Daily Archives: October 23, 2025

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread – Sharpened by Iron

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As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17

Today’s Scripture

Proverbs 27:17-27

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Today’s Devotional

Louise, a project manager, regretted taking on the freelance job. Both the client and designer were testing her patience. Why is it so difficult? she wondered. Why can’t these people get it together?

Weeks later, as she read Proverbs 27, verse 17 stood out—“iron sharpens iron.” “You can’t file down rough edges with something soft, like silk,” she told her small group soon after. “You need something hard, like iron.”

Louise realized that the challenges in the project were smoothing down some rough edges of her own. She was learning to be more patient and humble, and to adapt to different working styles. God, she concluded, was using the project to expose her flaws and teach her new lessons about working with others.

Much of the book of Proverbs extols the value of godly wisdom, but this wisdom doesn’t come easily. It needs to be sought after with obedience and discernment (3:13; 13:20; 19:20), and refined in crucibles and furnaces, with mortars and pestles (27:21-22)—situations that may mean temporary pain and suffering.

Yet the Bible reminds us that challenges come with rewards: In seeking God’s wisdom diligently and obeying His ways, we’ll find true security, satisfaction, and blessing (vv. 26-27).

Reflect & Pray

What lessons can you learn from difficult situations you’re facing? How might God be refining and shaping you to be more like His Son, Jesus?

 

Loving Father, please grant me strength to endure my trials and a humble heart to learn from life’s challenges. Thank You for shaping and molding me each day.

 

Disover more about A Resilient Life.

Today’s Insights

Learning to view troubles and trials as instruments in God’s hand is an important key to our spiritual growth. His goal for us isn’t that we have an easy or pain-free life, but rather that we “be conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29). As fire purifies gold (Proverbs 17:3; 27:21), so the heat of trials can be God’s tool to purify us and make us more like Jesus. Christ’s half brother James affirms this in his letter: “The testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete” (James 1:3-4). Part of walking by faith is trusting that God doesn’t waste anything. We can be sure that when difficult times come, He has a purpose for those trials in refining and shaping us to become more like Jesus.

 

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Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Meditation Produces Success

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My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh.

Proverbs 4:20–22 (NKJV)

When we refer to “meditating,” we mean we ponder something and give it our full attention. A French couple helped me see that meditation is like eating. They will take a bite of food after they have enjoyed the way it looks on the plate. They comment on the pleasant aroma and often mention one or two special ingredients. They chew slowly and deliberately, and they sometimes even comment on how it makes the inside of their mouth feel.

That seems a bit too much for most Americans, but that’s a good picture of meditating on God’s Word. We don’t just wolf down a few words or a verse and hurry on to the next. We pause to reflect on a word, a phrase, or a concept. We compare that scripture with others that come to mind. We feel in no hurry to dash to the end of the chapter. The words are there for us to savor and enjoy. We should learn to be more concerned about quality than quantity. It is more important to get a deep understanding of one verse of Scripture than it is to read five chapters and understand nothing.

Meditating on God’s Word demands discipline. We live in such a fast-paced world that few of us make time to meditate. We should form a habit of setting aside time just to sit and think about God’s Word and the wonderful promises He has made to those who believe in Him. The blessed person mentioned in Psalm 1:2 (AMPC) is the person who meditates on God’s Word by day and by night. The expression “by day and by night” means that it is a major part of a person’s life. It’s a way of saying that thinking about the Word of God should be a regular part of daily activity. This will require casting down wrong thoughts when they come and choosing to think on things that will benefit us. If we keep ourselves focused, it pays off spiritually.

I spend time with God in prayer and in study of His Word each morning, but I also apply the Word to situations that I deal with all throughout the day. During the writing of this devotion, I got some bad news by phone, and my response was to quote and think about various promises in God’s Word. His Word strengthens us and helps us keep our peace and joy.

I titled this “Meditation Produces Success” because it’s important for us to understand that contemplating the meaning of Scripture isn’t simply a good thing to do or an activity reserved for scholars. It’s God’s command to all of us. It is a requirement for true success.

I thought of the instructions to Joshua as he prepared to lead the people into the Promised Land. The first few verses of the Book of Joshua provide God’s direction for him. There were at least two million people going into the land, and the responsibility of leading them was immense.

God promised to be with Joshua as He was with Moses, and He urged the new leader to be very courageous. Then He said, This Book of the Law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe and do according to all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall deal wisely and have good success (Joshua 1:8).

The instructions seem clear. Joshua had the commands of God, and his primary responsibility was to contemplate those words. By immersing himself in the law, he was learning to understand the mind of God more fully. God went on to say that if Joshua kept his mind and heart on the law, he would be prosperous and successful.

