Tag Archives: nature

Words of Hope

Words of Hope – Daily Devotional – Spiritual Exercises

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Read: Psalm 23

You revive my drooping head. (v. 5 The Message)

A calendar above my writing table shows a mother duck venturing out from the weed cover into a serene lake, followed by five fuzzy ducklings. The caption reads “Come, follow me” (Matt. 19:21). This photo perfectly illustrates the concept of living as apprentices of Jesus. Young ducks instinctively follow the example of their parents. I imagine that a duckling’s life is a series of lessons in becoming like mom and dad: diving for bugs; staying together for safety; watching mom while grazing in a puddle or crossing the road. We, too, need to step forward into a life of training with the Master and being spiritually formed.

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Presidential Prayer Team

Presidential Prayer Team; J.R.- A Matter of Time

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You may not be entirely happy with the slate of presidential candidates making the rounds in the United States this year, but any of them would be better than the thug leading the people of Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe has been the Prime Minister there since 1980, stubbornly holding on to power now at the age of 92 after several fixed elections. He has been responsible for many grotesque human rights violations and an unbelievable assortment of outrages. Of great intrigue in Zimbabwe – as much of the nation eagerly awaits Mugabe’s passing – is the state of his health. The Prime Minister has taken several mysterious flights to Asian countries for medical treatment of unknown ailments.

Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life.

Psalm 49:7

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Greg Laurie

Greg Laurie – An Ongoing Conversation

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So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.—Genesis 5:23–24

Did you know it’s possible to pray the most beautiful, eloquent prayer ever prayed and not have it go any higher than the ceiling?

Sometimes we are filled with sin. Maybe it’s unforgiveness, or maybe it’s a sin we have never confessed. But that sin is like a barrier between God and us. It is like being on a phone call with God and having the battery go dead.

Maybe you’ve allowed some sin to work its way into your life, and it has brought your prayer life to a halt. If you want to reconnect with God again, then you will need to confess your sin. The Bible tells us that “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

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Kids 4 Truth

Kids 4 Truth International – God Knows Our Needs

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“Behold, the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?” (Matthew 6: 26)

Gwen’s bedroom window looks out on a little pond. A family of mallard ducks lives there all year long. So does a noisy flock of Canadian geese. Sometimes in the spring, there is a wood duck with feathers of so many colors that he looks like someone painted him as an art project. Gwen evens see a blue heron visiting the pond sometimes, wading into the water on its long legs and poking its beak into the tall grasses on the shore.

Gwen used to wonder if birds are able to think. What would they think about? She used her imagination…. “Hmm. I wonder if I’ll find my favorite kind of worm at this pond. I hope the other ducks haven’t eaten all the juiciest water bugs! Maybe I should have gone to some other pond. What if I waste so much energy looking for my meal that I’m too worn out to fly afterwards? What if I starve? Who’s going to take care of me?”

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The Navigators

The Navigators – Jerry Bridges – Holiness Day by Day Devotional – Forgiven Much, Loving Much

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Today’s Scripture: Isaiah 1:18

“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.”

Jesus said, “he who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:47). In the context of that statement he essentially said the converse is also true: Those who are forgiven much, love much. The extent to which we realize and acknowledge our own sinfulness, and the extent to which we realize the total forgiveness and cleansing from those sins, will determine the measure of our love to God.

Charles Hodge said, “The great difficulty with many Christians is that they cannot persuade themselves that Christ (or God) loves them; and the reason they cannot feel confident of the love of God, is, that they know they do not deserve his love, on the contrary, that they are in the highest degree unlovely. How can the infinitely pure God love those who are defiled with sin, who are proud, selfish, discontented, ungrateful, disobedient? This, indeed, is hard to believe.”

But when our sense of guilt is taken away because our consciences are cleansed by the blood of Christ, we’re freed up to love him with all our hearts and souls and minds. We’re motivated in a positive sense to love him in this wholehearted way. Our love will be spontaneous in an outpouring of gratitude to him and fervent desire to obey him.

So if we want to grow in our love for God and in the acceptable obedience that flows out of that love, we must keep coming back to the cross and the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. That is why it is so important that we keep the Gospel before us every day. Because we sin every day, and our consciences condemn us every day, we need the Gospel every day.

