Tag Archives: holy spirit

Wisdom Hunters

Wisdom Hunters – Confront to Connect 

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Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Proverbs 27:6 (NKJ)

Confrontation means there has been a disconnection. Something has severed trust. It may be relational, emotional, or financial. Maybe you feel you have lost someone’s love and respect. Whatever the reason for the disconnection, confrontation needs to seek a reconnection. This is what a caring, faithful friend does. They seek to reconnect where there has been a disconnect. Your salvation in Jesus brought you into relational wholeness with heaven so you could model the same on earth. Scripture teaches, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18).

However, if ignored, delayed confrontation deteriorates into disconnection. It dilutes understanding, trust, and intimacy. This is why wise leaders keep short accounts and speak freely and early about their concerns. If a leader ignores his or her obvious feelings of frustration, they will naturally distance themselves from the team and the organization. But if they confront early on, in a spirit of respect and understanding, they stay engaged with the enterprise and the individuals, and therefore avoid creating a culture of control and distrust.

This is true in marriage. A wife may confront her husband when she does not feel loved. This is a natural response when she feels distant from her spouse. Depending on the context of the confrontation, the husband may respond positively (if he is smart) or he may push back defensively if he senses a combative or controlling spirit. It is normal and healthy to desire and seek relational connection. This is how God has wired people. Just make sure you set yourself up for a successful connection and not an aborted one.

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Streams in the Desert

Streams in the Desert for Kids – We Win!

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Mark 1:12

It happens to everyone—being tempted. It even happened to Jesus. No sooner had Jesus been baptized by his cousin John in the Jordan River than God’s Spirit led him into the desert. There the Devil came to him and tormented him, tempting him to use his power for his own glory instead of good. It was so bad that when it was over, angels had to come and take care of him.

If Jesus was tempted, you can be sure that you will be too. But here’s the good news. God made a promise about how he will help us. Here it is: “No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it” (1 Corinthians 10:13, The Message).

There’s more good news. Being tempted is not sin. As long as we don’t give in to the temptation we have not sinned. And one more piece of good news is that if we “submit [ourselves], then, to God [and] resist the devil … he will flee from [us]” (James 4:7). We will always win because God is with us.

Dear Lord, Thank you for making a way for us to escape sin when we are tempted. Help me when I am tempted to remember that Jesus was tempted too and he came through it without sinning. I know Jesus can help me when I am tempted. Amen.

 

 

Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – Can You Trust Your Conscience?

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1 Timothy 1:18-19

To enable us to distinguish between what is morally right and wrong, God has given us a conscience. It is His gift to help us avoid shipwreck in our lives. Your conscience serves as a kind of spiritual radar; the condition you keep it in will determine how much you can trust it.

The sacred conscience is one that has been kept spotless through confession of sin (1 John 1:9) and reflects a desire to know and follow God’s will. Once we are cleansed, we can live without guilt, walking openly and transparently before the Lord. When we do sin, we know immediately that we need to get right with God.

The struggling conscience is clogged with rules and regulations, and its spirit of legalism makes us critical of our performance. Having created our own radar system of “should, ought, and must,” we’ve used it to determine right or wrong. In doing so, we fail to understand God’s righteousness, which can never be replaced with self-righteousness.

The soiled conscience is stained from harboring sin. If we consistently choose our way over God’s, we lose sight of what’s suitable and true. Excuses like “I can’t help it” add to our lack of peace and the unreliability of our inner compass.

The seared conscience is insensitive to sin. When we continually resist and ignore its warnings, such a conscience will, over time, become numb to moral alarm.

Ask God to show you how well your internal conscience is operating, and then allow Him to restore it.

Bible in One Year: Judges 13-15

 

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Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — After You

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Read: Genesis 13:1–18

Bible in a Year: Deuteronomy 30–31; Mark 15:1–25

Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.—Genesis 13:9

In some cultures a younger person is expected to permit his elder to enter a room first. In others, the most important or highest ranking individual enters first. No matter what our traditions, there are times when we find it difficult to allow someone to choose first on important matters, especially when that privilege rightfully belongs to us.

