In those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, and never will be. And if the Lord had not cut short the days, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days.

Mark 13:19-20

At the very heart of the greatest drama in history is the amazing encounter that’s first hinted at in Genesis chapter 3: Christ is the one who has come, and will come, to vanquish the Evil One. Through His death on the cross, Jesus bruised the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15) and secured eternal victory for His people. But for us the battle is not yet over. Behind every act of hatred, every broken marriage, every act of injustice—all that represents chaos and carnage and wickedness—the Evil One still engages in his skirmishes, seeking to destroy until he himself is destroyed.

The Christian lives in light of this tension, this reality: there will be trials and tribulations for the totality of our earthly pilgrimage, yet we never need to lose heart or hope. We can stand firm in our faith because Christ is the great Conqueror. Though His victory is not yet fully realized or expressed, it is no less complete, for the cross has disarmed Satan and his followers (Colossians 2:13-15).

Jesus warned us that tribulation would take place—and increasingly so until His return. He commands us to “be on guard” (Mark 13:23, 33) that we might not be led astray. In other words, Jesus forewarned us so that we might be forearmed for suffering. When it confronts us, we should not be taken by surprise, because our Captain has readied us.

We are not to be alarmed by “wars and rumors of wars,” by nation rising against nation, or by an increase in devastating natural calamities (Mark 13:7-8). The Lord tells us that some believers will even “be beaten” (v 9), “deliver[ed] … over to death” (v 12), and, above all, “hated by all for [Christ’s] name’s sake” (v 13). In addition, “false christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, the elect” (v 22).

In the middle of all the chaos, however, we can remember where God’s focus lies: on His people, His elect. As Jesus Himself said, “for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days.” God intervenes on behalf of His own and protects His children from succumbing to perils within and without. He will not let us be pushed beyond that for which He has given us faith to remain faithful through.

Jesus’ warnings resound with an unequivocal declaration of His kingship: no matter what happens—no matter who’s elected, no matter whether your civic freedoms stay or go, no matter if you’re imprisoned, tormented, or even killed for your faith—you can be absolutely sure that our God reigns and our Savior has won. That is firm ground on which to stand, however your life may be shaken.

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Revelation 12:1-12

Topics: Christ as King Prophecy Trials

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg

http://www.truthforlife.org

The Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face.

Psalm 11:7

Arighteous God will not accept unrighteous requests. We cannot expect that God, who always does the right thing, will do the expedient thing just for our sake. In our prayers and decision-making processes, then, we ought not to ask ourselves, “What is the easy thing? What is the thing that will get me out of this difficulty the quickest?” Rather, we need to ask, “What is the right thing for me to do?” This is not to say that we will always know precisely what is right. But in our prayers and in our lives, we must remember that we call upon and walk before the face of a supremely holy and righteous God.

Thankfully, God is not only righteous but also merciful. David cries in Psalm 4:1, “Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness!” Just as it is unimaginable that a mother would forget the cry of a child that she nurtured at her own breast, so it is unthinkable that God would not hear the pleas of His children (Isaiah 49:15). Such mercy is an astounding truth. We live in a world that operates on the principle that we get what we “deserve,” that we get out what we put in: This is what you’ve earned, and what you’ve earned is what you’re going to get—whether good or bad. But when we come to God, we come to the one who is by His very nature rich in mercy, who gives us what we do not deserve. From Him, we get what we have not earned.

Perhaps your heart has been fractured or your life is buffeted by serious trouble. Still you can cry out to your righteous God: “I need Your unmerited kindness today. I’ve nothing with which to commend myself. Lord, be merciful to me and hear my prayer.”

When that is our approach to God, then we will find fostered within us an attitude of seeking to do what is right, not what is easy. The path to seeking to do “righteous deeds” is to know that the Lord is merciful to His children.

This does not mean that as we come to Him for mercy and seek to live righteously, God will give immediate deliverance. Nowhere has He promised His people immediate relief. He answers us out of the righteousness of His sovereign plan—and sometimes, in His providence, He allows the thorn to continue to pain us (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Yet when the thorn remains, “though the fig tree should not blossom,” still you can “rejoice in the LORD” and “take joy in the God of [your] salvation” (Habakkuk 3:17-18). Because He is righteous, His mercy is never wrong. What may taste bitter for a time God will sweeten soon enough. And one day you will “behold his face,” not just by faith but by sight as you stand with the saints around His throne. With that day in mind, come to Him now for the mercy and strength you need to live righteously today.

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Isaiah 49:13-23

Topics: Imputed Righteousness Mercy Prayer

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg,

http://www.truthforlife.org

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Romans 6:1-2

In Christ we find ultimate happiness. Peter tells us that our belief in Jesus can lead us to “joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8). But it’s not possible to be happy in Jesus while living in sin. To borrow the image of Psalm 24, how often do we attempt to ascend the hill of the Lord, in corporate or private worship, with dirty hands and hearts, wondering why the word of God doesn’t delight us in the midst of our sin? It’s spiritual insanity to think that we can rejoice in the Lord while seeking out pleasure in some hidden transgression.