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The Navigators

The Navigators – Leroy Eims – Daily Discipleship Devotional – The Road to Greatness

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Today’s Scripture: Matthew 20-23

“Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.” – John 12:26

Here are the words of Jesus to His disciples about greatness in His kingdom: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave–just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:25-28).

I remember a week of meetings in Arizona with the Wycliffe Bible Translators. One day we were going through the food line for dinner when I noticed that Kenneth Pike was serving the beans. Now, Dr. Kenneth Pike, Ph.D., is recognized as one of the world leaders in the field of linguistics. This man is a genius, one of a kind. He could have easily been at the head table because of his position and prestige. Instead, he had chosen to serve others.

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BreakPoint

BreakPoint – We are Not Our Own: The Counter-Cultural Season of Lent

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In many ways, today is one of the strangest days of the year. Everywhere—at work, the grocery store, shopping, exercising—we’ll see all kinds of people walking around with dark smudges on their foreheads.

Now whether or not their own church participates in this ritual, most Christians will know that the smudge is the sign of the cross, and that today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent.

To the unbelieving world, Ash Wednesday is at best quaint (it’s sort of cool to have traditions, you know). At worst, it’s somewhere between bizarre and even anti-social. After all, to a culture committed to the pursuit of self-fulfillment and feeling good about oneself, this whole fasting and self-sacrifice stuff is an existential smack in the face.

Think of how these words contrast with our contemporary illusions of autonomy and self-determination: I am not my own. And I will die one day. And so will you. As the minister tells us when he rubs the ashes on our foreheads, “remember thou art dust and to dust thou shalt return.”

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Moody Global Ministries

Moody Global Ministries – Today in the Word – REST WRECKERS: GUILT

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Read 1 John 3:11-24

In his book Grace, author Max Lucado tells the story of Li Fuyan, a Chinese man who suffered from terrible headaches. He tried a variety of treatments until at last an X-ray revealed that he had a four-inch knife blade lodged in his skull. Lucado equates this man’s suffering with the experience of guilt. “Guilt lies hidden beneath the surface, festering, irritating. Sometimes so deeply embedded you don’t know the cause.”

Today’s reading applies the X-ray of God’s Word to the soul. John provides us with a test to see if we show evidence of having passed from death to life, and the proof is love. Those who have entered into new life in Christ have been given a new capacity to love others. If we are in doubt about what love is like, we need only look to Christ.

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Denison Forum

Denison Forum – THE NEW HAMPSHIRE RESULTS: WHY THEY MATTER

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Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders won last night’s New Hampshire primaries. What do their victories mean for the rest of us?

The winner of New Hampshire’s primary doesn’t always wins the nomination. Since 1952, primary voters have elected the eventual Democratic Party nominee only five out of ten times (excluding incumbents). New Hampshire voters have elected the eventual Republican nominee seven out of ten times (excluding incumbents).

The New Hampshire primary has often been more significant for those who lose than those who win. After President Truman lost New Hampshire in 1952, he dropped out of the race. When President Johnson barely won the primary in 1968, he withdrew as well.

Last night’s results are important politically, but I think they’re even more important culturally.

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Charles Stanley

Charles Stanley – Prayer in the Believer’s Life

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Isaiah 57:15

The two most important disciplines in the life of a believer are Bible study and prayer. It is impossible to grow continually in Christ without practicing both.

Prayer is the primary means by which we talk to God, and it is also a way He teaches us. When we pray, we’re petitioning the Lord and trusting Him for the answer. In doing so, we learn to listen to Him, just as we learn to wait for His response. And He loves for us to honor Him through this spiritual act of worship called prayer.

Indeed, prayer is one of the best ways to honor God. When we pray to our heavenly Father, we are acknowledging that He is God, that He truly is “the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy” (Isa. 57:15). God alone deserves glory, and we ascribe honor to Him when we “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). That is, we are to maintain a God-focused attitude throughout the day—continually asking Him to govern every detail of our lives.

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Our Daily Bread

Our Daily Bread — Secret Menu

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Read: John 4:31-34

Bible in a Year: Leviticus 6-7; Matthew 25:1-30

I have food to eat that you know nothing about. —John 4:32

Meat Mountain is a super-sandwich layered with six kinds of meat. Stacked with chicken tenders, three strips of bacon, two cheeses, and much more, it looks like it should be a restaurant’s featured item.

