Posts with the category “daily-devotionals”

What does a Spirit-led, Spirit-filled relationship look like? How do you know that a particular home or relationship is being filled with the Spirit of Christ? What does it look like for the Spirit of God to be truly at work in a person’s life?   Read More

The warmth of Paul’s closing comes from his godly affection for this faithful church. He began the letter with grace and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now he concludes, maintaining his focus on the centrality of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.   Read More

There is much that distracts and pulls our attention from the things that matter most. How do we combat the encroaching concerns of life that threaten to overwhelm our proper focus? As Paul is wrapping up his letter of thanks and encouragement to the Philippians,   Read More

Unanswered prayer is difficult to understand. How can Jesus really love you when you pray about something you know is good and nothing seems to happen? Unanswered prayer not only confuses us; if we're not careful, it can also contribute to a diminishing of faith. So what gives?   Read More

When unexpected tragedy happens in your life, where do you turn for guidance? When, in the words of Fantine in Les Miserables, “Life kills the dream you dreamed,” where do you turn for hope? What can happen to many of us is that great doubts and suspicions towards God suddenly arise in our hearts.  Read More

In one of my favorite stories, The Count of Monte Cristo, Edmond Dantes tries his hardest to escape from prison but all his plans and efforts fail. Yet, something finally happens that sets Edmond free. Faria, a priest and innocent cellmate who befriended Edmond, suddenly dies and the prison guards put the priest’s dead body in a sack and sow it up to be taken away.   Read More

"For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching is a light...”Proverbs 6:23a It's that time of year again. You know, when it gets dark outside in the afternoon!! Ok, it's not that bad, but truthfully, the dark early evenings during the fall and winter months are at the top of my list of things I had a tortuous time readjusting to in our move back to New England. I'm not there yet. I'm still trying...  Read More

Are you content? Most of us aren’t. Most of us have goals, bucket lists, and treasures we want to achieve or acquire. This is a part of how we are made, to imagine, set goals, and bring about a vibrant exciting future. It can also be a sinful preoccupation pulling us away from seeing gifts and blessings to be cherished.  Read More

When I was four years old, I was screened for pre-school and they recommended I get my eyes checked. This led to glasses and a whole new world. Prior to wearing glasses, I was able to function, but with corrective lenses, I was able to navigate, appreciate, and excel in areas that had previously been fuzzy and obscured.  Read More

How often have you lacked peace in your life? Unresolved conflict, overwhelming choices, and negative circumstances all contribute to the unsettling of our hearts. Paul’s external experience was anything but peaceful, and the Philippians faced many things that threatened their tranquility, but Paul uses 5 emphatic imperatives to impress upon the Philippians the importance of trusting the Lord to provide peace in their hearts and peace with one another.  Read More

Delight in God’s word sounds like something every Christian wants. We want to understand, grow and apply God’s word to the relationships and decisions of our life. Yet our busyness, laziness, and all the other “ness’s” cause our delight to flutter away, and instead of our souls being watered by God’s truth, we are blown around like a dead autumn leaf.  Read More

Have you tried to lift something heavy with other people without communicating? You lift and they don’t. It is very frustrating to expend so much energy for no good purpose. Little can be accomplished when we don’t work together or work at cross purposes.  Read More

As Paul begins wrapping up his letter to the Philippians, we see his genuine love and care for them and are reminded of how willing he was to do whatever was needed for them to grow and be strengthened in their faith (Philippians 1:24-26).  Read More

Do you have a hard time orienting your life in the present to the realities promised by God? Even though we are able to imagine future outcomes, we are often overwhelmed by besetting issues and problems. And in many ways dealing with what is in front of us is a healthy way to live. Didn’t Jesus say, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”(Matthew 6:34)?  Read More

Sometimes people have misplaced priorities and glorify the wrong things. The priorities of Christ are completely different from the priorities of most humans. Paul’s own life was an example. He pursued religious performance as his path to success but considers it all as rubbish compared with knowing Christ. Christ is his delight and it is in knowing him that he finds true glory.  Read More

Emotions are an important part of being human. The question we run into is how should we understand our emotions and handle them in a healthy way? We don’t want to play on the emotions or downplay the emotions. We don’t want to make the emotions all-important, but we don’t want to make them unimportant either.  Read More

We all want our lives to impact others in meaningful and powerful ways, but sometimes all God wants us to do is just show up and He will do the rest. My cross-country coach in high school had a saying he made the whole team memorize and I   Read More

This verse is a contrast. Paul invited the Philippians to mimic him and continue to look at the example of “those who walk according to the example you have in us.” He wanted them to faithfully pursue the way of Jesus, which is a way of service, humility, and even suffering for the truth of the gospel.  Read More

When I started college, I thought it would be great to join the Ultimate Team. The team had previously won the national championship for their division, so I was appropriately intimidated. I barely knew how the game worked, let alone the skills and strategies.  Read More