As fallen creatures, we often develop patterns that trick us into thinking that we can make peace with our fallenness and can indulge some sin. Perhaps we have become accustomed to minimizing it or justifying it, so that we hardly even notice it. Yet Scripture knows no such pattern of thinking. David, for example, knew he was dirty and grimy before God, thoroughly permeated with sin: “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5). Elsewhere he asks the Lord, “Declare me innocent from hidden faults” (19:12). He knew he needed forgiveness from sins he didn’t even know about! But mercifully, David’s awareness of his own shortcomings led him to God, to whom he pleaded, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (51:10).

We need to recover this same disposition for our daily walk with Christ. Repentance isn’t a one-time event. We must continually battle sin. We must repeatedly turn away from temptation and look to Christ. We must press on to know Him better, so that He is ever more and more attractive to us than fleeting pleasures and sordid desires.

If you are a Christian, you have already died to sin. God has already granted that you “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Now, “by the Spirit,” you are called to “put to death the deeds of the body” (8:13)—that is, to take hold of the new life God has given you and slay the sins that still beset you. You have “died to sin.” Do not give in to the temptation of still living in it.

If you trust Christ, you are always acceptable to God. But when you give yourself fully to the cause of rooting out whatever weeds of sin keep creeping up, then you’ll reap a joy that is inexpressibly better than whatever false promises sin and temptation may make. Is there a sinful pattern you have grown used to? Is there something of which you need to repent, asking God to forgive you and change your heart? Joy will be found not in ignoring that prompting of the Spirit but in responding to it.

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Psalm 32

Topics: Joy Repentance Sin

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg, 

http://www.truthforlife.org

These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots … He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards … He will take the tenth of your grain … He will take your male servants and female servants … He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.

1 Samuel 8:11, 1 Samuel 8:13-17

All leaders always take: all except one.

When in Samuel’s time the Israelites requested a king so that they would be like the other nations, God granted their request. But He also told Samuel to solemnly warn the people about what to expect of a king’s ways (1 Samuel 8:7-9). The picture Samuel painted was of a king who would line his own pocket at the people’s expense and lead them back into a kind of slavery. It was a dismal prospect!

And it was one that, over the next few centuries, became a reality. Some kings had ups as well as downs, but the majority were corrupt; none of them were completely good. All the Israelites’ leaders always, in one way or another, took from them what the people had, instead of giving them what they had hoped.

Yet God would ultimately provide a King that was different from the rest. The New Testament begins with this King. “The time is fulfilled,” said Jesus, “and the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). By establishing God’s kingdom, He was declaring Himself to be King. Afterward, Jesus entered Jerusalem riding on the foal of a donkey, fulfilling the prophet’s words announcing that the King of God’s people would arrive in this manner (Zechariah 9:9). What kind of king comes on a donkey rather than in a chariot or on a war horse? The same King that would be crowned with thorns a few days later. Here was a King unlike any other king.

There is a great and prevalent lie that goes something like this: “If you trust Jesus, He’ll take away all the good stuff, and you won’t have a good time. If you want a good time, go with another leader. If you go with Jesus, it’ll be boring, restrictive, life-sapping.” But actually, the reverse is true! Unlike the kings of Israel, who would take from the people, Jesus was and is the King who gives—and He does so lavishly. He is the King who came to “give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45), who gives His sheep “eternal life, and they will never perish” (John 10:28), and who takes burdens and gives rest to those who accept His light yoke (Matthew 11:28-30).

Is Jesus your King? Many other voices will be attractive and persuasive—but if you let them rule you, you will be disappointed in the end. The Lord Jesus Christ will never disappoint you. He is the King who always gives all that you need, and the only thing He takes from you is your sin. Today, recognize and give thanks for the abundant goodness and generosity you have in your great King!

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Mark 10:32-45

Topics: Christ as King Grace Jesus Christ

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg, 

http://www.truthforlife.org

Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

John 9:35

Jesus’ encounter with the blind man in John 9 is part of the great panorama of God’s redemptive purpose from all of eternity. This apparently inconsequential stop in the middle of the day was part of the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham that “in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). It’s part of the great, ongoing, unfolding purpose of God to put together a company of people that no one can count from every tribe, nation, language, and tongue (Revelation 7:9).

The healing of this man, as well as what follows from it, is remarkable. It raises questions: How did Jesus find this man? And how did Jesus change this man? In the answers, we gain a better understanding of how Jesus finds men and women in their lostness and then changes them into sheep that have been found.

This story is not only an illustration of saving faith but also, as C.H. Spurgeon says, “an example of what you may do in endeavoring to lead [souls] to exercise faith in Jesus.” If you want to follow Christ’s example in reaching people, the first thing you must do, says Spurgeon, is “seek out the oppressed … seek out the sick, the sad, the weary, the poor, the broken-down ones, and especially such as have been put out of the synagogues.”^[1]

The people that no one wants and no one will have, Jesus wants and Jesus will have. Jesus has every right to anticipate that His followers will do the same. It’s only in knowing that you were once lost that you understand what it means to be found. Jesus has sought you and found you—and if He did that for you, He can do it for anyone! Our tendency is to spend time with those who are like us. But the Son of God did not do that—otherwise He would never have been born as a man, to seek and to save sinners like us. Who are the “broken-down ones” the Lord is calling you to reach out to with the gospel of the Son of Man? With God’s help, go out and tell them that Jesus is alive and that He seeks and saves those who are lost.