Too often people focus on their problems instead of meditating on God’s promises. As they do, their problems seem to get bigger, and God’s power diminishes.

God doesn’t want Satan to fill your mind. He doesn’t want you to give him the opportunity to inject wrong and negative thoughts into your head. For the devil to control your life, all he needs to do is control your thoughts. Make a decision right now that you will not allow him to do that. Don’t let him defeat you.

Prayer of the Day: Father God, You have told me to meditate on Your Word, and I ask You to help me do that. I want Your Word to be the focus of my life. When problems come, help me turn to Your Word immediately. When Satan attacks my mind, remind me to counterattack with Your Word. As I meditate on Your Word regularly, I believe I will see good progress in my life. I ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.

 

http://www.joycemeyer.org

Denison Forum

Denison Forum – Children’s Bible stories published with social justice focus

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A group of new children’s storybook Bibles is being published to reflect a progressive focus on diversity, inclusion, and social justice. One is The Just Love Story Bible, a “justice-oriented” storybook for children ages four to ten. Authored by Rev. Jacqui Lewis and Rev. Shannon Daley-Harris, it features fifty-two Bible stories and illustrations portraying characters in black, brown, and tan skin tones.

The authors said they hope to prompt children to ask questions and challenge traditional beliefs about God, Jesus, and the biblical narrative. For example, Lewis describes her storybook’s presentation of Jesus’ resurrection: “Did that happen? For me, it matters more that children know that love never dies, so that’s where I landed.”

Rev. Lewis’s bio on her church’s website describes her congregation as “a Christian universalist, multicultural, multiethnic rainbow coalition” that “understands what Jacqui preaches: Love liberates. Love. Period.”

This focus is not new, of course. Rob Bell generated controversy with his book a few years ago, Love Wins, in which he argues for a universalist theology that rejects the existence of hell. When people debate same-sex relationships and marriage, an LGBTQ advocate will inevitably proclaim the mantra “love is love,” as though this wins the argument and ends the discussion.

But does it?

Love is a verb

Yesterday we focused on the power of love to change the world. But not just any love from any source expressed in any way: God’s love manifested by God’s Spirit when we make God’s Son our Lord.

Let’s think about this for a moment.

A philosopher would say that love has no ontological status, meaning that it has no independent existence. We say that we “feel love” for someone, but we do not feel love unless it is for someone. Try this yourself: attempt to “feel love” right now in the abstract, apart from a particular object of that love.

Similarly, we say we “act in love,” but we cannot do so unless our action is directed at someone. Try to “act in love” right now in the abstract, apart from a particular object.

As Stephen Covey observed, love is a verb rather than a noun. So if someone says that “love liberates” or “love wins” or “love is love,” we need to know more. Who is the one loving? Who is the one being loved? What is the nature of this love?

Consider:

  • David’s love affair with Bathsheba led to deceit and murder (2 Samuel 11).
  • Solomon’s love for “many foreign women” turned him to idolatry and led to the division of his kingdom (1 Kings 11).
  • German boys and girls who joined the Hitler Youth swore “always to do my duty with love and loyalty, for the Führer and our flag” (my emphasis)
  • The ACLU is backing a drive to challenge bigamy laws, part of a larger move to normalize and legalize polyamorous and polygamous “love.”
  • Wikipedia lists a large number of pedophile groups advocating for sexual “love” between adults and children.

“The gospel is bad news before it is good news”

Our problem with love is its source: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9). Jesus described our “heart condition” this way: “from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness” (Mark 7:21–22).

As a result, we need a spiritual heart transplant. We need the “new heart” only God can give us (Ezekiel 36:26) when we are “born again” as his children through faith in his Son (John 1:12; 3:3). Frederick Buechner said of this reality:

The gospel is bad news before it is good news. It is the news that man is a sinner, to use the old word, that he is evil in the imagination of his heart, that when he looks in the mirror all in a lather what he sees is at least eight parts chicken, phony, slob. That is the tragedy. But it is also the news that he is loved anyway, cherished, forgiven, bleeding to be sure, but also bled for. That is the comedy.

According to Tim Keller, “The gospel is this: we are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”

Here’s the catch: We must experience the risen Lord Jesus personally to experience the transformation he can make in our lives. He alone can forgive our sins, save our souls, transform our character, and manifest himself in and through us.

“Love wins” when it is his love.

God’s word assures us: “The Lᴏʀᴅ your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs” (Zephaniah 3:17 NLT). Commenting on this promise, First15, our devotional ministry, quotes Brennan Manning:

“My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.”

Will you make his “awareness” yours today?

