Posts with the category “devotional”

Isaiah 34-35; Micah 2-5.  “License to Sin?”          “Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more kindness and forgiveness?  Of course not!  Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?” – Romans 6:1-2         In the days that Micah prophesied, Israel was proud and arrogant of their standing before the Lord.  They had ignored the need for obedience a...  Read More

Isaiah 30-33.  “Salvation is in Christ Alone”          “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but through Me.’” – John 14:6         In today’s reading, Isaiah warns God’s people about relying on outside help for their salvation.  Israel as a small nation was weak at this point in history because of civil war and rebelliousness toward God.  It was...  Read More

Isaiah 24-27; 29.  “Free Gift of Salvation”          “God saved you by His special favor when you believed.  And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.  Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it” – Ephesians 2:8-9         I was once asked how I respond to God for His gift of salvation, considering that not everyone will receive tha...  Read More

Isaiah 18-23. “Saved from the Penalty of Sin”          Our theme for the week is salvation.  There are a number of different topics related to salvation that we are going to look at.  My prayer is that, by the end of the week, you will be rejoicing even more in the salvation that we have in Christ.           Judgment, Judgment, Judgment.  Five chapters of judgment.  Judgment is not a pretty thing...  Read More

 Our theme for the week is salvation.  There are a number of different topics related to salvation that we are going to look at.  My prayer is that, by the end of the week, you will be rejoicing even more in the salvation that we have in Christ.    Read More

Psalms 136, 146-150.  “For Who He Is”          This is a great collection of psalms to conclude this week’s theme of praise with. Recognizing God for who He is and what He has done and will do is cause for worshipping Him with an attitude of gratitude, humility, and awe.         Psalm 136 urges us to continually give thanks to God for who He is and what He has done.         Psalm 146 encourages us...  Read More

Psalms 128-130, 132, 134-135.  “Beyond Our Ability to Fully Understand”          Today’s psalms provide us yet more reasons to praise God for who He is and what He does for His people. Psalm 135:6 reminds us that His power is unlimited, and He can use it as He chooses according to His holy character.         But there may be seasons in our life when we read the first line of this verse, “The LORD ...  Read More

Psalms 120-121, 123, 125-126.  “Look Around You”          Today’s selection of psalms is one that I pray you can enjoy and find peace and encouragement in. They speak of why we can trust God, why we can praise Him, and why we can know He cares for us.         I have always loved the way Psalm 121 begins, that if anyone questions where our help comes from, we can respond with, “My help comes from t...  Read More

Psalm 119.  “Shaped by the Word of God”          Psalm 119 is the longest psalm, and an acrostic where every eight verses begin with each successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Out of nearly 200 verses, all but two do not directly or by inference refer to the word of God. Its emphasis is clearly on the value of the word of God in the life of believers, and it is this psalm that helped change th...  Read More

Psalm 115-118.  “The Center of Praise”          You have made it to the middle of the Bible, Psalm 118:8–9 (the 15,587th and 15,588th verses of the 31,174 verses in the Bible). The verses assure us that, “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes” (NKJV). That is obvious cause for worship and praise, but the...  Read More

Psalm 107, 111-114. “Praise God”          How might God describe how you praise Him?  Maybe God says, “Well, she praises Me every Sunday morning, and not much beyond that.”  Or, “He praises Me in the songs he sings, and that’s about it.  Well, come to think of it, he really doesn’t even do that, because the words coming out of his mouth are not the words he really means or wants to say.  What he i...  Read More

         The theme for this week is worship and praise. This week will finish off our time in the Psalms (except for Psalm 137).  The focus of each psalm this week will be that of praising God for who He is and all He does. A variety of aspects of worship will also be discussed in the various psalms.   Psalm 105-106. “God is Always Faithful”          Psalm 103 and 104 pair up nicely as they both o...  Read More

The theme for this week is worship and praise. This week will finish off our time in the Psalms (except for Psalm 137).  The focus of each psalm this week will be that of praising God for who He is and all He does. A variety of aspects of worship will also be discussed in the various psalms.  Read More

Psalm 98-100, 102, 104. “The Power of the Spoken Word”          “The tongue is mightier than the blade” – Euripides, Greek poet ca. 5th century B.C.         The power of the spoken word is often underappreciated.  The tongue, or our speech, can do much damage, oftentimes without our planning it or even our awareness of it at the time.  James compares the potential for damage by the tongue to a sm...  Read More