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Luke 15:1-7

Topics: Evangelism Healing Jesus Christ

FOOTNOTES

¹ “A Pressed Man Yielding to Christ,” The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 46, no. 2667, p 142.

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg,

http://www.truthforlife.org

The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions.

Titus 2:11-12

The main problem with our lives is not that we’re unhappy or have made a couple of minor missteps. Our diagnosis isn’t merely that we have some existential gaps that just need to be filled by a new hobby or an outlet for charitable service. It’s not that we’re lost and just need a little bit of direction or that we have low self-esteem and need to think more positively. Biblically speaking, our problem is actually this: we are by nature “foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another” (Titus 3:3).

That’s quite a condition to find ourselves in. The problem goes far deeper and spreads much wider than we like to think. Whether we are three or eighty-three years old when the Lord Jesus Christ breaks into our lives and saves us, our state before God until then is one of utter hopelessness. In His grace, however, God washes us and renews us through the Holy Spirit and causes us to become “heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:4-7). God’s grace is far greater than we tend to imagine!

But once we are “justified by his grace” (Titus 3:7), what then? God goes to work, progressively and incrementally, to rid us of our foolishness and disobedience. God’s grace comes to us as we are, but it does not leave us as we are, for it teaches us “to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives” (Titus 2:12).

Imagine a new brother in Christ named George. He’s been a Christian for two days. Last week, George was deceived, he was destructive, he was filled with hate, he was lost in idolatry, and he was committed to sensuality. Suddenly, George met Christ. The Spirit of God regenerated him, and now George finds himself in the church. George is saved but he is not yet the finished article. No, he is a work in progress. Of course he still has some messes that need to be cleaned up. Of course he has some confusion in his mind about what following Christ means for his life.

All of us are like George to one degree or another. No matter how many years we’ve believed in Jesus, we are all works in progress. We need the Bible to guide us. We need other members of Christ’s body to help us along. We need to trust that God will do what He has promised and finish the good work He began in us (Philippians 1:6).

Progress might seem slow at times, but with His Spirit at work, you will make it all the way home. Until then, reflect on your condition apart from Christ, for it will humble you. Remember what God’s grace did in saving you, for it will encourage you. See the ways in which the Spirit has grown you in godliness, for it will reassure you. And ask the Lord, in His grace, to keep on changing you, bit by bit, as you wait for the appearing of your Savior and the day when you are perfected in glory (Titus 2:13-14).

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Titus 3:3-8

Topics: Holiness Sanctification Sin

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg

http://www.truthforlife.org

A third time he said to them, “Why? What evil has he done? I have found in him no guilt deserving death. I will therefore punish and release him.” But they were urgent, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified. And their voices prevailed.

Luke 23:22-23

As governor over Judea, Pontius Pilate was responsible for maintaining order and quelling civil disruption within his jurisdiction. He was accustomed to using his power and influence to determine the outcome for those awaiting their sentence. But Jesus’ arrival in his courtroom confronted Pilate with the greatest dilemma of his life.

Accompanied by a large crowd of religious officials, Jesus was brought before Pilate. When Pilate pressed the mob and asked them explicitly, “What evil has he done?” all they seemed able to do was to raise their voices louder. (A raised voice is often indicative of a weak argument.) Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent, and so he essentially declared to those assembled, I find no guilt in this man. But the cries of the crowd grew more demanding and more insistent, and Pilate must have started asking himself, What can I do with this Jesus of Nazareth?

Pilate wanted to release Jesus. He knew that he should release Jesus. But Pilate capitulated to his desire to placate the crowd and to maintain favor with the religious leaders, and the voices of the frenzied throng prevailed.

Pilate’s dilemma is not unfamiliar. In fact, it is the great dilemma that confronts men and women: what to do with Jesus of Nazareth. Pilate came face-to-face with the Son of God and heard His testimony from His own lips—and still he chose the world and all of its noise over bending his knee to the King of kings.

In Jesus’ sentencing, God’s eternal plan of salvation unfolded in a moment in time. Jesus was not accused and condemned for His own sin. He was not dying for Himself. He was dying for us. He who was totally innocent became totally guilty in order that we who are totally guilty might be declared completely innocent.

All of Pilate’s attempts to dismiss Jesus, to turn Him over for other officials to pass judgment, to wipe his hands clean of the matter, didn’t work. Neither will ours. Our only hope in life and death is to respond in our hearts to the glory of what happened on the cross. Like Pilate, we face a choice: either we bow our knee to Christ and His lordship or we capitulate to the pressures of the surrounding culture. And while that is a decision we make in the privacy of our hearts, it is one that reveals itself, as it did with Pilate, in what we say when those around us are urging us to deny the rule or goodness of Christ. However loud those voices become, if you are His, then be ready to stand for Him.

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

2 Timothy 4:9-18

Topics: Christ as Lord Death of Christ Jesus Christ

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg,

http://www.truthforlife.org

Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

James 1:21

Every so often someone might ask, “What have you been leaning against?” As I look at my clothes, it becomes clear by the residue left behind that I have in fact been leaning against something—something that has left a mark. And I resolve at that moment to be far more careful in the future about what I choose to lean on.

