Daily Devotionals

Isaiah 55:8

God is the Potter; we are the clay. He's the Shepherd; we are the sheep. He's the Master; we are the servant. 

No matter how educated we are, no matter how much power and influence we may think we have, no matter how long we have walked with Him, no matter how significant we may imagine ourselves to be in His plan...none of that qualifies us to grasp the first particle of why He does what He does when He does it and how He chooses to do it.

1 John 2:15

If you want to stay clean, even when you're walking alone in the dark, low-ceilinged coal mine of the corrupt and secular culture, you need to remember a few practical things—four come to mind.

1. Pay close attention to what you look at.... Our eyes seem to be the closest connection to our minds.  

2. Give greater thought to the consequences of sin than to its pleasures.... Nobody ever mentions the ugly underside of pleasurable sins. 

Genesis 6:17-18

God informed Noah of His plan: He was going to destroy the world with a flood. 

So for 120 years, by faith, Noah followed the Lord's leading. He gathered the materials; he built the ark, probably to the ridicule of everyone around him. After all, this was a world that had never known rain; the earth was watered from beneath. 

Ecclesiastes 8:17

There are numerous riddles in life that remain wrapped in mystery and shrouded inside an enigma. 

The sea, for example, is an unexplainable phenomenon.... There are diseases that still remain a mystery...yet we seem to have little trouble going on through life with dozens of riddles still unanswered, hundreds of mysteries still unsolved.

Ecclesiastes 9:11

Psalm 140:7

If you determine to live according to biblical standards, be sure that your enemy is seeking to devour you. You will encounter the darts of the Devil. 

Someone put it this way: "Whoever desires to walk with God walks right into the crucible." All who choose godliness live in a crucible. The tests will come. But all is not lost. Far from it! 

Our great hope and assurance is that the One in us is greater than the one in the world.

Romans 11:33-34

The New American Standard declares that last phrase: "How unfathomable His ways!" 

Maybe you've come to discover this in your own experience. You've tried to "trace out His path" and you can't pull it off. You've tried to fathom His "unfathomable" ways and you can't. It just doesn't compute. It blows your microprocessor. 

Ecclesiastes 3:22

We usually can do very little to change our lot. We can only change our reaction to our lot. 

We cannot change our past, for example. I don't care how brilliant we are, our past stands in concrete. We cannot erase it. 

But we can learn today to see our past from God's perspective, and use the disadvantages of yesterday in our life—today and forever.

Romans 14:13 

Each one of us belongs to the same Lord. When we stop dictating, it is easier for others to mature as they follow the Lord's directing.

Freeing others means we never assume a position we're not qualified to fill. This, in one sentence, is enough to stop any person from judging another. We're not qualified. We lack full knowledge. 

How often we have jumped to wrong conclusions, made judgmental statements, only to find out later how off base we were...then wished we could cut off our tongue.

What keeps us from being qualified to judge?

Prayer is never something we do to be seen. It loses its whole purpose if it becomes a platform to impress others. 

It is a private act of devotion, not a public demonstration of piety. According to Jesus, it belongs in the closet of our lives, an act done in secret.

Christ never saw prayer as pleading or begging or hammering away at the throne of God. 

No, the Father knows His children, He knows what we need. Therefore, there is no reason to think that connecting with Him requires special words excessively repeated.