Devotionals

“You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you” (Psalm 86:5). Read Genesis 18:16-33. When Abraham interceded for the righteous in Sodom and Gomorrah, it was a persuasive prayer. It was persuasive not because Abraham tried to remind God about how good he had been. He did not recall to Him how he had faithfully tithed a tenth of all he had had to Melchizedek or how he had left all his family and country behind to follow God. Abraham did not try to persuade God based on how he had trusted Him in the past or on any other of his merits. He did not inject himself into the picture or even ask anything for himself. Rather, Abraham pleaded with God on the basis of God’s character, on the basis of His glory. He brought his requests before God because of his zeal for the honor of God. In the same way, our prayer […]

“Then he said, ‘May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?’” (Genesis 18:32). Read Genesis 18:16-33. In my estimation, persistent prayer is the Achilles’ heel for most Christians. I think not giving up praying is something we all struggle to do. We make our requests known to God, and if we don’t get it by noon, it’s over. We give up and don’t pray anymore. The most incredible aspect of Abraham’s prayer is not his persistence but God’s encouragement to him to persist, to focus on Him. God’s graciousness and love, His care to hear from Abraham, astounds me. Moreover, in the Middle Eastern culture, then and today, it was not the custom to approach someone in authority, someone who has importance and power, and make a huge request, asking for everything you want. You start by asking for something small, and then if the individual says yes, […]

“Then Abraham spoke up again: ‘Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, . . .’” (Genesis 18:27). Read Genesis 18:16-33. When God told Abraham He was about to bring judgment upon Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham did not say, “Well good. They are wicked people and are getting what they deserve.” No, Abraham immediately went into prayer mode, and his intercession should serve as a model for our prayer for our nation. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah had rejected the true God. The cities were riddled with bloodshed, corruption, and immorality, for the people took pride in their sin and abomination. The outcry against these sins prompted God to come down and deal with their wickedness. You see, God does not ignore the evil in the world. Injustice and evil cry out for judgment, just like the blood of Abel cried out to God (see Genesis […]

“Then Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk’” (John 5:8). Read John 5:1-15. In Jesus’ day, there was a pool in Jerusalem called the Pool of Bethesda. It was famous for its supposed healing properties. Fed by underground springs, every so often the water would bubble and swirl on the surface, a circumstance that came to be attributed to the work of an angel. Whoever got into the water first after one of these “angelic stirrings” would receive healing for whatever their ailment. John’s gospel doesn’t tell us how many people were at the pool the day Jesus showed up. Maybe there were dozens—perhaps hundreds. But Jesus singled out a certain man who had been unable to walk for thirty-eight years—and only him. Jesus then asked the man, “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:6). It seems a silly question, but of course, our Lord does not ask foolish questions. He asked the man […]

“‘Go,’ Jesus replied, ‘your son will live.’ The man took Jesus at his word and departed” (John 4:50). Read John 4:43-54. When Jesus first announced his ministry in His hometown of Nazareth, the people rejected Him. As Jesus once said, “Truly I tell you, . . . no prophet is accepted in his hometown” (Luke 4:24; see also John 4:44). The people of Nazareth in Galilee simply couldn’t believe that the young man they knew, the boy they had watched grow up, the local carpenter’s son, was the Messiah they had all been waiting for. When Jesus read from the book of Isaiah in the synagogue and declared its fulfillment—when He pointed out in Scripture how God had blessed Gentiles rather than just the faithless Israelites, drawing out the parallel to His day—the people of His hometown were appalled (see Luke 4:16-28). In fact, they tried to throw him off a precipice (v. 29). But later, once the Galileans had […]

“What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him” (John 2:11).  Read John 2:1-11. While the other gospels refer to Jesus’ supernatural works of astonishing change as miracles, John’s gospel includes seven of these instances, calling them signs—seven pieces of evidence that occurred before Jesus’ death and resurrection that reveal Jesus is none other than the Great I am. When Jesus demonstrated His supernatural power, it was for a definitive purpose—that souls would believe that He is the expected Messiah. His supernatural acts were not a sideshow, not entertainment. Through His miracles, Jesus was showing the world His power over nature, over demons, over death, and over disease. Again and again when the disciples or the crowds saw one of Jesus’ signs, they believed in Him (see John 2:11; 7:31; 11:45). And that is why they are so very important—they were recorded that […]

