Today’s Scripture: 2 Kings 13-17

Always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. – 2 Timothy 3:7

George Sheffer died of a heart attack at age seventy. He had been with Young Life since its beginning in the early forties and had invested himself in people all over the world. There were more than a thousand people at his memorial service.

During the last four years of George’s life, he spent a lot of time in Africa, sharing his vision of youth ministry with men and women in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Malawi. He had just returned from Africa the night he went home to be with the Lord. During his final years, George drew experiences from the treasure house of a lifetime of sharing Christ with others. He adapted his ministry and remained useful to the Lord right up to the end.

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Today’s Scripture: 2 Kings 9-12

For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church. – 1 Corinthians 4:17

When we talk about spiritual leaders who train their successors, you might be saying, “I can barely get my own work done every week. How can I train someone else?”

Let me offer a couple of suggestions. First, involve someone in your ministry, whatever it is. If you teach Sunday school, ask someone to assist in what you’re doing. That gives him or her a chance to observe you in action–and to help.

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Today’s Scripture: 2 Kings 1-3

I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter hidden things,things from of old–what we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he has done. – Psalm 78:2-4

What do you want to leave behind when your life on earth is over? Let’s look at what Elijah the prophet left behind. In today’s passage, we find him on his last day on earth, visiting the schools of the prophets where young men trained. We see Elijah’s final investment in the life of Elisha. Never underestimate the power of one life invested in another. When I was a twenty-four-year-old student at Northwestern College in Minneapolis, one man taught me most of what I know about the Christian life.

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Today’s Scripture: Joshua 18-21

“I tell you…there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” – Luke 15:7

I attended a Christian conference where two men gave a testimony on the subject of evangelism. The first man told of a meeting at which the speaker asked everyone to jot down the names of five friends who were nonChristians, and then begin praying for them on a regular basis. He and his wife just stared at each other. They didn’t have five nonChristian friends.

They began to look for ways to meet nonChristians. The husband went to the local gym and met a worldly young lawyer, who was quite skillful in asking argumentative questions. The Christian was quite skillful in answering them from the Scriptures. The lawyer eventually came to Christ, and these two men now were telling their story.

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Today’s Scripture: Numbers 9-12

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. – Revelation 2:4

Numbers chapter 9 begins with the concerns of certain men that they would not be able to partake in the celebration of the Passover. What a blessing it is in the life of the church when people are eager to be involved in the activities of the people of God! What a blessing to see people hungering and thirsting after God’s Word and concerned about those things that might hinder them from enjoying all that is available from the gracious hand of God.

During the years I was involved in a ministry with cadets at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, we had a team of about forty guys. They were all sharp, but a couple of those guys were especially eager learners. I remember waking up from a nap one Sunday afternoon to find the two of them sitting at the foot of my bed, notebooks and pens in hand, waiting to talk about some aspect of their Christian faith.

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Today’s Scripture: Numbers 5-8

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. – Ephesians 4:31-32

In Numbers 5-8 the Lord establishes certain laws for the removal of anything that is unclean from the place where the people are camped. This has a powerful application for you and me in our daily walk of discipleship. One of the most urgent matters we face every day is the removal of anything in our lives that might hinder our fellowship with Christ and ruin our testimony before others.

Some years ago, a violent windstorm caused great damage to the city of Colorado Springs. It broke windows, loosened shingles, and tore down electrical lines. A friend of mine and his wife were driving home from church the next morning when they saw a tree that everyone in the city had admired for its greatness and beauty. It had stood in splendor for years. Now it was flat on the ground. Then my friends noticed that the trunk was hollow.

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Today’s Scripture: Job 35-37

Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. – James 3:10

Years ago, my cousins Eva and Dean raised large hunting dogs. Most nights these dogs would bark at the moon, protesting its appearance. I suppose dogs were doing the same around the world. Quite possibly, the moon was being barked at twenty-four hours a day. But I noticed something about the moon. It was totally unaffected by it all.

That is what Elihu is saying about God in Job 35:5: “Look up at the heavens and see; gaze at the clouds so high above you. If you sin, how does that affect him? If your sins are many, what does that do to him?” Our good deeds and our bad deeds have no effect on our unchanging God. He is not added to or diminished by our successes or failures.

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Today’s Scripture: Job 29-31

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world–the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does–comes not from the Father but from the world. – 1 John 2:15-16

I had a Christian friend who contracted polio during the late 1950s and was confined to an iron lung. I remember visiting him when he had wasted away to nothing but skin and bones. I asked him what was the most difficult thing he faced in his ordeal, and he said, “The lust of the flesh.”

I was stunned. Here was this guy on his deathbed, still fighting the same thing you and I struggle with. You see, the lust of the flesh is a battle fought in our minds. And one of the ways the enemy launches his attacks is through what we see.

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Today’s Scripture: 1 Kings 20-22

He who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. – 1 Corinthians 6:17

In the record of 1 Kings 22, when King Ahab assembled his four hundred prophets and asked if he should go to war, the prophets all said yes and predicted victory. But Ahab’s ally, King Jehoshaphat, wanted a second opinion, and he called for Micaiah, prophet of the Lord.

The messenger who summoned Micaiah urged him to agree with the other prophets, but Micaiah said, “As surely as the Lord lives, I can tell him only what the Lord tells me” (1 Kings 22:14). When Micaiah prophesied defeat and ruin for Israel, he was beaten and ridiculed by the other prophets, then sent to prison with nothing but bread and water. But his prophecy came true, and King Ahab was killed in battle.

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Today’s Scripture: Deuteronomy 8-11

“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” – John 15:4

The key to making it over the long haul in the Christian life is to make it over the short haul. Today is all we have. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow never comes. When you go to bed tonight and then wake up, what day will it be? Not tomorrow, but today.

In 1 Corinthians 10:12, Paul says, “If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” That’s a warning about not walking with God today.

Some time ago, I was speaking at a Christian college and a student asked me if working too hard was the cause of burnout. My response was that hard work is not the cause of burnout. Burnout occurs when we become so occupied with our work that we don’t have time for God.

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Today’s Scripture: Genesis 12-14

Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. – Exodus 19:5

Abraham was a most remarkable man. From Genesis 12 to the end of the Bible, he and his descendants are almost the only subject of the divinely inspired Word of God.

Here is a man whom both Christian and Jew claim as the father of their faith. He is even mentioned in the Koran, the holy book of the Muslim religion, in 188 verses. What was it that made Abraham so remarkable? He simply did what God said to do.

As Hebrews 11:8 says, “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” Abraham’s willingness to pack up his family and all his belongings to move to an unknown land is one of the first indications of his commitment to the Lord.

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