Spiritually, we must also be careful about what we’re leaning against. Just as we may become inadvertently dirty by leaning against a chalkboard, we are also prone to becoming morally polluted by “leaning against” sin. We should not be unaware of the evil that is so prevalent around us—and in us. It is all too easy to sin with our eyes and minds, realizing only when it is too late that the sin has left its mark.

Our attitude toward sin in the week will affect how we listen to God’s word preached to us on a Sunday. Moral filth is a barrier to listening to and profiting from the Bible. The way in which we come to the preaching of the word is so vitally important. Some of us come to God’s word covered in the clay of compromise with the world’s wickedness and filth, or marked with the stains of willful disobedience. We simply cannot act with such instability and still expect that we will receive anything from the Lord (James 1:7-8). When the word is preached Sunday after Sunday and some people in the congregation grow and mature while others do not, it speaks to the soil, not the seed.

Notice that James doesn’t tell us merely to pray about this filthiness but to get rid of it. How? By the enabling power of God by His Spirit through the word. As the psalmist wrote, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word” (Psalm 119:9). The Bible acts as a purifying instrument. Day after day, committed to walking away from sin that we have all too often been leaning upon, we are to “receive with meekness the implanted word.” We may not understand everything, but we humbly accept and act upon what we do understand.

As you meekly receive God’s word, you are saved—today, tomorrow, for all eternity. His word saves you from the silent spiritual killer of hypocrisy. His word reminds you that He has saved you from sin’s penalty through the death of His Son. His word assures you that you are being saved from sin’s power and can choose righteousness instead.

What are you leaning against? Are there sins that the world around you accepts and promotes but which you need to walk away from? Come before God’s word today. Lean on His Spirit to be restored and revived. Receive His word, and rejoice that it has the power to cleanse!

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Mark 9:42-50

Topics: God’s Word Holiness Power of Sin

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg,

http://www.truthforlife.org

Consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

1 Corinthians 1:26

The British sitcom Dad’s Army depicted a ragtag group of characters, exempt from conscription because of age and other factors, assembled on the home front during World War II. This unlikely group was preparing to repel a German invasion armed with some old rifles and a variety of broomsticks and bits and pieces. Somehow, this was supposed to give a sense of confidence to their community.

Like the characters in Dad’s Army, the believers in Corinth, Smyrna, and Philadelphia looked a lot like ragtag groups. If these early Christians were known for anything by those around them, it was for their poverty, for their weakness, and for their suffering at the hands of the authorities (Revelation 2:9; 3:8).

We might tend to think that people or places like this have little prospect of doing anything significant for God. Certainly, that’s what the Corinthian church was tempted to think as they sought worldly wisdom and power. But that’s because we often think far too little of God. He is not looking for the strong, powerful, and mighty, as if He needs them on His side in order to set forward His purposes in the world. No, the reverse is the case: He is looking for the weak ones, so that through them He may demonstrate His strength.

As in Smyrna, Philadelphia, and Corinth, and throughout the world, God has chosen deliberately “what is foolish in the world to shame the wise” and “what is weak in the world to shame the strong” (1 Corinthians 1:27). And He has given us a message which seems to be total foolishness (v 18), so that when people are gripped and changed by it, their faith will rest not on the persuasive arguments or inspiring eloquence of a man or woman but on the very power of God.

We’re often tempted to try to make out that we’re better than we really are, thinking that if we could just present a good front, then people would be impressed and drawn to listen to the message we carry. But what we should seek more than anything is for people to be drawn to Christ—and nothing exalts and magnifies Christ quite like our testimony that God’s grace is sufficient and His “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

If you are all too aware of your flaws, shortcomings, or weaknesses, then you are ready to rejoice with the apostle Paul, who wrote, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). Have you considered the possibility that your personal weaknesses may be the very key to your usefulness in God’s hand? He does not need your strength, and He can work with your weakness.

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Acts 18:1-11

Topics: Humility Persecution Suffering

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg

http://www.truthforlife.org

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.”

John 4:34-36

Although God has His pulpit in heaven, He has His servants on earth.

It’s clear from Scripture that in the mystery and kindness of His purposes, God has determined to use our feeble voices to enable others to hear His voice. By the power of the Holy Spirit, our words about His word further His plans and change people’s lives and futures.

The question, then, is this: Are we stepping forward into this privilege, or are we holding back from it? Following His encounter with the woman at the well, Jesus encouraged His disciples to open their eyes and “see that the fields are white for harvest.” If we, like the disciples, look up to see the harvest before us, then we too must proclaim the word of Christ, declaring with urgency and joy that “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

Saying this takes courage and confidence. The gospel message runs completely counter to the prevailing worldviews. It is the prime enemy of much contemporary thought. Claims for final truth in Jesus are not simply ignored; they are opposed. Our confidence, however, rests in the fact that the gospel message was given to us by God. We did not invent it and we must not modify it. Instead, “all authority in heaven and on earth” is Christ’s, and He has commanded us to “go … and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18-19).

Yet while we need confidence in our message, we also need compassion in our tone. Jesus came as a humble servant. He rode into town on a lowly donkey and spoke with gentleness and humility. When He saw the crowds, He was moved with compassion, because He saw them as sheep without a shepherd (Matthew 9:36). And by the enabling power of His Holy Spirit, we can demonstrate the same care as we recall that we too were once “foolish, disobedient,” and “led astray” before Christ sought us out and transformed us (Titus 3:3).

