Prayer is the Christian’s most powerful God-given means for effecting change. Yet we’re often hesitant about our appeals.
But we should be confident in prayer, primarily because of the knowledge that we belong to God’s family (John 1:12). When we received Jesus Christ as Savior, God became our heavenly Father. As a result, we can be absolutely sure He will hear our prayers (1 John 5:14).
Continue reading Charles Stanley – Learning to Pray With Confidence
Read: Luke 9:57-62
Bible in a Year: Genesis 33-35; Matthew 10:1-20
No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God. —Luke 9:62
Saying goodbye is hard—to family and friends, to a favorite and familiar place, to an occupation or livelihood.
In Luke 9:57-62 our Lord describes the cost of being His disciple. A would-be follower says to Jesus, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus responds, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God” (vv. 61-62). Is He asking His followers to say goodbye to everything and every relationship considered precious?
I remember the time when my son had to go through a very simple surgery when he was five years old. He was not able to breathe properly, so the doctors had to remove some extra tissue surrounding his nostril and nasal passages.
During the hours and days after his surgery, my once-a-chatterbox son had become completely quiet. Because of the fear of being hurt if he spoke, he quit using words for his way of communication. It was overwhelming to see my boy struggling to express himself in that condition.
As I assisted my son get back to talking, I could not help but think of how unexpectedly Zechariah lost his speech after he questioned the angel who brought him such good news about a long-waited child in his old age.(1) In Zechariah’s case, the temporary loss of words was something of an acknowledgement of the promised child he doubted, a child who would prepare the way for the Messiah. Though he knew why he was made silent, I am sure he felt restless until he held his son in his arms and was finally able to describe his emotions properly.
There are spiritual retreat centers in various locations around the world, which offer “Silent Weeks” to those who are over-exhausted from excessive communication. During these weeks, individuals are banned from verbal communication in order to quiet themselves internally. The goal is simply to bring back the core purpose of real interaction: tending to what is being said in reality.
Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – A Poverty of Words
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
1 Peter 2:9, NIV
Recommended Reading
Deuteronomy 7:1-8
The German car company, Volkswagen, introduced its Type 1 car in 1938. The Type 1 became affectionately known as the VW Beetle or the VW Bug because of its iconic shape that changed very little for decades. While other car companies continued to revise the exterior of their cars, the Beetle’s upgrades were internal. The never-changing shape of the Beetle became its marketing charm.
Continue reading Today’s Turning Point with David Jeremiah – Staying the Same
Today’s Truth
The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He refreshes my soul.
Psalm 23:1-3
Friend to Friend
For most of my adult life I have wrongly equated being busy with being productive. I am guilty as charged when it comes to living each day in overdrive. The result has been exhaustion, burnout, and watered down living. God and I both knew that the facade I had so carefully erected was a spiritual monument to self-promotion and pride-filled goals.
I have always loved music and began taking piano lessons at the age of five. I will never forget that first piano lesson with Mrs. McKenzie, a very sweet, elderly woman who played the piano beautifully.
“Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so that there will be food enough in my Temple; if you do, I will open up the windows of heaven for you and pour out a blessing so great you won’t have room enough to take it in” (Malachi 3:10).
Tom and Marti were newlyweds. They were just getting started in business and had all the expense of setting up housekeeping. So they found their budget severely strained. In fact, the bills were piling up. Then they were challenged to tithe their gross income. Their first response was, “Impossible! We can’t even pay our present bills, let alone take 10 percent off the top.”
As they prayed together, however, they felt definitely led that this was God’s will. Since they wanted to please Him by obeying His command, they began systematically and faithfully to give priority to their tithe. At first, it was nip and tuck, and some of the other obligations had to wait. But after a few months they were amazed to see how they were able to accomplish more with the nine-tenths than they had previously been able to accomplish with the total amount.
Continue reading Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – A Blessing So Great
Read: John 7:1-17
Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him. Some said, “He is a good man.” Others replied, “No, he deceives the people.” (v. 12 NIV)
We are introduced to these preliminaries in the words of Jesus in a chapter where hardly anybody knows Christ. He is surrounded by people who know some things about him but who don’t really know him. That included his own half-brothers, who, according to verse 5, did not yet believe in him. And there was the mob that thronged him like a rock star but didn’t agree if he was a good man or a deceiver. Others said he was demon possessed (John 7:20), while still others thought he might be Moses or (gasp) even the Messiah. Lurking in the background were the Jewish leaders who wanted to kill him.
In such an atmosphere of curiosity and confusion, enthusiasm and envy, skepticism and hostility (much like we live in today), how can anyone really know Jesus? In verse 15, Jesus’ enemies challenge his education, his credentials, and his authority, saying, in effect, “Who does he think he is?”