Abram (later called Abraham) and his nephew Lot had so many flocks, herds, and tents that the land could not support both of them as they traveled together. To avoid conflict, Abram suggested they part company and generously gave Lot first choice of the land. His nephew took the fertile Jordan Valley, leaving Abram with the less desirable land.

Abram did not insist on his rights as the elder in this situation but trusted his future to God. “So Abram said to Lot, ‘Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me . . . . Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left’ ” (Gen. 13:8-9). Lot’s choice eventually led to dire consequences for his entire family (see Gen. 19).

Today, as we face choices of many kinds, we can trust our Father to guide us in His way. He has promised to care for us. He will always give us what we need. —David McCasland

Father, Your unfailing love and faithfulness guide us in every choice we make. May our lives speak well of You and honor You today.

God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with Him.  Jim Elliot

 

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Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – A Triangle or a Cross

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Passing from the fourth grade to the fifth grade was not going to be as easy as I calculated. On the first day of fourth grade, our teacher stood at the board writing words most of us could not pronounce: castling, prophylaxis, solus rex, triangulation, and zugzwang, among others. When the board was full, he took a step toward us and pointed at his list. “By the end of the year,” he said resolutely, “you will know every one of these words because you will know the rules, the strategies, and the love of chess.” As if electricity and long division were not enough, learning the game of chess was a requirement for passing the fourth grade.

I don’t know that I learned to love the game, but I did learn how to play and the terminology that goes along with it. Triangulation, for instance, is a tactic used in chess endgames to put one’s opponent in zugzwang, a German word for “compulsion to move.” Triangulation occurs when one king can move between three adjoining squares (in the shape of a triangle) and maintain the position, while the opponent only has two squares on which to move. It is a strategic maneuver that forces one’s opponent to move.

Outside of the game of chess, triangulation still manages to be a maneuver meant to force a desired result. In social or family systems, the tactic is associated with people rather than pawns. In situations where two people are in conflict with one another, one or both often triangulate with a third person (or thing) in an attempt to curtail anxiety and garner support. So in the case of a feuding brother and sister, the sister might run to a sympathetic third sibling, while the brother might preoccupy his frustration with work. In each case, both triangles create a situation where two are on the inside and one is on the outside. But also in each case, while the anxiety may be reduced momentarily, the source of that anxiety is left unresolved.

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Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – People Are More Important Than Things

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Do not love or cherish the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. —1 John 2:15

One day my previous housekeeper was cooking a roast for us in the pressure cooker. She did something wrong and the valve blew off the top, shooting steam, roast, grease, potatoes, and carrots straight up into the air. The ceiling fan above the stove was on full speed. It caught the food and grease and sent them flying all over the kitchen walls, ceiling, floor, furniture—and the housekeeper. When I came home from work, she was sitting in a corner of the kitchen, crying. She looked so bad I thought she had received some tragic news. I finally got her to tell me what had happened; and when she did, I started laughing. By the time Dave came in, she and I were both laughing hysterically. She said, “I’ve destroyed your kitchen!”

I remember telling her, “The kitchen can be replaced, but you can’t. You’re more important than the kitchen. Thank God you’re not hurt.” There was a time in my life when that would not have been my response. Before I learned that people are more important than things, I would have become angry and said things to make the housekeeper feel stupid and guilty.

If we love people, God can replace things; but if we love things excessively, we may lose people who cannot be replaced.

From the book New Day, New You by Joyce Meyer.

 

http://www.joycemeyer.org

Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – Do the Will of God

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“And the world is fading away, and these evil, forbidden things will go with it, but whoever keeps doing the will of God will live forever” (1 John 2:17).

There are few questions more frequently asked of me than this, “How can I know God’s will for my life?” or “How can I know what God wants me to do in this particular situation?”

“When I was crossing the Irish Channel one starless night,” said F.B. Meyer, a saint of yesteryear, “I stood on the deck by the captain and asked him, ‘How do you know Holyhead Harbor on so dark a night as this?’

“‘You see those three lights?’ he asked. ‘All of them must line up together as one, and when we see them so united, we know the exact position of the harbor’s mouth.’

