Category: Daily Devotions

“By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.” (John 5:30) Know who you are trying to please. Jesus didn’t try to please everybody, so isn’t it foolish for you to try to do something…

“Who are you?” they asked. “Just what I have been claiming all along,” Jesus replied. (John 8:25) Jesus was constantly under pressure. There were grueling demands on His time. He rarely had personal privacy, and He was constantly interrupted. People repeatedly misunderstood, criticized, and ridiculed Him. He was under enormous stress, yet He remained at…

“Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.” (Isaiah 1:17) In New Testament times society had no welfare system. That’s why the apostle James wrote, “Religion that God … accepts … is … to look after orphans and widows” (James 1:27). This…

“Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior. His father was Gilead; his mother was a prostitute.” (Judges 11:1) Sociologists tell us that human behavior is largely determined by two things: our parents and our environment. Judging by that, they’d have written Jephthah off as a lost cause! But not God. His Word says, “Do not…

“To everything there is a season … a time to laugh … to dance … to love.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) When did you last take time to laugh, to dance, and to love? Can you even remember? In the words of an unknown poet: “This is the age of the half-read page; the quick hash and…

“We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.” (1 John 3:14) We are saved by God’s love and not by our love. We don’t love God so that He might love us. We don’t love our neighbor hoping to merit…

“For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance…” (Hebrews 9:15) When we think of an inheritance, we usually think about something a person receives from a relative or friend who has died. The inheritance is given as part of the deceased…

“Then the prophet Jeremiah spoke to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the Lord; and the prophet Jeremiah said, ‘Amen! May the Lord do so; may the Lord fulfill the words that you have prophesied, and bring back to this place…

“How much more, then, will the blood of Christ … cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (Hebrews 9:14) When our kids play outside and get a bit sweaty, we will often say to them, “OK, jump in the shower and do a quick rinse-off.”…