Difficult days have perhaps created an increased willingness in the hearts of those around you to talk about what weighs them down, what concerns them about the brokenness in our world. Uncertain times must move you and me to be ready to seize the opportunity to proclaim to our family and friends “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2), confident that the Spirit of God can use our efforts for eternal gain. Be bold. Be loving. Be active. Be prayerful. For only in Jesus can darkness be turned to light. Only in Jesus is there a fresh start and a whole new future.

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

1 Peter 3:14-17

Topics: Evangelism Humility Jesus Christ

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg,

http://www.truthforlife.org

She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly. And she vowed a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head” … Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.

1 Samuel 1:10-11, 1 Samuel 1:18

When we cannot see the way forward in life, we must look up to our God.

This is what Hannah did. Her childlessness meant she bore a weight of grief, which was compounded by being provoked by Peninnah, her husband’s second wife, who had given birth to many children (1 Samuel 1:4, 6), and by her husband’s insensitive and thoughtless questions (v 8). When we are facing trial or grief, Hannah serves as our example first in what she did not do. She did not become resentful toward God, nor did she seek vengeance against her rival, Peninnah. Instead, she removed herself from the environment that provoked her sense of disappointment and placed herself in the presence of the one who holds the answers. She brought her tears, her sighs, her longings—all expressions of her sad heart—before God.

As Hannah prayed, she was not attempting to induce God’s favor with a promise. Hannah recognized God as majestic and sovereign and herself as His servant. She simply asked God to do for her what He had done for His people in the past.

After Hannah brought her grief to the Lord, but before her prayer was answered, her appetite returned and her countenance changed. In other words, the resolution for Hannah was not in her pregnancy or the subsequent arrival of a child but in the fact that she had cast her anxieties on the Lord. That was what settled her spirit and lightened her step.

Psalm 73 recounts the difficulties the psalmist faced which caused him nearly to lose his faith. He knew God was good and looked after His people—but his experience seemed to differ. That all changed, though, when he came before God in his desperation: “When I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God” (Psalm 73:16-17). For both Hannah and the psalmist, peace and understanding came as they brought their griefs and troubles into the sanctuary—into the very presence of God Himself.

When you encounter difficult circumstances that provoke you and test your belief in God’s goodness, where do you go? Do you submerge yourself beneath your troubles? Or do you enter the sanctuary of God’s presence in prayer? When you face distress, cry out to God, in whose presence you stand because of the finished work of Christ. As you remember that He is sovereign and good and acts on behalf of His people, you can pray with confidence and boldness and experience the peace that comes only from above—even before you see how He will answer your prayer.

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

1 Samuel 1:1-20

Topics: Anxiety Grief Prayer

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg

http://www.truthforlife.org

When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Colossians 3:4-5

If becoming a Christian meant we no longer sinned, Paul would have been wasting ink when he wrote, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you.” It is possible to embrace a form of externalism that makes us look really good to people on the outside when really we know that what the Bible says is true: that while we are saved children of God, we are also sinners.

How is it, then, that sin continues to wreak havoc? It is because while we are indeed in Christ, who liberates us from the bondage of sin, we are also in our flesh. That’s the problem: we experience “the desires of the flesh” that “are against the Spirit … for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Galatians 5:17). We are justified in Christ; all of the guilt that attaches to our lives is dealt with in Jesus. We have died to sin in Christ so that it no longer has a tyrannical rule in our lives. But although sin no longer reigns, it still remains and rages. It no longer defines us, but it still clings to us.

We therefore need to learn not to underestimate the seriousness of sin; instead, we must watch out for its subtleties and insinuations. To fight against sin, we must come to understand its addictive and enslaving power. As the saying goes, “Sow a thought, reap an action. Sow an action, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.” Sin, then, must be attacked at the point of entry before it takes root within our hearts.

The only way to tackle sin is to recognize that we need to kill it, without compromise, so as to prevent all future damage, seen or unseen. We will only be able to overcome sin when we are motivated to take strong measures against it.

Yet we make a serious mistake if we think that we are the ones who can overcome sin’s indwelling power. Since Christ “is your life,” your battle against sin is not faced in your own strength but in God’s mighty power; and since Christ “is your life,” your battle against sin is not a battle for salvation, for He has already secured that for you. So now you need to commit to putting your sin to death, and you need to ask the Holy Spirit to overwhelm you with His wonderful love and fullness so as to create within you the desire to do that which God’s word calls you to do: to seek out, find, and kill off all that “is earthly in you.” As you read this list of earthly things which you are called to “put to death,” which are you being called to fight, in His strength, today?

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Romans 7:21-25, Romans 8:1-11

Topics: Repentance Sanctification Sin

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg

http://www.truthforlife.org

Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish.

Psalm 49:20

For centuries, Western society has benefited from the widespread influence of the Christian faith. While the history of the West is filled with examples of human depravity, where there has been a consistent Christian presence it has, in many ways and at many times, stayed the hand of evil. Most of us have not had to experience what a society looks like when it completely rejects and forgets God.

The Scriptures, however, do give us a grim picture of what happens when people have convinced themselves that there is no God. It is a picture of a rejection of humility, where “the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul” and rejects God in pride (Psalm 10:3-4). Humility is where the knowledge of God begins; therefore, those who reject God reject humility too.