“When we want to know God’s will, there are three things which always concur: the inward impulse, the Word of God and the trend of circumstances – God in the heart and God in circumstance, indicating His will. Never start until these three things agree.”

If we are to keep doing the will of God, as this verse in 1 John suggests, it is of course imperative that we know how to determine the will of God. F.B. Meyer’s words of wisdom, based on years of experience, are a good starting point.

The average person lives his life, dies and vanishes from the world scene, soon to be forgotten. But the influence of all who do God’s will lives on forever. Therefore, every individual should frequently and carefully evaluate how he invests his time, talents and treasure to be sure he truly is living not for worldly values but for the cause of Jesus Christ.

“Only one life, ’twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.”

Bible Reading: Romans 12:1-3

TODAY’S ACTION POINT:  As clearly as I am able to discern God’s will for my life, I will follow Him and do His will instead of following the ways of the anti-God world system which is fading away.

 

http://www.cru.org

Max Lucado

Max Lucado – He Who Has Ears Let Him Hear

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It’s not that we don’t have ears…it’s that we don’t use them! Scripture has always place a premium on hearing God’s voice. The great command from God through Moses began with the words, “Hear O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD” (Deuteronomy 6:4 KJV).  Proverbs 8:34 says, “Happy are those who listen to me.”

Jesus urges us to listen like sheep. “The sheep recognize his voice. . .they follow because they’re familiar with the shepherd’s voice” (John 10:3-5). Each of the seven churches in Revelation is addressed in the same manner: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Revelation 2:7; 2:11; 2:17; 2:29; 3:6; 3:13; 3:22).

Our ears, unlike our eyes, do not have lids. They are intended to remain open! How long has it been since you had your hearing checked? When God sows seed your way, what is the result? Remember,“Faith comes from hearing…” (Romans 10:17).

From Just Like Jesus

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Denison Forum

Denison Forum – Gay lawyer criticizes Disney for gay scene

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“Somewhere along the line, Disney went off course. No longer did it see itself as a defender of children’s innocence. Instead, it saw itself as a conduit to social change. Walt Disney became Harvey Milk.”

This is how a gay attorney views Disney’s decision to include a gay scene in Beauty and the Beast. In an Orlando Sentinel op-ed, Joseph R. Murray II calls himself “a proud member of the LGBT community.” But he disagrees with Disney’s decision to promote LGBT issues with children.

Murray’s assessment is insightful: “The vision for Walt’s world was clear: Entertain children. Disney characters were about hope, optimism, and above all else, making sure children were able to enjoy their innocence for as long as the outside world would permit.” Now Disney is promoting the “outside world” in unprecedented ways.

Why has the company departed from its founder’s vision? I would hazard two guesses. One: Some at Disney believe that LGBT youth need reaffirmation. But Murray responds: “I was gay and grew up without gay Disney and made it just fine.” Two: Disney executives view LGBT rights as civil rights and believe they should be taught to all of society, children included.

For those who liken LGBT rights to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the logic is simple. When America legally abolished racial discrimination, we wanted to spread the message of racial inclusion across our culture, beginning with our children. Now LGBT advocates want to do the same, beginning with our children. And Disney is apparently a willing colleague in this strategy of normalizing homosexuality.

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Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley –The People God Uses

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1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Think of a time when you were asked to handle a particular task at church but felt you didn’t have enough education, experience, or ability to do it. We all tend to feel like this on occasion and may even offer God excuses why we couldn’t possibly be the one to take on the project. But the Lord doesn’t always use strong, influential, or accomplished people to do His work.

In fact, God often chooses to have His work done through those whom the world regards as foolish, weak, unimpressive, or ordinary. He has two main purposes for doing this. First of all, by accomplishing great things through unexceptional people, He proves that the world’s wisdom is foolishness. And second, God’s people don’t have any reason to boast: They have no power to save themselves and no ability to serve Him apart from His strength and wisdom.

God isn’t interested in impressive human talent and natural ability. He’s looking for humble people who are totally dependent upon Him and willing to make themselves available for whatever He calls them to do. Moses didn’t feel the Lord could use him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt because he wasn’t eloquent, but he became one of the greatest leaders in Jewish history. David was young and had no experience as a warrior, but the Spirit of God empowered him to kill a giant with one small stone.

