Daily Archives: August 13, 2026

Turning Point

Turning Point; David Jeremiah – Train Up a Child

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Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6

Recommended Reading: Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Tradition from the biblical world records a practice of mothers with their newborn infants. To stimulate the nursing reflex, a mother would rub the juice from a crushed date on the lips and palate of the infant to stimulate the sucking reflex. That idea is consistent with the meaning of the Hebrew word for “train up” (or “start”) in Proverbs 22:6. The word for “train up” is also translated as “dedicate”—as in dedicating a house or a temple (Deuteronomy 20:5; Ezra 6:16; 1 Kings 8:63).

Initiate, start, dedicate, train up—all are in the semantic range of meaning when it comes to raising a child so he will not leave the moral and spiritual “way” when he is old. The book of Proverbs suggests two primary means for raising a child in “the way”: instruction and correction (discipline). Instruction identifies the way and starts him on it; correction puts him back on the way should he stray from it.

If you are a parent or grandparent, keep these two priorities in clear focus for the children in your family.

Children need to be trained, not just in the facts of life, but in the ways of life.
Anonymous

 

 

 

https://www.davidjeremiah.org

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread – Jesus’ Witness

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You will be [Jesus’] witness to all people of what you have seen and heard. Acts 22:15

Today’s Scripture

Acts 22:12-16

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Today’s Devotion

I’ve heard it said, “We can’t make our children believe. We can only give our children reason to believe what we believe.” That’s a wise observation—but how do we do it?

Of all people to take parenting advice from, the apostle Paul is seldom the first choice. It’s likely that he had no children. Parents often prefer to hear from someone who’s been there, done that, someone who knows about sleepless infants, the storms of puberty, and how it feels to pray for a prodigal. Yet Paul (or Saul) has something to teach us here.

Saul had been on his way to persecute Christians when Christ intervened. This man fell to the ground, blinded (Acts 9:1-9). Soon he was visited by Ananias, who restored his sight and explained his mission: “The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. You will be his witness to all people of what you have seen and heard” (22:14-15). Saul, later called Paul, did witness, and God gave him a quiverful of spiritual offspring. His “parenting approach” was to share what he’d seen, and to pray.

Whether parenting our own children or interacting with others, we can’t make them believe. Rather, we witness with our words and lives as to what we’ve seen and heard. And we pray. Our God, who sent Paul to the gentiles, sends us with the same instruction: Witness so they may believe. Then entrust them to our Father, who loves them.

Reflect & Pray

What children are in your sphere of influence? How might you share your faith with them?

Heavenly Father, may our children believe in You.

Today’s Insights

Why do we believe the apostle Paul had no children? We can infer this from what the Bible tells us about him. By his own admission, it seems he didn’t have a wife (1 Corinthians 9:5). And prior to his conversion to Christ, he’d been a law-abiding Pharisee “zealous for God” (Acts 22:3). It’s highly unlikely that such a law-keeper would have children outside of marriage. It’s possible that Paul may have been married and then widowed, but there’s no indication of this in Scripture. In addition, he strongly implies that he has the gift of singleness (1 Corinthians 7:7). Twice he refers to “my true son” in the faith (1 Timothy 1:2; Titus 1:4). But “son” refers to spiritual children he introduced to Jesus and then discipled, not to physical progeny. Today, we can ask God to help us share our faith with the children and others that God places in our path.

 

 

 

http://www.odb.org

Denison Forum

Denison Forum – Trump, Xi, and Two Empty Chairs: Remembering the Persecuted

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Toward the end of their summit in Beijing this past May, President Donald Trump and Chairman Xi Jinping fielded questions on matters ranging from trade to tech to Taiwan while seated in plush chairs on a gold-and-white embroidered carpet.

At the same time, hundreds of Christians in the United States focused their attention not on the two world leaders in those chairs, but on two other individuals not present: Pastor Ezra Jin, founder of the large underground Zion Church in China, and Ilham Tohti, a prominent Uyghur economist and professor.