Not only do such proud people reject God; they also revile Him, cursing and renouncing Him (Psalm 10:3). It is often prosperity that leads people to curse God. Their lives are going so well that they believe nothing can touch them and they will give no account to their Maker. Their prosperity gives them a false sense of security. They think they can live as they like, that “God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it”
(v 11), and that there will be no repercussions for their behavior. With no accountability for how people live, there is no need for the powerful to serve or the strong to be gentle: we can treat others however we please, and so the godless man “sits in ambush … he murders the innocent … he lurks that he may seize the poor” (v 8-9).

It is with good reason, then, that the psalmist says, “Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish.” When we reject and revile God, we foolishly think we are secure, which convinces us that it’s acceptable for us to mistreat others.

It is tempting to think that passages like this one only describe other people. But we should not be too quick to look away from ourselves. Are there ways we have rejected humility, believing ourselves to be sufficient without God? Have we let our prosperity numb us to our neediness and accountability before God? Has our treatment of those around us been marked by self-interest and arrogance instead of love and service? We may confess to have faith in God, but perhaps there are areas of our lives that require repentance.

The picture of man “in his pomp yet without understanding” is indeed a bleak one—both in this life and at its end. So praise God that this is not the whole picture. If you understand that we have a Creator to whom we are valuable and accountable, and that that Creator has ransomed your soul and will receive you into eternal life (Psalm 49:15), then the pomp of this world will assume its proper place, and in Jesus Christ you will enjoy purpose, hope, forgiveness, and pleasures forevermore.

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Psalm 49

Topics: Atheism Repentance Warnings

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg

http://www.truthforlife.org

Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish.

Psalm 49:20

For centuries, Western society has benefited from the widespread influence of the Christian faith. While the history of the West is filled with examples of human depravity, where there has been a consistent Christian presence it has, in many ways and at many times, stayed the hand of evil. Most of us have not had to experience what a society looks like when it completely rejects and forgets God.

The Scriptures, however, do give us a grim picture of what happens when people have convinced themselves that there is no God. It is a picture of a rejection of humility, where “the wicked boasts of the desires of his soul” and rejects God in pride (Psalm 10:3-4). Humility is where the knowledge of God begins; therefore, those who reject God reject humility too.

Not only do such proud people reject God; they also revile Him, cursing and renouncing Him (Psalm 10:3). It is often prosperity that leads people to curse God. Their lives are going so well that they believe nothing can touch them and they will give no account to their Maker. Their prosperity gives them a false sense of security. They think they can live as they like, that “God has forgotten, he has hidden his face, he will never see it”
(v 11), and that there will be no repercussions for their behavior. With no accountability for how people live, there is no need for the powerful to serve or the strong to be gentle: we can treat others however we please, and so the godless man “sits in ambush … he murders the innocent … he lurks that he may seize the poor” (v 8-9).

It is with good reason, then, that the psalmist says, “Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish.” When we reject and revile God, we foolishly think we are secure, which convinces us that it’s acceptable for us to mistreat others.

It is tempting to think that passages like this one only describe other people. But we should not be too quick to look away from ourselves. Are there ways we have rejected humility, believing ourselves to be sufficient without God? Have we let our prosperity numb us to our neediness and accountability before God? Has our treatment of those around us been marked by self-interest and arrogance instead of love and service? We may confess to have faith in God, but perhaps there are areas of our lives that require repentance.

The picture of man “in his pomp yet without understanding” is indeed a bleak one—both in this life and at its end. So praise God that this is not the whole picture. If you understand that we have a Creator to whom we are valuable and accountable, and that that Creator has ransomed your soul and will receive you into eternal life (Psalm 49:15), then the pomp of this world will assume its proper place, and in Jesus Christ you will enjoy purpose, hope, forgiveness, and pleasures forevermore.

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Psalm 49

Topics: Atheism Repentance Warnings

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg

http://www.truthforlife.org

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

James 4:13-14

In and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with planning ahead. John Wesley, the great evangelist, even used to plan out his day in twenty-minute segments, ensuring that a third of an hour wouldn’t pass without him addressing himself to matters of God’s kingdom. But in these verses, James offers a word to men and women in every generation who are addicted to their calendars, who clutch at their phones, and who live with the impression deep down that the world will stop turning if they get off track.

At the heart of the matter is this rock-solid fact: to us, the future is unknown. Will it be sunny tomorrow? Will your flight be on time? Will the traffic be busier than usual and interrupt your schedule? We can plan as best as we’re able to, but ultimately all our best plans may fall into tatters. Indeed, they do so routinely. To presume upon the future is foolish when our ignorance of that future is an indisputable fact.

Facing this fact ought to have two effects. First, it ought to humble us. James has already reminded his readers that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6), and issued the challenging call: “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (v 10). Now he reminds us that we ought not to take for ourselves the seat that belongs to God alone—we are not in control. It is our response to disruption and disappointment that reveals whether we have truly grasped this.

Secondly, tomorrow being unknown to us ought to help us, for the future is hidden from us for our good and for God’s glory. If we knew of some success that awaited us, we might become unbearable, preening our feathers and basking in our own sense of self-importance. By the same token, we should be thankful that we don’t live in the constant awareness of our future stumblings and struggles, fears and failures, bereavements and heartaches—for what advantage would that give us? God knows. That is enough.