If you’re a believer, it doesn’t matter how young or old you are or how qualified you feel. If you’ll simply depend on Christ, make yourself available, and obey Him, He’ll use you for His glory.

Bible in One Year: Judges 10-12

 

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Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Spilling Through My Fingers

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Read: Isaiah 40:9–17

Bible in a Year: Deuteronomy 28–29; Mark 14:54–72

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand . . . ?—Isaiah 40:12

After I clumsily knocked over my glass on the restaurant counter, the spilled beverage began to cascade over the edge and onto the floor. Out of sheer embarrassment, I tried to catch the waterfall with cupped hands. My efforts were largely unsuccessful; most of my beverage rushed through my fingers. In the end, my upturned palms held little more than a meager tablespoon each, while my feet stood in puddles.

My life feels similar on many days. I find myself scrambling to solve problems, oversee details, and control circumstances. No matter how hard I try, my feeble hands are incapable of managing all the pieces and parts. Something invariably slips through my fingers and pools on the floor at my feet, leaving me feeling overwhelmed. No amount of contorting my hands or squeezing my fingers more tightly together makes me able to handle it all.

Yet God can. Isaiah tells us that God can measure the globe’s waters—all the oceans and rivers and rain—in the hollow of His hands (40:12). Only His hands are large enough to hold them all. We needn’t try to hold more than the tablespoon He’s designed our hands to carry. When we feel overwhelmed, we can entrust our cares and concerns into His capable hands. —Kirsten Holmberg

Help me, Lord, to stop trying to hold everything in my hands, but instead to trust my needs and concerns into Your perfect care.

We can trust God to handle the things that overwhelm us.

INSIGHT: The truth of God’s intimate care for us is grounded in God’s self-revelation, the Bible. In the Discovery Series booklet How Can I Know God through His Book? David Egner writes, “Although the Bible was written by men like Moses and Luke and Paul, it is the self-revelation of God. He is the Author behind the authors. And what He says reflects who He is. To know God we have to read His book; . . . to see Him on every page, above every event, in every place and circumstance, and overseeing the choice of every person who makes his way into the sacred pages of biblical history.”

 

http://www.odb.org

Uncategorized

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Scandal and Mystery

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As a young man growing up in Scotland, like many others, I was exposed to Christianity and the symbol of the cross. However, it was a point of confusion, a mystery at best, and at worst, an object of scorn and disgust. I did not know what it meant or why religious people thought it important, but I knew I wanted nothing to do with it.

Obviously, I have had a change of mind. Why? I’ll explain as we proceed, but first, some helpful voices. Alister McGrath, Professor of theology, ministry, and education at King’s College, London, writes: “Just as God has humbled himself in making himself known ‘in the humility and shame of the cross,’ we must humble ourselves if we are to encounter him. We must humble ourselves by being prepared to be told where to look to find God, rather than trusting in our own insights and speculative abilities. In effect, we are forced to turn our eyes from contemplation of where we would like to see God revealed, and to turn them instead upon a place which is not of our choosing, but which is given to us.”(1)

In other words, nothing in one’s history, experience, or knowledge can prepare us for God’s means of drawing near. At the cross, something we are not expecting is revealed, something scandalous unveiled, something we could never have articulated or asked for is given to us. Philip Yancey, the renowned author, offers more on this: “Here at the cross is the man who loves his enemies, the man whose righteousness is greater than that of the Pharisees, who being rich became poor, who gives his robe to those who take his cloak, who prays for those who deceitfully use him. The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to Kingdom, nor is it even the way to the Kingdom; it is the Kingdom come.”(2)

I have come to realize that wrong ideas and images are responsible for much misery and disaster in our lives. And I think many of us have significantly distorted ideas about the purpose and meaning of the cross. When many people think of “sin” or the human condition before God, what comes to mind is perhaps something like the image of a child caught with his hands in the cookie jar. Such an image might well be understood as disobedience or maybe even naughtiness, but is it really that important? It is certainly not bad enough to justify extreme reactions. As a result of such a metaphor, our moral reflections on sin tend to foster incredulity or disgust. The response seems totally out of proportion to the offense.