“Then Peter began to speak: ‘I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right’” (Acts 10:34-35). Read Acts 10:1-48. In the days of the early church, Jews did not associate with non-Jews. In fact, they had nothing to do with them. Peter, though he was an apostle of Jesus Christ, was a good, rule-keeping Jew. It wouldn’t have even crossed his mind to associate with a Roman centurion, nor would he have ever considered sharing the Gospel with such a man. But God chose Peter for this very assignment. The Lord was gracious to prepare Peter’s heart for such a task. God granted him a vision of unclean animals coming down from heaven on a sheet. These were the sorts of creatures that Peter never would have eaten; they were forbidden by the kosher food laws in the Old Testament. And […]

“Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?’” (John 4:28-29). Read John 4:1-42. There are some in the church who say we should no longer talk about specific sins because we might offend someone. Now, I’m not suggesting we should go out of our way to offend other people, but the Bible is very clear: In order for there to be forgiveness and salvation, there must be repentance. Therefore, we must not be shy about the Truth. If we make excuses for sin—if we tiptoe around the difficult, hot-button issues of our day—we are not doing anyone any favors. We are, in fact, keeping the way of Christ hidden from people who are lost in spiritual darkness. Jesus knew this. So, one day at a well outside a Samaritan village, He made things uncomfortable. That […]

“Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” (John 6:9). Read John 6:1-15. As followers of Jesus, we should not be afraid of big challenges. No matter the goal, the problem, or the need, our God is able to supply abundantly beyond all we could ask or imagine. Of course, that doesn’t mean we are to be reckless with our resources. God calls us to be good stewards of all He has entrusted to us. But we can have confidence that whatever God calls us to do, He will provide what we need; there is no problem too big for God. Take, for example, the scene in John 6. Large crowds had followed Jesus to a mountainside off the shore of the Sea of Galilee. It was time to eat, and so Jesus asked, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” (v. 5). […]

“Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on” (Mark 2:4). Read Mark 2:1-12. In this passage, we see an example of four faith-filled friends who did something quite uncomfortable in order to bring their disabled companion to Christ. They arrived at a house in Capernaum where Jesus was teaching, and they could not navigate their way through the crowds—not with the stretcher they were carrying. No one was willing to move because no one wanted to miss a thing Jesus was saying. But these four friends made the decision to move out in faith. They were going to move out of their comfort zone in order to bring their friend to the feet of Jesus, and nothing was going to stop them. They could have easily said to one another, “Well, we gave […]

“Remain in me, as I also 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). When we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and experience the moment-by-moment filling of the Spirit, we begin to bear the fruit of the Spirit. We begin to manifest the outworking, or the results, of the Holy Spirit’s presence. His work is manifested in our thoughts and emotions and in our behavior toward others. If you have ever watched the harvesting of grapes, you know that two people usually work together. One person holds an open basket while the other cuts the grapes and lays clusters in the open container. In a similar way, as long as a person is walking closely connected to the Lord and is keeping his life open to receive the daily filling of the Holy Spirit, he will see his life […]

Michael Youssef, Ph.D. “When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. . . . Jesus wept” (John 11:33, 35). Because we do not see God in the way we see other people—in a physical, tangible way—we often shy away from asking Him for help. Sometimes it can take us a long period of time to bend our knees and to ask God to intervene on our behalf. Deep down, we may even wonder if He even knows how difficult we have it on earth. Jesus, God’s only Son, walked on the same earth we do, and He had many of the same experiences we face each day. Even though we may read the Bible daily, we can quickly forget that Jesus experienced life in a similar fashion to us. When we hear about the ordeals that others are enduring—ordeals we have experienced in the […]