Devotionals

When we read through the Proverbs we often forget that much of the book is framed as a parental plea to children. The collection commences with the words, “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction and forsake not your mother’s teaching” (Proverbs 1:8). Of course we ought to go to the Proverbs for God’s wisdom regarding our own lives, but what an overlooked resource when we fail to prayerfully read this inspired book with our children in view. Solomon boldly warns...

Because of God’s grace, our lives are full of potential usefulness for Jesus Christ. God has a proven track record of consistently reaching out to restore his stumbling servants. Proverbs 24:16 compares the “falling” of

Though most of us are inherently opposed to it, change is an important part of God’s good plan for his children. You and I may prefer the cozy security of familiarity, but both the advancement of the church and personal sanctification usually involves large quantities of change. Throughout the Bible we see God

Nothing may be more difficult in the Christian life than avoiding sin in the things that we say. James diagnoses the tongue as a “restless evil, full of deadly poison” (3:8). We experience plenty of circumstances and emotions every day that can easily set off a powder keg of demeaning and destructive words. And while we can’t control many of the

It is easy to simplistically assume that if we trust in Christ and are considered by God to be his favored and adopted children then all should go relatively well for us—but of course that is not what the Bible teaches. Throughout the Bible we are reminded of the wide variety of reasons God chooses to providentially lead

Here is one of the most simple, yet most serious warnings found in the Bible: “God is opposed to the proud” (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). The last thing we as God’s children should want is to dabble in the archetypal sin that was the initial cause of all the rebellion and corruption in the universe (Ezekiel 28:14-17). We are shown in God’s word that pride’s antithesis and remedy is the fear of the Lord (Romans 11:20; Jeremiah 44:10; Proverbs 8:13). For those who have repented of their sins

Proverbs 13:12 says that “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” While that principle holds true for all varieties of hopes and desires, the ultimate hope of the Christian life is bound up in the arrival of Christ and his kingdom (Titus 2:13). That is one reason the “tree of life” finds a prominent place in the descriptions of our eternal home in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 2:7; 22:2, 14, 19). So then, if our supreme hopes

God, by definition, is “Almighty.” In our desire to “humanize” God and relate to the softer and gentler side of Deity we often lose sight of the fact that the God who actually exists is a God who possesses all authority, all power, and all dominion. He is a Being who is unchallenged in his rank, sovereignty, and supremacy. He speaks things into existence, and at will chooses things to come to an end. There are times in life when we sense the profundity of

Having spent years walking through Israel with Jesus, having listened to him teach, and having seen him heal the sick and even raise the dead, the Apostle John distilled Christ’s love into this intriguing statement: “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us” (1 John 3:16a). Without reference to any warm feelings or emotions, John elevates the painful sacrifice

We all experience life’s detours—those unexpected twists and turns which disappoint and frustrate us because they’ve disrupted our well-laid plans. When the next one comes our way, let’s be careful how we respond. If the disappointment turns into anger and bitterness, then we know we’ve clearly lost sight of one of the central tenets of biblical Christianity—namely, that God is sovereign. Of course this is not some kind of fatalism that gives us license to

As C. S. Lewis said about Jesus’ claims (i.e. he is either a lunatic, a liar or Lord), something similar could be said about the choices we face when we consider the book in which those claims are recorded. Either the Bible is a collection of error-laced letters penned by delusional authors...

There are three primary settings for biblical prayer which should have priority in our lives. The first is a focused type of scheduled prayer (Mt.6:6). This is the kind where, like Daniel’s three times a day or Jesus’ predawn appointments, we plan