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Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Eliminate Stress and Fill Your Life with God’s Best

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Peace I leave with you; My [own] peace I now give and bequeath to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.…—John 14:27

Nothing harms us emotionally the way stress does. We might say that anxiety is emotions out of control. When someone experiences anxiety, most of the time it’s because their emotions have been stressed to the point that they are no longer functioning healthily. There are many situations that cause anxiety. The death of a spouse or child, divorce, and job loss are major events; however, not all the reasons are that serious. A lot of anxiety is caused simply by taking on more than we can handle.

I used to feel constantly overwhelmed due to stress, but it was because my schedule was unreasonable. And—even worse—I thought I was doing it for God. It is amazing to me now when I look back at how deceived I was. Always remember that if Satan cannot get you to not work for God, then he will try to get you to overwork for God. He really doesn’t care which end of being out of balance we are on, because either one causes trouble.

The simple answer to living a life you can enjoy is to learn God’s ways and follow them. Jesus said, “I am the Way” (see John 14:6), and that means He will show us how to live properly. The answers we need are in God’s Word, and we should make a decision that we will not only read the Bible, but we will obey it. If we refuse to make that decision and follow through, we will keep feeling stressed until we break.

Start asking God what you can eliminate from your life that is not producing good fruit. It may even be some good things that are just not the best things for you. Something can be right for us in one season of our lives and not right at all in another season. Follow your heart, and you will accomplish a lot of fruitful things and still have energy left over to enjoy the fruit of your labor.

Trust in Him: What seemingly good things are crowding your life and keeping you from God’s best? Decide that you will simplify your life and live with peace, not stress. Trust that God wants you to have the time to enjoy your life.

From the book Trusting God Day by Day by Joyce Meyer.

 

http://www.joycemeyer.org

Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – Tried in the Test Tube

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“These trials are only to test your faith, to see whether or not it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests gold and purifies it – and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold; so if your faith remains strong after being tried in the test tube of fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day of His return” (1 Peter 1:7).

A friend of mine has experienced great tragedy in his life – at least ten major things that seem to have gone wrong.

“I see you as a man of God,” I have said to him during several counseling sessions. “I see you as a man who loves the Lord Jesus with all of your heart. In light of all the things that are happening to you, however, I am prompted to ask, ‘Is there any sin in your life? Are you doing anything to dishonor the Lord?'”

“Absolutely nothing,” he said. “My life is transparent before God. He can do anything He wants with me. I have turned my back on business success [he was an outstanding businessman], and I have given everything I have to the Lord.”

The beautiful thing about this whole experience is that this man is rejoicing in the Lord Jesus while enduring things that would break the average person. Every time he emerges from a crisis, his face seems to glow all the more. He is praising God all the more.

He blesses me every time I am with him. “Lord thank You,” I say. “Thank You for his example.”

Those who are mightily used of God often experience, like Job, some degree of adversity. Such adversity may be God’s discipline for disobedience and unconfessed sin, or it may be – as in the case of Job, and I believe in the case of my friend – God’s way of preparing you for a greater testimony for our Lord. “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.”

Bible Reading: James 1:2-5

TODAY’S ACTION POINT:  I will look upon my trials as part of God’s way of strengthening my faith and my life to prepare me for a more powerful witness for His glory.

 

http://www.cru.org

Max Lucado

Max Lucado – The Power of a Godly Touch

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Oh the power of a godly touch. Have you known it? The doctor who treated you, or the teacher who dried your tears? Haven’t we known the power of a godly touch? Can’t we offer the same? Perhaps you already do. You can use your hands to pray over the sick and minister to the weak. If you aren’t touching them personally, your hands are writing notes, making calls, or baking pies. And you have learned the power of a godly touch.

But others of us forget how significant one touch can be. Or we fear saying the wrong thing, so we say nothing at all. Aren’t we glad Jesus didn’t make the same mistake? Keep in mind the perspective of the lepers in the world. They aren’t picky or finicky. They’re just lonely—yearning for a godly touch. Jesus touched the untouchables of the world. Will you do the same?