But Meat Mountain isn’t on any restaurant’s published menu. The sandwich represents a trend in off-menu items known only by social media or word of mouth. It seems that competition is driving fast-food restaurants to offer a secret menu to in-the-know customers.

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Ravi Zacharias

Ravi Zacharias Ministry – Encouragement for Conflict Avoiders

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I am what you might call a classic conflict avoider. At even the hint of disagreement with a friend or colleague, I become like Ferdinand Magellan steering a course of circumnavigation rather than risking a direct hit. Searching for seas of common ground, rather than rift valleys, I employ all the strategies and techniques I can think of to mediate a conflict–including giving way on opinions or convictions in order to maintain the peace. I do not confess this with any sense of pride. While negotiation is a valuable skill, I too often err on the side of compromise. More times than I care to admit, I believed that saving the relationship required giving way and giving in.

It came as something of a revelation, therefore, when I began to notice how much conflict is at the center of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Jewish tradition, in particular, understands that wrestling with God—questioning God, disagreeing with God—is a sign of the health of the relationship. Indeed, Israel gets its name from the famous all-night wrestling match between Jacob and an unknown figure. At the end of the match, Jacob’s name is changed to Israel, which means ‘one who has striven or wrestled with God and prevailed.’

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John MacArthur

John MacArthur – Strength for Today – The Joy of God’s Peace

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“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:2).

Nothing you face today is beyond the purview of God’s grace and peace.

Paul’s wonderful benediction for grace and peace was ever on his heart. He offered it in each of his epistles and expounded on it throughout his writings.

Grace is the outpouring of God’s goodness and mercy on undeserving mankind. Every benefit and provision you receive is by God’s grace. That’s why Peter called it “the manifold grace of God” (1 Pet. 1:10). Just as your trials are manifold or multifaceted, so God’s multifaceted and all-sufficient grace is correspondingly available to sustain you.

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Wisdom Hunters

Wisdom Hunters – God Uses Ordinary People Just Like You

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For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:10

Last summer, while I pondered the problem of depending on ourselves more than we depend on Christ, I scribbled the following notes in my journal. I hope they are an encouragement to you and a reminder that God uses ordinary people just like you.

Self-sufficiency is the enemy of grace. If we believe we are able to do everything on our own, why do we need God? Our inadequacies are an opportunity for Him to show Himself sufficient. In this there is grace, a gift we could never receive if we could solve our own problems. God’s grace, and therefore His power, aren’t made manifest in those who believe they have no need for help. It doesn’t shine most brightly in the “I-can-do-it-myself” types. It shines in the inadequate, in those who know they need God’s power to succeed and endure. It shines when we are unable to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. This is when He can show up to do great things in our impossible situation. This is when He is glorified and we are strengthened in our faith and hope by watching Him work. He moves in—and through—ordinary people. He always has and always will.

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Turning Point

Today’s Turning Point with David Jeremiah – Established in Eden

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But from the beginning of the creation, God “made them male and female.” For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

Mark 10:6-8

Recommended Reading

Genesis 2:21-25

As it relates to human sexuality and marriage, no human government can define its terms. Not even the church can do that. Human sexuality and marriage were determined and defined by God before the church came into existence, before the Jewish nation was formed, and before human government was established. The biblical definition of marriage goes back to the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2, and it was set by God. It was already in place when human government was ordained, when the Jewish nation was established, and the church was born.

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Joyce Meyer

Joyce Meyer – Defeating Discouragement

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Why are you cast down, O my inner self? And why should you moan over me and be disquieted within me? Hope in God and wait expectantly for Him, for I shall yet praise Him, my Help and my God. —Psalm 42:5

In today’s verse, the psalmist is clearly discouraged. Discouragement destroys hope, so naturally the enemy tries hard to discourage us. Without hope we give up, which is exactly what the devil wants us to do.

