Devotionals

“On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with your income, . . .” (1 Corinthians 16:2). Read 1 Corinthians 16:1-4. Jesus often taught on the subject of money. In His Sermon on the Mount, He said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, . . . But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:19-20). Brothers and sisters, what you give to the Lord will always bear dividends—here and now, and ultimately for all eternity. At the end of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul addresses the subject of giving. At first this seems a strange place to bring it up. He moves immediately from the triumph of the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 to the triumph of the collection plate in 1 Corinthians 16. But when we understand that our giving is an extension of our faith […]

“Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58). Read 1 Corinthians 15:1-28. When the first crop of the season ripens, it’s an exciting day for a farmer. The farmer has diligently prepared the fields, sown the seeds, and tended the seedlings. If the firstfruits are good, then the farmer can have confidence that the rest of the harvest will be good as well. On Easter morning, Jesus became the firstfruits of a much greater harvest. His body had been sown like a seed, but it was then raised new, glorious, and indestructible. What is true of the firstfruits will be true of all who trust in the name of Jesus: One day, all the dead in Christ will be raised to new life in Him. The Corinthian Christians believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead, but they weren’t so sure […]

“The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes” (Psalm 19:8).  Read Psalm 19:7-9. Psalm 19:7-8 tells us the Word of God “is perfect, refreshing the soul, . . . making wise the simple. . . . giving joy to the heart. . . . giving light to the eyes.” That is the power of the Scriptures. The Bible can lift a person out of the degradation of sin, from prostitution and drunkenness, slavery and addiction, greed and self-righteousness, to a victorious life in Jesus Christ. Here’s a famous example: The Word of God transformed the life of a slave trader named John Newton, and he became a preacher of the Gospel and a hymn writer. Newton wrote many songs in his day, but we remember one in particular because it’s his testimony set to music, illustrating the power of the Word of God: “Amazing […]

“The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever” (Isaiah 40:8).  Read Isaiah 40:6-8. Today, no matter how hard someone might try, it would be nearly impossible to scrub the Scriptures from existence. But this was not always the case. Up until the invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century, the Bible was preserved through the extremely meticulous, labor-intensive, and time-consuming process of copying it by hand. To hear the Bible read aloud in a public gathering was a tremendous privilege; to own a personal copy of the Scriptures was a luxury reserved for the super-rich. From its earliest days, the Bible has been subjected to the most intense hatred of any book in human history. It’s been despised by despots and dictators, many of whom outlawed the Bible. Some tried to destroy the Bible through clever arguments, others by force. Some passed laws and made it a capital punishment for anyone […]

“For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). Read 2 Peter 1:19-21. The Bible is a special book because it is filled with the very words of God, not merely the wisdom of human beings. Is it any surprise, then, that the Bible is filled with prophecies, many of which have already come true and affirm the trustworthiness of Scripture? Way back in the book of Genesis, God told Abraham, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there” (Genesis 15:13). Guess how long the Israelites were in Egypt. Four hundred years, just as God declared. And then there was Daniel, who interpreted a dream that, from his place in time, described the next five hundred years. Daniel even saw […]

“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).  Read 2 Timothy 3:14-17. More than two thousand times in the Bible’s pages, we read, “Thus says the Lord.” The Bible testifies to its truthfulness by appealing to its divine Author. The Bible contains sixty-six different books written over a span of about sixteen hundred years. These sixty-six books were written by forty different writers, and the backgrounds of these writers vary tremendously. There were doctors and shepherds, prophets and kings, statesmen and lawyers, priests and tax collectors, tentmakers and fishermen. As you would expect, these people held various opinions and worldviews, especially when you consider they wrote over such a vast time period. And yet, together they produced a unified book—unified in doctrine, ethics, and vision. It’s actually mind-boggling when you think about it. So many people […]

“For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matthew 5:18).  Read Matthew 5:17-19. There’s one whose authority far surpasses even the most distinguished and celebrated academic. Jesus Christ—God of very God, who existed from before eternity—was an eyewitness to all the events that took place in the Old Testament. He was there at creation. In fact, it was through Him that all things were created. And when He lived among us, when He walked the streets of ancient Israel, He affirmed that the Bible is the very Word of God. As the Son of God, Jesus has perfect integrity—even non-Christians agree on the blazing integrity of Jesus—and yet He never said, “Well, you know the story of Noah and the flood? Well, that’s just an allegory.” He never said, “Jonah and the whale? Well, that […]

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer” (Romans 12:12). Have you ever noticed that when you are ready to pray, the phone rings or somebody knocks on your door? How often is your prayer time disturbed by things on your to-do list, with daydreams, or with sleepiness? Prayer is the most important thing we can do as believers. Through prayer, we communicate with our heavenly Father. We also learn more about Him when we pray. We grow in our faith through prayer. When we pray, we find the encouragement, the strength, and the power we need to face life. Satan, however, seeks to interfere with the sacred intimacy of prayer. He did not want Adam and Eve to communicate with God in the Garden of Eden, nor does Satan want us to communicate with God. Rather, he seeks to find ways of making us spiritually weak. He knows that prayer is our vital source of power and […]

“[C]all on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me” (Psalm 50:15). Deep in the Arabian Desert is a small fortress. It stands silently on the vast expanse of the ageless desert. Thomas Edward Lawrence, known as Lawrence of Arabia, often used it. Though unpretentious, it was most efficient. Its main commendation was its security. When under attack, often by superior forces, Lawrence would retreat there for safety. While staying there, the resources of the fortress became his—the food and the water stored there were life-supporting. The strength of the fortress became the strength of its occupants. Old-time desert dwellers talked about how confident and secure Lawrence always felt when he was within the walls of the fortress. Prayer is the believer’s greatest fortress. It is a place we can run to any time of the day or night. The strength and protection we receive in God’s presence are unmatched by this world. […]

“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:3-4). In Jeremiah, the Lord promises Israel restoration of relationship with Him, saying, “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:12-13). Through Christ we have this promise—a special relationship with God—if only we will seek Him and meet with Him in prayer. For, if we fail to pray, we will never fully experience the power of God in our lives. Prayer is our declaration of faith in a mighty God. When we pray, we acknowledge our need of Him and our dependence on Him alone. Calling out to God also declares our desire […]

“For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7). Read John 16:12-15 and 1 Corinthians 2:9-16. In these verses, we see that it is the Holy Spirit—the third member of the Trinity, God’s very Spirit—who empowers us to perceive the Truth and follow God. He does this by indwelling us, making it possible for each of us to see Christ for who He is and live for Him here on earth. It is the Holy Spirit’s power that enables us to be born again, to enter the Kingdom of God, and to be called children of the living God. This is the same power God exercised at the formation of the universe and the same power that raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. Indeed, this is the power that indwells all who believe in Christ Jesus. We also see that the Holy Spirit is the only […]

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15). Do you ever wonder why answers to prayer tarry? Is it that God is teaching us to wait? Are we not correctly hearing the voice of God? Is God trying to deal with something in our lives? Of this we can be certain: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15). When we pray in alignment with the will of God, we know that He hears us and that His will cannot be thwarted. But what about when our prayers—even prayers for […]