Devotionals

Proverbs 31:27-28

What does motherhood require?

Transparent tenderness, authentic spirituality, inner confidence, unselfish love, and self-control

Quite a list, isn't it? Almost more than we should expect. Perhaps that explains why Erma Bombeck used to say that motherhood takes 180 movable parts and three pairs of hands and three sets of eyes...and, I might add, the grace of God.

If you happen to be a mother, here's one guy who applauds your every effort. Five cheers for all you do!...

Psalm 146:8

Do you know what God's fresh, new morning message is to us? Whether the sun is shining brightly or whether it's pouring down rain? Whether the morning is bright or whether it's grey and overcast?

His promise is the dawn itself...

Every morning the Lord comes through with His encouraging message, "We're still on speaking terms, you know! I'm here. I haven't moved. Let's go together today."...

Trust God to remember you.

He won't forget your name. He won't forget your circumstances, He certainly won't forget your prayers....

1 Samuel 18

Who would've ever guessed it? Out of the blue came this nobody. He had spent his youth working for his dad in the quiet, rugged outdoors. Now, suddenly, he was the most famous man in the country. But he couldn't wait to retreat to the hills where life was simple and uncluttered.

Philippians 1:1-11

I remember the year NBA stars Michael Jordan and Earvin "Magic" Johnson were vying for the Most Valuable Player award. That year it was incredibly close, and the final tally resulted in Johnson's winning the award by the narrowest of margins. The choice boiled down to an understanding of the definition of "valuable" as opposed to the definition of "outstanding."

Ephesians 4:1-7

Ever felt weird because you were "normal"? I remember the first time I had that feeling. I was a teenager surrounded by other teenagers in a testimony meeting. One girl, with tears running down her face, told of an alcoholic father who beat her mother almost every weekend. She described how she would hide in the closet lest she become a target of his drunken rage. Then she told how her friend at school had led her to Christ.

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.