Quote for the day:

“We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that he should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at his love, bewildered that at this very moment we are standing on holy ground.” —Brennan Manning

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Denison Forum

Days of Praise

Days of Praise – Order and Steadfastness

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by Henry M. Morris III, D.Min.

“For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ.” (Colossians 2:5)

Apparently, the church at Colossae had a reputation for structure. No doubt godly elders kept vigilance on their behalf. Perhaps they were guided by the clear rules in Proverbs 4:20-26.

  • “Incline thine ear unto my sayings.”
  • “Keep them in the midst of thine heart.”
  • “Keep thy heart with all diligence.”
  • “Put away from thee a froward mouth.”
  • “Let thine eyes look right on.”
  • “Ponder the path of thy feet.”
  • “Let all thy ways be established.”

There was an obvious steadfastness to their faith—a “stiffened” and even “obstinate” faith, as the Greek term implies. These believers were not babes in Christ, nor were they easily swayed by “enticing words” (Colossians 2:4). But as important as those attributes were, it was necessary to extend the church atmosphere and function into a lifestyle that each member embraced (Colossians 2:6).

The reader may remember that the disciples were first labeled “Christians” in Antioch (Acts 11:26). The name was meant to be derogatory, but it was given because the lifestyles of Christ’s followers reflected His teachings.

The basis for this identity is “that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not practice the truth: but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:5-7). “Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8). HMM III

 

 

https://www.icr.org/articles/type/6

My Utmost for His Highest

My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers – Not a Bit of It!

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If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! — 2 Corinthians 5:17

Our Lord never nurses our prejudices; he destroys them. We imagine that God has a special interest in our personal preferences. We’re sure he’ll never deal with us as he does with others. We think, “Well, of course God has to handle those people in a very stern way, but he knows my prejudices are OK.” Not a bit of it! Instead of God being on the side of our prejudices, he is deliberately wiping them out. It’s part of our moral education to have our prejudices pierced straight through by his providence.

God wants only one thing from us: unconditional surrender. When we are born again, the Holy Spirit begins to work his new creation inside us, and a time will come when the old life will have gone entirely—the old sense of self-importance, the old attitudes and bigotries. Then we will be a “new creation,” knowing that “all this is from God” (2 Corinthians 5:17–18).

How are we to get this new life? The life that has no lust, no self-interest, no oversensitivity? How will we get the love that is not easily angered, that thinks no evil, that is always kind (1 Corinthians 13:4–6)? The only way is by allowing nothing of the old life to remain—only simple, perfect trust in God, such trust that we no longer want God’s blessings, only God himself. Have we come to the place where God can withdraw his blessings and it doesn’t shake our trust in him? Once we’ve seen God at work, we will never again worry ourselves about what happens. All our trust will be in our Father in heaven, whom the world cannot see.

Jeremiah 1-2; 1 Timothy 3

Wisdom from Oswald

We are in danger of being stern where God is tender, and of being tender where God is stern. The Love of God—The Message of Invincible Consolation, 673 L

 

 

https://utmost.org/

Billy Graham

Billy Graham – Where Is Heaven?

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I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me.

—Luke 22:29

Many people have asked, “Where is heaven?” We are not told in the Scripture where heaven is. Some students have tried to take some Scriptures and put them together and say that heaven is in the north. They quote Psalm 48:2, “The joy of the whole earth is . . . on the sides of the north . . . ” The magnetic needle points north. Perhaps the Celestial City is in the north. We do not know. But no matter where heaven is, it will be where Christ is.

Many people ask, “Do you believe that heaven is a literal place?” Yes! Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you.” The Bible teaches that Enoch and Elijah ascended in a literal body to a literal place that is just as real as Los Angeles, London, or Algiers! The Bible also teaches that heaven will be a place of beauty. It is described in the Bible as “a building of God”-“a city”-“a better country”-“an inheritance”-“a glory.”

The Bible also indicates that heaven will be a place of great understanding and knowledge of things that we never learned down here.

Prayer for the day

Living Lord Jesus, the knowledge that You have prepared a place for me in heaven brings comfort and delight to my soul!

 

 

https://billygraham.org/

GuidePosts

Guideposts – Devotions for Women – Embrace Autumn’s Solitude

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The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.—Psalm 34:18 (ESV)

In the solitude of autumn, recognize that the Lord is near. Embrace this season as an opportunity for introspection and connection with the One who heals your hurts and directs you toward a fulfilling life. As the trees shed their leaves, let go of your burdens and find comfort in His presence.

Lord, may the beauty of Your presence fill the lonely places of my heart and spirit.

 

 

https://guideposts.org/daily-devotions/devotions-for-women/devotions-for-faith-prayer-devotions-for-women/