So remember this: God the Creator established you, made you, and gave you all your abilities, your looks, your opportunities. He has ordered your life right up until today, and will continue to do so until He welcomes you home. Because of this, you can actually rejoice in what you do not know. There is beauty in the mystery. There is great wonder in knowing that God is ordering all things and will accomplish His purposes in and for you, whatever tomorrow brings. It is this perspective that will enable you to look at your plans for today, tomorrow, and further on down the path of your life, and say with a humble peace in your heart, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15, emphasis added).

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Job 39

Topics: Humility Sovereignty of God Trusting God

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg

http://www.truthforlife.org

Keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.

Ephesians 6:18

Almost every Christian finds prayer hard at some time (or most of the time). Why is that?

One of the reasons why we’re tempted to give up on prayer is that we don’t always receive an immediate response from God. In a world that so highly exalts instant gratification, this is a real difficulty. It’s the same issue as in trying to maintain a proper exercise regimen or diet: we want to see results now, today. If our new approach does not quickly show its benefits, most of us are unlikely to persevere.

Our tendency to lack endurance is one reason that Jesus told the parable about the persistent widow, who was relentless in seeking out justice from the judge. Luke makes the editorial comment that Jesus was encouraging his listeners to understand that they “ought always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1). In other words, Jesus wants us to pray—and then to keep on praying.

When Paul tells us to “keep alert” and to pray “with all perseverance,” he is echoing Jesus’ words to His disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before He died: “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation” (Matthew 26:41). Paul spoke similarly to the Ephesian elders, telling them to “be alert” (Acts 20:31). In a world embroiled in a cosmic spiritual battle, the stakes are too high to give up on prayer.

As we keep coming to God with prayer and supplication, we will all have to learn to be content with trusting that God will answer us in His good timing, and we will all need to remember that Satan would love to persuade us that prayer makes no difference and that God does not listen or act. You may not see an answer to a desperate prayer on this side of eternity. Sometimes persistence may appear to be met with silence. But in due time, God will show you that “the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises” (2 Peter 3:9). He answers all your prayers exactly when He knows it is right to and in precisely the manner that is always best for you. God is always doing far more than we can ask or even imagined. Sometimes we can glimpse some of His purposes, but sometimes we are asked to live by faith, not by sight.

Are there people or situations that you have given up praying for because you have had no clear and positive response? Remember, you have not had such a response yet. One day, you will see what God was doing in directing matters differently than how you would have chosen. Until that day, you can persevere in prayer, because it is what He commands and because He has promised to work for the good of His people. Why not begin today to pray with perseverance for something you have quit speaking to God about?

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Ephesians 1:15-23

Topics: Patience Prayer Temptation

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg

http://www.truthforlife.org

… Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

Ephesians 6:18

The Bible is replete with commands like this, urging us to pray without pause. This might sound like an overwhelming expectation, and we may wonder whether we could ever meet it, or even desire to. But perhaps if we see our need more clearly, we will be motivated to pray more consistently.

Our need for prayer becomes most obvious when we understand that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself believed in the absolute necessity of prayer. At the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, we have this account of Jesus: “Rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35). Even for the Son of God, prayer was important enough business to attend to early and not to allow the demands of the day to intrude upon.

Jesus knew that “he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed” (Matthew 16:21). Even so, in the Garden of Gethsemane we overhear Him praying for the cup of God’s wrath to pass from Him if it is His Father’s will (Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42). The Son of God clearly knew that He needed to go before His Father. The writer to the Hebrews summarizes it perfectly for us: “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence” (Hebrews 5:7).

Surely it cannot be that prayer was a necessity for Jesus and yet is simply optional for us. If anything, it must be the very reverse! If the Son of God Himself needed to spend time concentrated on prayer to His Father, then how much more does the one who follows after Christ! Prayer is simply too great a privilege for any Christian to ignore and too great a necessity for any of us to neglect. So, ask His Spirit to show you the wonder of prayer and to help you enter into it. When you recognize that there is no end to God’s capacity to help or His willingness to do so, and that there is no moment in which you do not need His help, you will find yourself “praying at all times.”

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Ephesians 3:14-21

Topics: Christian Living Prayer Son of God

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg,

http://www.truthforlife.org

Take the … sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Ephesians 6:17

The devil knows the Bible. He knows what it says, and he can quote it with ease—better than most of us, undoubtedly. Satan quoted Scripture to Jesus when He was fasting in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11)—though notice that Satan also twisted what the Bible says for his own deceitful schemes. This shouldn’t surprise us, since the best lies usually have at least a bit of truth in them.

In that encounter, when Satan took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple, he enticed Him with an appeal to a spectacular, angelic rescue. But the devil misused Psalm 91 by taking it out of context (Matthew 4:5-6), and Jesus rebuked him by quoting Deuteronomy 6:16: “You shall not put the LORD your God to the test.” The Son of God repeatedly quoted Scripture to Satan, and he eventually fled (Matthew 4:11).

Our best defense against Satan, then, is Scripture rightly understood and rightly applied. This is why Paul tells us that in order to stand firm against “all the flaming darts of the evil one,” we must “take up … the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:16). There is no better tool to resist temptation and devilish ploys than the Bible. God’s word is what we use to resist the devil, and the overwhelming spiritual power of that word is precisely why he flees (James 4:7).