I was talking with a friend today and I shared with him something he had done in the past that powerfully unleashed a whole swath of ministry that would not have been possible without his faithfulness. We also talked about the struggles and difficulties in the world and in growing older. We both had tears in our eyes as we spoke of Jesus’ return and how he alone can reconcile the strain of faithfully following Jesus in this life with the ultimate blessing of being with Jesus forever. This is our joy and our hope.  Read More

Agur can easily get overlooked in the annuls of wisdom literature. If Solomon is front and center, Agur is behind the scenes. If Solomon is mentoring others from the corner office, Agur is doing his coaching from a corner in the office basement.  Read More

We all have goals. How about these: I want to lose 20 pounds. I want to start my own company. I want to get married. I want to travel to Vietnam. We have lots of goals and expend mental energy tracking those goals. This time, money, and planning invested show a goal's level of importance. Think about some of your goals. Which ones are you pursuing?  Read More

Most of us might look at this passage and think that the goal is resurrection, but resurrection to what? To life? To heaven? To perfection? These are all hopes we have beyond this life, but Paul doesn’t have just his destination in mind, he has Jesus in mind.  Read More

Is Christianity really credible? Or is the Christian faith just a blind leap in the dark? Is Christianity a reasonable position to take? Or is it simply a convenient crutch that millions of mindless people use to get through life?  Read More

Many of us try to get love from people by doing “the right thing”. We assume doing what someone wants produces a love reaction. Trying hard to earn someone’s love can drive goals, personal development, and even give a sense of accomplishment. What it cannot do is guarantee authentic love.  Read More

People have given up many things to follow Jesus: reputation, relationships, beliefs, physical well being, and even their lives. What have you given up to follow Jesus? Was it worth it?  Read More

A grocery store in New York, a church in California, and a school in Texas are everyday places, but in the past weeks, they have become places of grief. Unfortunately, these are just the latest griefs highlighted in our news feeds.  Read More

Have you ever played the game, “How much would it take to…”? It is played to see how much money it would take to get someone to do something they don’t want to do. For example, “Would you lick a worm for $100?”   Read More

It is easy for us to get caught up in the comparison trap. We all search for reasons why we are okay, reasons why we measure up to the often unseen standards of our culture. We may develop religious and moralistic positions that end up separating us from others.  Read More

I once came across this story about a man who was in a wheelchair. When he was asked by someone how it felt to be confined to a wheelchair each day, the man replied, "I am not confined to this wheelchair—I am liberated by it. If it wasn't for this wheelchair I would be bed-bound and never able to leave my house."   Read More

It's very easy to become discouraged in life. It’s easy to allow the circumstances of life to sap our drive and sense of courage to face the challenges ahead, make the right decision, or to not think that a situation is hopeless. How do we handle this?  Read More

I think this morning was perfect. The rain came last night and we opened our windows to let in the fresh air. As I woke, the sun played lightly on my cheek and I could hear the wind gently blowing in the trees around my house. The temperature was cool, but not cold, and everything smelled fresh and new.  Read More

In tense or scary situation, I can freeze up. Sometimes this is the right response, but when it comes to someone else being in danger, action is required. If they don’t see a car approaching at high speed or a door closing on their fingers or someone turning into them with a tray of drinks we must warn them. And this is what Paul does here.  Read More

In this transitional sentence, Paul is preparing the Philippians to hear a warning he shared with them previously, but before he does he calls them to focus their attention on rejoicing in the Lord. This letter is filled with reasons and reminders to rejoice in what God is doing in and through the church.  Read More

When I was a high school freshman I went to a church camp and they had a belly flop contest. I was one of the finalist and went for my last dive. At that moment, I had to weigh the risks between pain and glory. So I jumped as high as I could on the diving board, grabbed both my ankles and splatted on the water with a sickening SLAP! I screamed under the water at the pain and my chest was a bright red for the rest of the day, but I won the contest! I thought the risk was worth the glory, the applause of others.  Read More

“But God had mercy on him”. Could there be any more powerful and life changing words? This is the story of the gospel throughout scripture. We see it in the garden, when God clothes Adam and Eve, providing for them, instead of destroying them. We see it in the stunning forbearance toward Noah when God determined to blot out all that he had created, “but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.”(Genesis 6:8)”  Read More

One of the spiritual disciplines that I've tried to work into my life over time is reading a chapter in Proverbs that corresponds with the day of the month. It's convenient because it takes little mental strain to figure out what to read for the day since Proverbs has thirty-one chapters.   Read More

For many in our area, graduation ceremonies are coming up for them this weekend. Yay!!! This means rightly celebrating the completion of a lot of hard work. And it also means no longer being enrolled as a student in that particular school. But I remembered something this morning.   Read More

If you hang around Christian circles long enough, you may hear someone talking about the need for Christians to be “salt and light” in our culture. Or if you’ve been a Christian since early childhood you may remember singing, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.” But what do these metaphors of salt and light actually mean?  Read More

There have been seasons of my life as a Christian in which I was deeply connected and supported by brothers and sisters in the work of the gospel. I think back to my youth group in middle school and our missions trips to San Francisco for a week of service, worship, and sharing our faith. Similar times shaped my life in high school, college, seminary, and in my life since seminary.  Read More