From Just Like Jesus

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

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Denison Forum

Denison Forum – Church makes technology its religion

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“It’s time to build new religions around what we really believe in, technology.” So states the founder of the Hack Temple, a building that was a 104-year-old church in San Francisco.

The cathedral, built in 1912, served as a place of worship for nearly eighty years. It then became an English school for Chinese-speaking children. Last November, Pavel Cherkashin, a former Adobe and Microsoft executive, spent $7 million to buy it. He is now renovating it into an event center for technology innovators.

Hack Temple hosted its first TEDx event last month. It held a dance party earlier this month. It provides communal workspaces for meetings with mentors or small groups. The organ now displays a neon sign that reads, “hello world.”

Cherkashin is right: technology qualifies as a religion for millions of people around the world. The Oxford English Dictionary includes in its definition of “religion” these descriptions:

•    “The condition of belonging to a religious order.”
•    “A particular religious order or denomination.”
•    “People devoted to a religious life.”
•    “A system defining a code of living, esp. as a means of achieving spiritual or material improvement.”

Substitute “technological” for “religious” in these phrases and you describe many of the people you know. They belong to a “technological order,” a subset of society that focuses especially on technology and innovation. They subscribe to a “particular technological order” such as Apple or Android devices and preferred social media platforms.

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Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley –Dealing With Guilt

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Ephesians 1:3-14

Yesterday we saw that guilt can be false or legitimate. But in either case, its effect on us is the same.

Feeling ashamed can lead us to doubt God’s presence, provision, or promises. We might struggle to believe He loves us, and if the emotions are strong enough, we may even question our salvation. Guilt can cause us to forget we are free from condemnation (Rom. 8:1) and can make us fearful that God is judging us harshly.

Another response to self-reproach is to try and pay the Lord back for our real or imagined mistakes. To earn His approval, we get compulsively busy and stay that way. Then, there’s remorse over “shoulds,” “oughts,” and “musts”—guilt over unfinished tasks can rob us of pleasure in our relationships, as we question our use of time. Such self-condemnation can lead to discouragement and depression.

Because of guilt’s corrosive power, we need to take care of it quickly. When we have broken God’s commands, the solution is to repent and accept the Lord’s forgiveness. False guilt, on the other hand, is erased by embracing biblical truth:

I am special. God chose me and is transforming me into Christ’s image.

I am loved. God loves me unconditionally, unalterably, and continuously.

I am forgiven. Jesus paid the full price for my every sin. God has permanently forgiven me and adopted me into His family.

God has provided a way out from the burden of guilt you carry. Won’t you accept His offer?

Bible in One Year: Judges 7-9

 

http://www.intouch.org/

Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — A Good Inheritance

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Read: 2 Timothy 1:1–5

Bible in a Year: Deuteronomy 26–27; Mark 14:27–53

I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice.—2 Timothy 1:5

Grandpa and Grandma Harris didn’t have a lot of money, yet they managed to make each Christmas memorable for my cousins and me. There was always plenty of food, fun, and love. And from an early age we learned that it was Christ who made this celebration possible.

We want to leave the same legacy to our children. When we got together last December to share Christmas with family, we realized this wonderful tradition had started with Grandpa and Grandma. They couldn’t leave us a monetary inheritance, but they were careful to plant the seeds of love, respect, and faith so that we—their children’s children—might imitate their example.

In the Bible we read about grandma Lois and mom Eunice, who shared with Timothy genuine faith (2 Tim. 1:5). Their influence prepared this man to share the good news with many others.

We can prepare a spiritual inheritance for those whose lives we influence by living in close communion with God. In practical ways, we make His love a reality to others when we give them our undivided attention, show interest in what they think and do, and share life with them. We might even invite them to share in our celebrations! When our lives reflect the reality of God’s love, we leave a lasting legacy for others. —Keila Ochoa

Father, may I leave a good spiritual inheritance to my family as You use me to show Your everlasting love.

If someone has left you a godly inheritance, invest it in others.

