Devotionals

Romans 8:18-27

"Rome wasn't built in a day." If I heard that once, I heard it a hundred times while I was growing up. I was young and impatient, anxious to reach the goals I felt were important. But there was always this irksome reminder that good things take time and great things take even longer.

Now, however, at long last, I am discovering that stuff about Rome is true. And Paul's words to the century-one Christians who lived there are also truer than ever: "But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it" (Romans 8:25).

From a distance we in the church often look like beautiful people. We're well-dressed. We have nice smiles. We look friendly. We appear cultured, under control...at peace.

But what a different picture comes in view when someone gets up close and in touch! What appeared so placid is really a mixture of winding roads of insecurity and uncertainty...maddening gusts of lust, greed, and self-indulgence...and pathways of pride glazed over with a slick layer of hypocrisy. All this is shrouded in a cloud of fear of being found out.

Isaiah 29:13-16

Fresh-fallen snow blanketed the range of mountains on the northeast rim of the Los Angeles basin. When I caught my first glimpse of it in the distance, I found myself smiling and saying aloud, "Beautiful!" Seventy-five miles away, it was beautiful. Up close, well, that was an entirely different matter.

Psalm 46 

Let me give you two very practical thoughts regarding this matter of God's strength through stress, as found in Psalm 46. 

2 Samuel 16:10-12

Having just held a memorial service for a friend several years younger than I who had died with liver cancer, I have been thinking about how to respond when struck by an arrow of affliction. Not a little irritating dart, but an arrow plunged deeply.

James 4:13-15 

Snap a telescopic lens on your perspective for the next few minutes. Pull yourself up close...close enough to see the real you. From the reflection in your mental mirror, pay close attention to your life. Try your best to examine the inner "you" on the basis of time.

The only way we can do this, of course, is to look in two directions...backward and forward. In many ways what we see in our past and visualize in our future determines how we view ourselves today...in that third dimension we call "the present."

1 Samuel 30:1-6

Flying ace Chuck Yeager has written a book with an inviting title: Press On! A guy with his adventurous background, plus a chest full of medals to prove it, probably has a lot to say about "pressing on." Few will ever know the thrill of breaking sound barriers, but all of us live with the daily challenge of pressing on. The question is how? 

How does the patient go on after the physician breaks the news about the dreaded biopsy? How does the divorcée go on after the divorce is final? How does anyone press on when the bottom drops out? 

Grace frees us to fly. So, fly! Dare I give a few illustrations? Aw, why not? You've had your eye on that sailboat or catamaran or sports car for some time. Why not? You've thought a lot about a cruise or a trip to Europe but never permitted yourself to do more than think. Why not?

Your hairdo has looked the same for three decades. You've wondered about trying something really chic. Why not?

You long to get your degree, but everybody tells you to give up that dream; it's too late. Should you press on? Why not?

1 John 2

The Book of Job drips with mystery. The sobs of the man and the silence of his God form a strange combination. From the start, there are surprises and anomalies. Job is portrayed for us as "blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil" (1:1)...and yet the bottom drops out of his world. He loses everything except his life and his wife. How strange of God to permit one of His own to become the victim of a devil-inspired plot to reduce him to putty.

1 Corinthians 15:57

Victory is not a once-for-all, automatic inheritance. Christians need to be reminded that the life God provides—the abundant life—is not a continuous, unbroken chain of victories. Victory is available, but not automatic. The strength we need is there to be claimed but we should never think of the Christian life as "instant success."

Victory is not an emotional high.

Christians do not gain victory by psyching themselves up or getting in the mood or waiting till it "feels right" to act.

Victory is not a dream reserved for super saints.