The Bible repeatedly tells us not to be discouraged or dismayed. God knows that we will not be strong or victorious if we lose our courage, and He wants us to be encouraged, not discouraged. When discouragement tries to overtake you, the first thing to do is to examine your thought life. What kinds of thoughts have you been thinking? Have they sounded something like this? I am not going to make it; this is too hard. I always fail; I may as well give up. God probably doesn’t answer my prayers because He is so disappointed in the way I act.

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Girlfriends in God

Girlfriends in God – How To Avoid Crashing in Turbulent Emotions

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If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.

James 1:5

Friend to Friend

On July 16, 1999, John F Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and his sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette, met their death in a watery grave in the Atlantic Ocean. John was piloting the single-engine aircraft and was only a few miles from their destination when something went terribly wrong.

The plane left New Jersey en route to a family gathering in Massachusetts in the dark of night, and while crossing a thirty-mile stretch of water to make its final descent, the plane began a series of erratic maneuvers. John’s descent varied between 400 and 800 feet per minute, about seven miles from shore. The plane began an erratic series of turns, descents, and climbs. Its final descent eventually exceeded 4700 fpm, and the airplane nose-dived into the ocean. Other pilots flying similar routes on the night of the accident reported no visual horizon while flying over the water because of haze. They couldn’t see a thing. The watery grave swallowed the plane and the three passengers on board.

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Campus Crusade for Christ

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – The Heavens Declare God’s Glory

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“The heavens are telling the glory of God; they are a marvelous display of His craftmanship” (Psalm 19:1).

When King David was a small lad, his father assigned him the care of the sheep. Day after day, night after night he cared for his sheep as a loving shepherd. No doubt on numerous occasions he would lie on his back and look up at the sun and the vastness of space, during the daytime. At night, the stars and the moon would seem so close that he could almost reach them, as he would talk to the God of his fathers.

The vast expanse of creation captivated him, and instinctively he knew that God, who created it all, was his God and he could trust Him with his life, so that just before he went against the giant Goliath he could say to King Saul, “When I am taking care of my father’s sheep and a lion or a bear comes and grabs a lamb from the flock, I go after it with a club…I’ve done it to this heathen Philistine too, for he has defied the armies of the living God.

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Ray Stedman

Ray Stedman – The Origin and Nature of Sin

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Read: Isaiah 14:3-23

How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of Dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven, I will raise my throne on high above the stars of God… But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit. (Isaiah 14:12, 13a, 14)

These verses describe a supernatural figure who, in the invisible world of the spirit, is behind the earthly kingdom of Babylon. We are here looking at what has been called the fall of Satan. Lucifer, the brightest and most beautiful of the angels of God, the nearest to his throne, became so entranced with his own beauty that he rebelled against the government of God and thus became the adversary, Satan. Here he is seen as brought, at last, to the bottomless pit.

We are clearly looking beyond the events of earth to that spiritual world which governs those events. Paul told us that we do not wrestle with flesh and blood, but with wicked spirits in high places. (Ephesians 6:12) The great king of evil is behind all human wrong. This is why the nations rage, why we cannot achieve peace among men at the level of human counsel. We must reckon with these supernatural beings who are behind the mistaken deeds of men.

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Words of Hope

Words of Hope – Daily Devotional – Training for the Good and Beautiful Life

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Read: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

No matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love. (v. 3 The Message)

This beautifully written passage is revered by many Christians. However, it may be so familiar we do not notice that Paul pulls no punches here. He says that it doesn’t matter how much we believe, how generous we are, how articulately we express our faith, or even how willing we are to die for that faith. My kindness may be based on self-interest; my helping may be a hidden plea for approval; my service may come from feeling superior; my leadership may be a bid for control. No matter what I say, what I believe, or do, I am “bankrupt” if love is not behind it all.

Paul feels so strongly about this (perhaps based on sad memories of his own former persecution of Christians) that he carefully describes how the virtue love is demonstrated. Among other traits, it never gives up, struts, has a swelled head, flies off the handle, or keeps score of the sins of others. It cares more for others than for self, puts up with anything, trusts God always, looks for the best, never looks back. These characteristics make up the primary virtue of a good and beautiful life.

The world of spiritual formation teaches that we must be in lifelong training with the Holy Spirit to create love, faith, and hope in our lives; they don’t come by sitting on a church pew. They come with practice.

Prayer:

Lord, save me from bankruptcy of spirit.

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