INSIGHT: Paul’s second letter to Timothy is one of his most personal epistles. Chapter 1 is marked by the apostle’s fatherly challenges to Timothy about courageously using the giftedness God has invested in him. In chapter 2, Paul again encourages his young son in the faith to stand firm and grow in a mature walk with Christ. Chapter 3 provides a warning about the difficulties of the days ahead and a call to hold tight to the teachings he has received. In the closing chapter, Paul acknowledges that he wants Timothy to show the same faithfulness to the gospel that he himself has sought to exhibit. Paul shares the disappointment and hurt he has suffered at the hands of some people, but he has been faithful in passing along the faith to others, just as Eunice and Lois had invested in young Timothy. The result was that their son and grandson had become like a son to Paul. Bill Crowder

 

http://www.odb.org

Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Frozen Stories

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Robi Damelin knows it is all too alluring for the media to depict an extremist screaming at the top of a mountain about a greater nation or the mother of a suicide bomber saying she’s proud to have given her child; the alternative does not sell as well as the sensational. “But I can tell you of all these mothers who’ve lost children,” she says. “I don’t care what they say to the media. I know what happens to them at night when they go to bed. We all share the same pain.”(1)

Damelin is a mother who knows this pain well. Sitting beside her, Ali Abu Awwad, a soft-spoken young man thirty years her junior, knows a similar pain. Robi and Ali each tell stories of loved ones lost to violence, stories that happen to intersect at a place that puts them at painful odds with one another. Each grieves the loss of a family member caused at hands on opposite sides of the same violent conflict. For Ali, filled with the loss of his beloved younger brother, that place of intersection was once filled with thoughts familiar to many in his situation: How many from the other side need to die in order to make my pain feel better? Yet bravely, he began to notice something else at the crossroads of his side and theirs. For both Robi and Ali, it was the tears of the other side that would change the way they tell their stories.

Some stories, as Kafka prescribed, indeed provide the ax for the frozen sea inside us. Rather than crafting for themselves stories that add to the cold sea of hatred and despair which devastated them, Robi and Ali tell of the common grief that cracks the frozen wall between them. They are now a part of a growing network of survivors on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict who share their sorrow, stories of loved ones, and ideas for lasting change. “It’s the shared pain that allows you to open to another place completely,” says Robi. “If you want to be right it’s very easy,” adds Ali. “But to be honest is very difficult. Being honest means to be human.”(2)

Their story brings something I have been thinking about personally into a much broader place. Namely, the stories we tell ourselves powerfully shape our worlds: I am a victim. I am entitled. I am right. I am wounded. I am abandoned. I am in control. These simple narratives rest at the heart of the things we do and say, quietly but decidedly shaping our worldviews, our identities, our humanity. They at times act as self-fulfilling prophecies, narratives which keep us locked in worlds we may even claim we want to leave: I am devastated. I am betrayed. I am on my own. The tale of Ali and Robi shows two people willing to change the more common narratives of power and prerogative to the much less comfortable narratives of shared loss and weakness: We are human. We are grieving. We know the same pain. And as such, they are finding humanity where there was once only suspicion, relationship where a great divide often reigns, and a common story which chips away at a great frozen sea.

Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Frozen Stories →

Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Authority Over the Devil

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Behold! I have given you authority and power to trample upon serpents and scorpions, and [physical and mental strength and ability] over all the power that the enemy [possesses]; and nothing shall in any way harm you.—Luke 10:19

One of the best ways to defend ourselves against the devil is to know the Word of God and speak it aloud against the lies he bombards our minds with. When the devil tells you God doesn’t love you and you will never amount to anything, go to war using the Word of God. Get out your two-edged sword and use it!

Talk back to the devil, loud and clear, saying, “I am the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ” (see 2 Corinthians 5:21); “God has a good plan for my life” (see Jeremiah 29:11); and “Nothing can separate me from the love of God” (see Romans 8:35–39). Trust God—know that you are more than a conqueror through Christ as you confidently declare the truth of His Word.

Power Thought: Through Christ I have authority over the devil.

From the book The Power of Being Thankful by Joyce Meyer.

 

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