Psalm 119:11 encourages God’s people to store up God’s word in their hearts in order that we might not sin against Him. This might sound like a nice, gentle invitation at first—but while it may prove true that the Bible can be consumed and meditated upon in the comfortable company of a warm beverage and a cozy chair, the call to memorize Scripture is in fact a call to arms. Every soldier needs a weapon. Every Christian needs the word of God. Think about the temptations to sin that you regularly face (and, perhaps, give in to). What verses of Scripture do you need to deliberately memorize and then deploy against the devil’s half-truths and lies? Think about the times when the Evil One suggests that you are not really a child of God, not really forgiven. What parts of Scripture will you fling back at him in those moments? The word of God is your sword against Satan. Take it up today, and make him flee.

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

Psalm 119:9-16

Topics: God’s Word Satan Spiritual Warfare

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg

http://www.truthforlife.org

In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.

Ephesians 6:16

You are under attack.

We might not feel as though this is the case, but in reality we face a spiritual onslaught in which the Evil One daily employs any tactic in his arsenal to undermine our identity and our unity in Jesus Christ. His fiery arrows are constantly being loosed against the people of God. What is a Christian to do in the face of such assaults?

When warfare reaches us—and it will—we must reach for our shields. We are to “take up the shield of faith.” The shield Paul’s readers would have imagined when they heard these words was no small shield, for in Roman times a soldier’s shield was four feet long by two and a half feet wide. Wielding one would have been like walking around with a door. It was not a Frisbee-like toy but a formidable piece of armor.

The key to understanding the proper use of our shields is that when we come to trust in Christ, He grants to us gospel armor. Having died in our place, He clothes us with His righteousness. So when we take up the shield of faith, we are actively trusting the gospel to shield us from Satan’s lies. The only way we can deal with the hostilities of ongoing spiritual warfare is to find our strength—our spiritual weapons and armor—in the Lord Jesus.

John Newton, in a seldom-sung hymn, pictures an encounter with the devil like this:

When Satan appears to stop up our path
And fills us with fears, we triumph by faith;
He cannot take from us, though oft he has tried,
The heart-cheering promise, “The Lord will provide.” ^[1]

Christ has already triumphed and, by faith, He invites us to share in His spoils. This victory is what led one of the Westminster Divines, William Gouge, to pen in his diary, “When I look upon myself, I see nothing but emptiness and weakness; but when I look upon Christ, I see nothing but fullness and sufficiency.”^[2] The Evil One is a defeated foe, though still a powerful one. When we seek to fight him in our own strength, we will find ourselves defeated. But God has provided all the armor we need. Our faith is our shield, for our faith tells us that we are forgiven children of the living God, empowered by His Spirit to obey Him and enjoying the certain hope of eternal life with Him.

You will come under attack today. Where in your life might the battle rage? Be sure to look to your faith in those moments, for it will shield you against temptation, and you will stand in victory against the devil’s darts.

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

1 Peter 5:6-11

Topics: Faith Satan Spiritual Warfare

FOOTNOTES

¹ John Newton, “The Lord Will Provide” (1775).

² Quoted in James Reid, Memoirs of the Lives and Writings of Those Eminent Divines, Who Convened in the Famous Assembly at Westminster, in the Seventeenth Century (Stephen and Andrew Young, 1811), p 357.

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg, 

http://www.truthforlife.org

Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.

Ephesians 6:14-15

When we picture soldiers on the frontlines of battle, we often imagine firearms, artillery, and other tactical equipment. But there’s a piece of gear we often overlook, without which a soldier would be utterly ineffective: his boots. Without appropriate footwear, no soldier, and therefore no army, can hope to defend a position.

The apostle Paul calls believers to stand firm in our gospel shoes, so to speak—to be at the ready with appropriate footwear. When in his first letter to the Corinthian church he writes his great chapter on the resurrection, he begins, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand” (1 Corinthians 15:1, emphasis added). The gospel provides us with firm footing. Even when everything else around us is shaking, we always have a place to stand. Even when temptation is fierce, we never need to retreat.

What was it that empowered Martin Luther to stand against the tide, nail his theses to the church door at Wittenberg, and then proclaim before an emperor, “Here I stand; I can do no other”? Gospel shoes. What was it that enabled the English Protestants Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley to face with courage the horror of being burnt at the stake for their faith? Gospel shoes. What is it that sees our brothers and sisters in so many places around the world joyfully proclaim their faith in Christ even as they are threatened with death? Gospel shoes.

When you go to your workplace, to your school, to your unbelieving family and friends, or into your local community, what will give you the power to stand for Jesus? Only the gospel shoes that Christ provides. If you try to stand on your own strength, you will inevitably stumble and fall. But when you enter each new day with your feet rooted in the hope, peace, forgiveness, and assurance of the gospel, then you will find yourself able to stand firm, even through the fiercest opposition from the world and temptation from the devil. So before you go and get on with your day, rehearse the gospel to yourself. Enjoy its truths. Praise your Savior. Or, to put it a different way: put your shoes on.

Questions for Thought

How is God calling me to think differently?

How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?

What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?

Further Reading

1 Corinthians 15:1-8

Topics: Courage Gospel Spiritual Warfare

Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg,

http://www.truthforlife.org