Both men have faced the consequences of standing for their distinct faiths under the grip of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Pastor Jin, a Christian, was detained in October 2025 as part of a nationwide crackdown on unregistered “house churches.” Ilham Tohti, a Uyghur Muslim, has been serving a life imprisonment since 2014 after peacefully advocating for his community.

Tohti’s case is emblematic of the growing repression toward ethnic minorities in China. Specifically, Uyghurs, a Turkic people in western China and predominantly Muslim, are an ethnoreligious group that the first Trump administration identified as suffering a genocide.

Continue reading Denison Forum – Trump, Xi, and Two Empty Chairs: Remembering the Persecuted →

Greg Laurie

Harvest Ministries; Greg Laurie – A Loyal Love

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 Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me. 

—Psalm 51:10

Scripture:

Psalm 51:10 

Love is not always a pretty or pleasant thing, especially in its earliest form. No matter how long you’ve been married, you probably still remember the first stirrings of love and passion that you felt for your spouse-to-be. You remember the feelings of butterflies in your stomach that sometimes felt like fighter jets. You remember the loss of appetite. You remember the nervousness and the overwhelming desire to make the best impression possible.

For better or worse, those feelings don’t last—at least, not in the intensity of their original form. Passion’s fire cools to smoldering embers that can still be ignited, but they don’t burn as intensely or as continuously as they once did.

If given the chance, the wild, unpredictable stirrings of first love can settle into something more substantial, more profound, and more permanent. The problem is that many people don’t understand that. They allow their feelings to dictate their actions. They convince themselves that when the emotional excitement isn’t there on a daily basis, they’ve fallen out of love, and the relationship isn’t working out. “We have irreconcilable differences,” they conclude, “so let’s just end things now.” Then they move on to another relationship because they don’t have a clue as to what real love is.

The same thing can happen in our relationship with the Lord. The excitement of first coming to faith—of having our sins forgiven, of being aware of God’s boundless love and mercy, of knowing where we will go when we die—can be overwhelming, in the best possible sense. The feelings can be intense. Over time, however, those feelings subside. And when they do, we may start to question our relationship with the Lord.

Instead of drifting apart from Him, we need to double down on our commitment. We need to deepen our relationship with God instead of being guided by our feelings. We need to set a workable pace for our walk with the Lord, to be content to grow gradually every day instead of expecting mountaintop experience after mountaintop experience.

The psalmist wrote, “Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a loyal spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10 NLT). Loyalty is the key—being true to the Lord regardless of your feelings.

Certainly, there will be times of revival when the embers of your love for God are reignited, and the passion burns intensely again. And we should embrace those moments for the gifts they are. But we must never lose sight of the fact that ours is more than just a journey of feeling; it’s also a journey of faith. So, we must continue to deepen our love for God through daily prayer, Bible study, and other habits that help us draw near to Him. We must remember that we are in it for the long haul. We are running a marathon, not a sprint. And we want to finish the race well.

 

Reflection question: How can you build a relationship with the Lord based on loyalty instead of emotions? Discuss this with believers like you on Harvest Discipleship!

 

 

 

Harvest.org | Greg Laurie

Days of Praise

Days of Praise – The Righteous Judge

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by Henry M. Morris, Ph.D.

“The LORD is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works.” (Psalm 145:17)

When Abraham was interceding with God to spare Sodom if even 10 righteous people were there, he asked, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25). The Hebrew word (mishpat) refers to a formal judgment about right and wrong and is more commonly translated “judgment.”

Indeed, the divine Judge will do right and give right judgments in all things, for He “is righteous in all his ways” and “canst not look on iniquity” (Habakkuk 1:13).

Ever since Adam disobeyed the Word of God, however, all his descendants have been unrighteous in their ways. God’s righteous judgment has been that “there is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10).

Thus, the truly righteous Judge would not only have to consign Sodom to destructive “brimstone and fire from the LORD” (Genesis 19:24) but every one of us as well “into the lake of fire” forever (Revelation 20:15).