Continue reading Words of Hope – Daily Devotional – Knowing About Is Not the Same as Knowing
Jamie-Lynne Knighten stood in the checkout line with a $200 grocery bill, a crying baby and a declined credit card. That’s when 28-year-old Matthew Jackson stepped up and asked if he could cover the cost. Knighten agreed when Jackson said he wanted nothing in return. He simply asked her to do the same for someone else. A week later, Knighten called Jackson’s boss to tell of his kindness. The manager began to cry. Less than 24 hours after Jackson paid Knighten’s grocery bill, he was killed in a car accident.
Blessed is he who is generous to the poor.
Proverbs 14:21
Knighten quickly created a Facebook page called, “Matthew’s Legacy.” Soon there were people all over the world responding who agreed to share a random act of kindness. In fact, when Jackson’s sister and brother-in-law were driving to the memorial service, they stopped with their four children for a meal. When they finished eating, a stranger had already paid their bill!
Continue reading Presidential Prayer Team; H.L.M. – Random Acts
“Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” —Psalm 50:15
Every day it seems like there is more bad news: scandals in our government, threats against our national security, and the continued threat of terrorism. And then there are the personal problems that we all will face at one time or another: the death of a loved one, an illness, a family problem.
Just as there is a spiritual solution to the problems in our country, there is a spiritual solution for the problems in our lives too. Is your marriage struggling? There is an app for that. We find it in the Scriptures. God tells you how to have a successful marriage. He tells you what the role of the husband is and what the role of the wife is. Are you single and looking for the right person? There is a spiritual and biblical solution to that as well. Are your finances in a mess? There is a biblical and spiritual answer for that. God has told us to call on Him in our day of trouble.
Some might say, “I have tried this, and it didn’t work.”
Read Matthew 27:38-56; Psalm 22
As the poet John Donne wrote, no man is an island. Like it or not, the way others treat us affects how we feel about ourselves. People who inform our self-perception are usually parents and leaders. Their attention to our needs confirms our value. But what happens when they ignore our cries for help?
We sometimes think that Jesus didn’t experience this human struggle, but His response to the Father’s silence reveals His emotional anguish on the cross. When criticism surrounded Him during His ministry, His Father’s affirmation sustained Him.
But through the long, torturous night of His trial and resulting crucifixion, God the Father seemed silent.
Like His ancestor David, Jesus had entrusted His honor to God, remaining silent before His accusers rather than engaging in a heated self-defense. He clung to His identity as God’s beloved Son, an identity confirmed by His Father (see Matt. 3:17). But as wave after wave of mockery, abuse, and false testimony crashed against Him, Jesus felt weaker and ever more alone.
Continue reading Moody Global Ministries – Today in the Word – JESUS: SHAME IN ABANDONMENT
Today’s Scripture: Genesis 1-2
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. – Matthew 6:33
The Bible begins with a mystery: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” What’s so mysterious about that, you say? Did you know the Hebrew word for God in this passage is plural? All three persons of the Trinity were involved in the creation of the world.
The Bible says the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and God the Father created all things by Jesus Christ. “For by him”–that is, by Jesus Christ–“all things were created” (Colossians 1:16). That means all things spiritual and physical, including your spiritual and physical life, came through Jesus Christ. Is it any wonder that God’s Word reminds us that in all things His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, must be preeminent in our lives. Just as He was Lord at creation, so He is Lord today.
Continue reading The Navigators – Leroy Eims – Daily Discipleship Devotional – Lord of All
America is in the midst of Powerball fever. And it’s not hard to see why. The potential value of a winning ticket went from $40 million in November, to $800 million last Saturday night, to an estimated $1.3 billion as I record.
In interviews everywhere, people are fantasizing about what they would do with all that money. Many are admitting to buying tickets in bulk. Though in one a refreshing change of pace, a woman at a supermarket told a colleague that she wasn’t playing because, “No one needs that kind of money.”
Well, she’s definitely in the minority. People are lining up to buy, despite the fact that the chances of winning are astronomical: one in 292 million. In miles, that’s more than three times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, what astronomers call an astronomical unit or AU.
Now, if all that was happening was a bunch of people throwing away a couple of bucks on astronomically-long odds, it wouldn’t warrant comment. But that’s not the only thing going on here. As ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser recently said on his radio show, it’s clear that “the lure of easy money affects the segment of the population you wish it [that] it didn’t affect.”
Continue reading BreakPoint – Powerball and the Moral Deficit: Bad Odds for the Poor
Read Matthew 26:62-68; 27:22-37
In his book Mending the Soul: Understanding and Healing Abuse, Steven Tracy argues that abuse attacks the image of God in a person. It not only damages the body but also wounds the soul. Emotional, physical, and sexual abuse work to break down their victim’s sense of identity and worth.
Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated in Scripture than in the brutal series of attacks that Jesus endured in the hours leading up to His crucifixion. The religious leaders used their spiritual authority to assault His identity. He was on trial for being Himself, the Son of God. Silence infuriated His accusers; His calm restraint incensed them even more.
Continue reading Moody Global Ministries – Today in the Word – JESUS: SHAME IN ABUSE
President Obama delivered his final State of the Union address last night.
