Category: Daily Devotions

“True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin.” (Malachi 2:6) From the very first chapter of Genesis, it’s clear that a relationship with God is the foundation upon which everything in our lives must be built.…

“One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.” (Proverbs 18:24) “Friend” is a watered-down word. Here is a noun that, through social media, has been turned into a verb, and also has come to mean something much different than it should. It’s no…

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds …” (James 1:2) It takes a long time and an incredible amount of pressure to turn a worthless piece of carbon into a valuable diamond. That’s why James writes: “Consider it a sheer gift … when tests and challenges come at you…

“Jesus answered them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’” (Luke 5:31-32) An elder of the inner-city church where I served advised me that if I was serious about connecting with families in the local neighborhood, I had…

“But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” (Job 23:10) Job lost his family and his fortune in a single day. Yet, looking back he wrote, “When he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” It takes much more heat to produce…

“You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” (John 15:3) Your new nature is programmed to want to obey God in much the same way a calculator is programmed to compute numbers. When you put in the right information, you get the right response. And when you feed your new…

“On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’” (John 20:19) Have you ever felt ashamed? I realize that’s kind of a dumb question to…

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” (James 1:22) James writes: “Prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural…

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah.” (John 1:41) Today’s Bible reading is about Jesus’ first followers and how they invited others to come and meet him. John (the baptizer) had met Jesus the day before, and he learned from God that Jesus…