Devotionals

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.

Isaiah 64:6-7

Whoever is soft on depravity should go see Schindler's List. It's not for the faint-hearted, I warn you. It is a raw, harsh, shocking exposé of unbridled prejudice, the kind of anti-Semitic prejudice spawned in hellish hate among the Nazis prior to and during World War II.

1 Peter 1:13-2:3

I don't know anyone who would build a summer home at the base of Mount Vesuvius, and it would be tough trying to get campers to pitch their tents where Big Foot had been spotted. No family I know is interested in vacationing in a houseboat up the Suez Canal.

And yet there are Christians running loose today who flirt with risks far greater than these. And they do so with such calm faces you'd swear they had ice water in their veins.

Numbers 27:12–23

Then Moses said to the LORD, “O LORD, you are the God who gives breath to all creatures. Please appoint a new man as leader for the community. Give them someone who will guide them wherever they go and will lead them into battle, so the community of the LORD will not be like sheep without a shepherd.” (Numbers 27:15–17)

Numbers 20:1–13

Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with the staff, and water gushed out. So the entire community and their livestock drank their fill.

But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough to demonstrate my holiness to the people of Israel, you will not lead them into the land I am giving them!” (Numbers 20:11–12)