If you have images disabled or have trouble viewing this message, please view in browser. Also: Forward this email to a friend. President Obama delivered his final State of the Union (SOTU) address last night. He described his administration’s accomplishments while addressing our fears about national security and terrorism.
The lasting value of the annual SOTU is not primarily legislative. Since 1965, only 39.4 percent of SOTU initiatives have been passed at least in part by Congress. The larger significance of last night’s speech is more visceral. The president sought to articulate a message of hope and optimism, seeking to unify Americans around a vision for the future.
However, The Washington Post noted that “the gulf between his vision of a unified America, one he has trumpeted from his earliest days on the national scene, and the political reality has never seemed wider.” The Post lists guns, immigration reform, Middle Eastern refugees, the Iran nuclear deal, the opening to Cuba, and war and terrorism as issues over which we are more divided than ever.
Continue reading Denison Forum – WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF OUR UNION?
Read: Revelation 3:7-13
Bible in a Year: Genesis 29-30; Matthew 9:1-17
I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have. —Revelation 3:11
A cowboy friend of mine who grew up on a ranch in Texas has a number of colorful sayings. One of my favorites is “It don’t take much water to make good coffee.” And when someone ropes a steer too big to handle or is in some kind of trouble, my friend will shout, “Hold everything you’ve got!” meaning “Help is on the way! Don’t let go!”
The Pixar Studios film, Inside Out, is a wondrously creative and insightful look into human emotion. Through the experience of the film’s main character, Riley, we come to see the world of her interior life—a world brought to life by making her emotions actual characters at work in her mind. The whimsy of Pixar’s animation to tell this story belies the deep existential themes the film explores. Namely, the film suggests that though often ironic, there is necessary relationship between sadness and joy in human experience. The film turns a critical eye toward trying to keep sadness at bay, or restricting its role in human development through the often well-meaning exhortation to simply ‘be happy.’
These themes were brought home to me at a funeral service for a family member. He was the fourth person to die in this family, and the fourth to die before the age of 70. As the extended family began to gather in the church library prior to the service, the grief was as palpable as if it was a figure in the room. Tears flowed freely, and we embraced one another in an attempt to offer comfort in the midst of the overwhelming sorrow.
Continue reading Ravi Zacharias Ministry – For the Joy Set Before Him
“Let love of the brethren continue” (Hebrews 13:1).
Genuine love among Christians is a testimony to the world, to ourselves, and to God.
The importance of brotherly love extends well beyond the walls of your local church or fellowship hall. In John 13:35 Jesus says, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” In effect, God has made love for one another the measuring stick by which the world can determine if our Christian profession is genuine. That’s why it’s so important that we have a selfless attitude and sincerely place the interests of our brothers and sisters in Christ ahead of our own.
If you are a parent, you know what a delight it is when your children love and care for one another. Such harmonious relations make for a close-knit family and fulfill the words of the psalmist: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity!” (Ps. 133:1). God is both pleased and glorified when Christian brothers and sisters love each other and minister together in harmony.
Continue reading John MacArthur – Strength for Today – The Importance of Brotherly Love
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. Ephesians 3:20, NJKV
There have been times when I have been guilty of trying to put God in a blessing box. What I mean is, I have decided where and how He will be able to bless me. Maybe you’ve done the same. “Lord, I will be blessed if I live in Florida, but not in Vermont.” “I will be blessed if I have a job using my gifts and talents, but not if I am in a job I don’t enjoy.” “I will be blessed if I am employed, but not if I must be unemployed.” “I will be blessed if I have children, but not if I am childless.” “I will be blessed if I am married, but not single.”
The Bible is filled with stories in which people tried to put God in a blessing box. He didn’t stick to their plan, but He blessed them all the same in ways they hadn’t imagined. Many had things happen to them that they would not have chosen for themselves, things that would have made it seem as if God’s blessings had been forfeited. The story of Joseph is one such example. As I was reading it this week, Genesis 39:1 jumped off the page.
Continue reading Wisdom Hunters – Have You Put God in a Blessing Box?
The LORD reigns, He is clothed with majesty.
Psalm 93:1
Recommended Reading
Psalm 93
Visitors to New York’s Central Park often pause to admire the twin-towered Majestic skyscraper at 115 Central Park West. It’s been home to such notables as Milton Berle, Walter Winchell, Marc Jacobs, and Conan O’Brien. Mob boss Lucky Luciano also lived there, as did mobster Frank Costello, who was shot in the lobby by a gunman shouting, “This is for you, Frank.”
Continue reading Today’s Turning Point with David Jeremiah – The Majestic
Today’s Truth
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
Hebrews 11:1
Friend to Friend
As the basketball game heated up and the man-to-man coverage got up close and personal, he took an elbow to the ear. Seconds later his world went silent on the trauma side. Stunned, he continued to play and pointed to his ear as he ran down the court telling his coach about the situation.
Continue reading Girlfriends in God – Please Make the Pain Go Away