But God, being not only the righteous Judge but also “a faithful Creator” (1 Peter 4:19), had a plan whereby He could “declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past” and both “be just, and the justifier” of those who had been lost sinners (Romans 3:25–26). “God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh” (8:3). Those who believe on the Son of God as their substitute and Savior are now “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (3:24).

So, Christ has been “made unto us . . . righteousness” (1 Corinthians 1:30). Furthermore, our loving Savior has now Himself become our righteous Judge, for the Father “hath committed all judgment unto the Son” (John 5:22). HMM

 

 

 

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

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Works That Don’t Work

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My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, and they have hewn for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns which cannot hold water.

Jeremiah 2:13 (AMPC)

The Word teaches that God’s people dug wells for themselves that couldn’t hold water. I know what it is like to work hard with no results. I spent many years of my life digging empty wells like these, and I can tell you, it really wears you out.

You may be digging an empty well right now. You may be working on something or somebody. You may have your own little project going. You may be following your own plan, trying to make things happen in your own strength and ability. If so, it is not going to work if you have left God out of your plan. Many times, we make a plan and then pray for it to work. God wants us to pray first and ask Him for His plan. After we have His plan, then He wants us to trust Him to bring it to pass, as we follow His direction and work in partnership with Him.

Our activity birthed out of the flesh actually prevents God from showing Himself strong in our lives. The Bible describes that kind of activity as works of the flesh (Gal.5:19–21 KJV). I call them “works that don’t work.” That is not the way to live the higher life that God prepared for us.

Prayer of the Day: Lord, I don’t want to dig empty wells in my own strength. Please help me seek Your plan first, and give me the trust to follow Your direction instead of my own, amen.

 

 

http://www.joycemeyer.org

Max Lucado

Max Lucado – The Enemy of the Saint 

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The prophet Elijah was headline news in the nation. He was also a sitting duck for a big head. So, in a preemptive measure, God led him to a creek where Elijah would be utterly dependent upon a brook for water and some birds for food.

The enemy of the saint is pride. We must fight it like the foe it is. Take note of your “hat size.” Are you getting a big head? Then volunteer for menial tasks—wash dishes, sweep floors.

You are loved but not indispensable. You are God’s child but not God’s golden child. You have a place in God’s plan, but you are not essential to God’s plan. The smaller we are, the more room there is for God.

 

 

 

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Today in the Word

Today in the Word – Moody Bible Institute – Good News

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Read Mark 1:1–8

When you have good news to share, how do you communicate it? Do you phone a friend, send a group text to family, or post on social media? When Jesus’ disciple Mark had the best news to share, he wrote the Gospel of Mark. Although he originally wrote to the church during his lifetime, his account has been received by every subsequent generation of the faithful.

Mark begins with this direct proclamation: “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God” (v. 1). His purpose is evident. Everything that follows is “good news”—a message to be proclaimed, received, and applied.

Notice that Mark immediately anchors his good news in the Old Testament (vv. 2–3), demonstrating that God’s communication with His people through the centuries is continuous, coherent, and cohesive. The prophecies of Isaiah and Malachi foretold another messenger—a whole “strategic communication plan.” God would send John the Baptist to get people’s attention and ready their hearts. The setting for John’s communication was the wilderness— an undistracted place where God had already met His people many times (Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy).

John’s message was concise and confrontational. He preached repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of sins (v. 4). People came from all over Judea to hear and confess (v. 5). John was not just sharing information; this message was transformational. When people responded, they would never be the same. John had dedicated his whole life to communicating this good news. Even his clothing and food choices spoke to his focus and humility. He did not draw attention to himself but pointed his audience toward the One yet to come and the salvation He would bring.

Go Deeper

Describe all the ways in which John communicated the good news. How does your life communicate this message?

Pray with Us

Jesus, we do not want to keep the good news of the gospel to ourselves. Give us wisdom and confidence to share it with those who need it. In You, we have everlasting life!

I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way—a voice of one calling in the wilderness.Mark 1:2–3

 

 

 

https://www.moodybible.org/