. He is glorified when it dawns on human souls…
Daily Devotional 10-13-2021
Col 1:21-22 Once you were alienated and hostile in your minds expressed in your evil actions. (22) But now he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death, to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him— Reconciliation is necessary because people are alienated (“cut off, estranged”) from life and God. Before conversion the Colossian believers also were enemies or hostile to God in their minds as well as in their behavior, internally and externally. Sin begins in the heart and manifests itself in overt deeds. It pleased the Father by Him (Christ) to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross. In other words, it was not only the Godhead’s good pleasure that all fullness should dwell in Christ, but also that Christ should reconcile all things to Himself. From this, we can see that the expression of God’s Glory in…
Daily Devotional 10-6-2021
Joh 16:21-22 When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her time has come. But when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a person has been born into the world. (22) So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy from you. Jesus illustrated the truth of pain replaced by joy by the pain of childbirth followed by the joy of new life when a child is born. The disciples were entering the process of pain (your time of grief), but the light of joy was just ahead. When they saw Him after His resurrection, their joy erupted – joy that will never end since He died to sin once but now lives forever.
Daily Devotional 10-4-2021
Psa 37:4 Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires. But suppose you have had great desires to carry on a certain ministry for the Lord. You feel confident that He has been leading you, and your only desire is to glorify Him. Yet a powerful adversary has opposed, blocked, and thwarted you at every bend in the road. What do you do in a case like this? The answer is that you delight yourself also in the LORD, knowing that in His own time He shall give you the desires of your heart. It is not necessary for you to fight back. “The battle is not yours, but God’s. “The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace”.
Daily Devotional 9-30-2021
Joh 16:22 So you also have sorrow now. But I will see you again. Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy from you. Jesus illustrated the truth of pain replaced by joy by the pain of childbirth followed by the joy of new life when a child is born. The disciples were entering the process of pain (your time of grief), but the light of joy was just ahead. When they saw Him after His resurrection, their joy erupted – joy that will never end since He died to sin once but now lives forever.