Daily Devotionals

Read Romans 8:28

That first Christmas, all eyes were on Augustus — the cynical Caesar who demanded a census so as to determine a measurement to enlarge taxes even further. At such a time, who was interested in a young couple making an eighty-mile trip south from Nazareth? What could possibly be more important than Caesar’s decisions in Rome ... or his puppet Herod’s edicts in Judea? Who cared about a tiny baby born to an unknown teenage Jewessin an obscure Bethlehem barn?

God did.

Read Luke 1:19

Take a trip out of time and space.

With the help of your imagination, let yourself be pulled from the gravity of this planet and move into the space beyond the earth’s dimension — that mysterious realm where angels dwell.

It’s easy to forget we live in two parallel worlds. One is our world ... tangible and visible — a world of roads and houses and barns and trees and lakes and seas and shores and dogs and cats and days and nights and nations and politicians.

Read Psalm 5:1–12

Songs are usually born out of surrounding circumstances that so affect the thinking of the composer, he cannot help but burst forth with a melody and an accompanying set of lyrics describing his plight. This is certainly the case with the blues and jazz of yesteryear as well as the old spirituals of days gone by and the romantic love songs of any era. The same has often been true of gospel songs and sacred hymns; their historical settings explain their message.

Psalm 1:1–6

The central lesson in Psalm 1 is this: there is not the slightest similarity between the spiritually accelerating life of the righteous and the slowly eroding life of the wicked. Take time to ponder the bold contrasts:

Read Psalm 1:4–6

A key observation in Psalm 1:4–6 is contrast. Don't miss the many things that are quite the opposite from the preceding verses. "The wicked are not so, but they are like chaff which the wind drives away."

"Not so!" That is exactly how verse 4 begins in the Hebrew Bible. It is an emphatic negative assertion. Literally, it says, "Not so, the wicked!" It refers back to the three preceding verses describing the righteous, godly believer, who:

Read Psalm 1:1–3

As I read Psalm 1, three illustrations from the Bible flash into my mind. Two men flirted with evil, then fell; but there was one other who refused to begin a "walk in the counsel of the wicked."The first two illustrations involve Lot and Samson; the third is Joseph. People the world over are familiar with Samson, whose life is best described in Proverbs 5:20–23:

Read Psalm 1:1–3

Read Psalm 1:1–6

The Hebrews' ancient hymnal begins with a song that addresses one of life's most common grinds: compromise. Please understand, I'm not referring to those give-and-take times so necessary for living in harmony with one another. Without that healthy kind of compromise, nations could never find a meeting ground for peaceful co-existence and family members would forever be at each other's throats.

Read Galatians 3:29

The Bible doesn’t try to paint its heroes as anything but real people with real flaws.

Consequently, Abraham becomes real, not despite his frailties, but because of them. Like all real people, he had weaknesses. Some of them are disappointing to look at, but they help us see the whole man. And those weaknesses help us learn how to regard our own.

Read Hebrews 11:9

In the book of Hebrews, Abraham is praised for believing God’s promises.

God called Abraham to move to a place where he didn’t know a soul. He had no permanent place to live, no community to rely upon for support, and no one to call in times of trouble. When he left Ur, he left the security of a permanent place of residence. He was able to live apart from established and secure human communities only because he “was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations” (Hebrews 11:10).