Psalm 92-97.  “Thanksgiving”          “Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.” – John Henry Jowett         Yesterday we thought about boasting and pride.  One way to approach reducing our tendency towards boasting is to respond with gratitude.   As Pastor Jowett so aptly noted, gratitude is good medicine especially towards pride which leads to boastfulness.         We have all se...  Read More

Psalm 1-2, 10, 33, 71, 91. “Boasting”          “As for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Because of that cross, my interest in this world died long ago, and the world’s interest in me is also long dead.” – Galatians 6:14         In making the above statement, the Apostle Paul sets the standard regarding boasting quite high.  This stands ...  Read More

Psalm 47-49; 84-85, 87.  “Listening”          “My dear brothers and sisters, be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.” (James 1:19)         A while back, I watched a TV program about how children learn the grammatical structures of language by listening to the people speaking around them.  This got me thinking, because, before we can ever learn to speak, we can already listen.  In...  Read More

Psalm 42-46. “Silence”          “He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet He never said a word.  He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, He did not open his mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7)         Why was Jesus able to be silent in the midst of the mistreatment and accusations He faced?  Confidence.  Jesus was confident in the fact that His Father was working o...  Read More

Proverbs 30-31.  “Pinocchio”          Sometimes I wish that we could all be a little more like Pinocchio.  Not because of the strings or being made out of wood, but because of his nose.  If you recall, Pinocchio’s nose gets him into all sorts of trouble because it grows when he tells a lie.  In many ways, it would make life far easier if there was some easy way to tell if someone were lying.      ...  Read More

2 Kings 16:19-20; 2 Chronicles 28:26-27; Isaiah 13-16.  “Faithful Prophecies” It is amazing to read through the passage in Isaiah as it describes the fall of Babylon and to remember that this was written a century before Babylon even became a world power.  Assyria was the world power in the time of Isaiah, and Babylon is just a small part of that empire.  Isaiah predicts that it will not only beco...  Read More

The theme this week is communication.  The wisdom literature of the Proverbs and the poetry of the Psalms have much to say about how we communicate.  Sometimes this communication happens internally, sometimes it happens with other people, and sometimes it happens between us and God.  So much of life involves communication, so I hope that you are able to glean much from the devotionals this week.  Read More

2 Chronicles 29:3-31:21.  “Faithful Reform” Hezekiah’s father, Ahaz, was a wicked king, as was Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh.  However, Hezekiah “did what was pleasing in the LORD’s sight” (29:2).  Hezekiah promoted reform in Judah as had not been witnessed in years.  He developed a powerful prayer life and interceded for his people.  He instituted civil and religious reform.  He contributed generously...  Read More

2 Kings 16:19-20; 2 Chronicles 28:26-27; Isaiah 13-16.  “Faithful Prophecies” It is amazing to read through the passage in Isaiah as it describes the fall of Babylon and to remember that this was written a century before Babylon even became a world power.  Assyria was the world power in the time of Isaiah, and Babylon is just a small part of that empire.  Isaiah predicts that it will not only beco...  Read More

Isaiah 1:21-5:30.  “Faithful Judgment” “God is a judge who is perfectly fair” (Psalm 7:11a).  Today’s passage testifies repeatedly of God’s coming judgment.  Israel and Judah were to be dealt with according to their disobedience.  There are actually four things to remember as you read this passage.  Number one, the judgment is warranted by the accused.  Israel rejected God and everything He asked ...  Read More

2 Kings 17:5-41; 18:9-12; Isaiah 1:1-20; 28:1-29.  “Faithful Treatment” Isaiah 28 closes with a wonderful poetic parable.  The parable describes how a farmer deals uniquely with each crop.  The farmer knows what each of his various sections of land will produce the most of a specific crop.  He knows what tools will prepare the land the best.  He knows what each crop will require in order to produc...  Read More

Hosea 9-14.  “Faithful Always” Under Nevada state law, any county with a population of fewer than 700,000 is allowed to legalize prostitution in brothels if it so chooses (which all rural counties have had at least one legal brothel in operation at one point or another).  Escort services offering sexual entertainment consume 140 pages of the Las Vegas yellow pages.It’s disturbing to even talk abou...  Read More

Hosea 2:14-8:14.  “Faithful Love” I performed a wedding ceremony a few weeks ago and not once were there promises of unfaithfulness.  In fact, I’ve never been to a wedding where a couple vowed to be unfaithful.  Yet Hosea knew his wife, Gomer, would be unfaithful.  God had told the prophet this and had told him why.  Hosea’s life was a living love story and illustration of Israel’s love story with...  Read More

2 Kings 15:30-31; 16:10-18; 17:1-4; 18:1-8;  2 Chronicles 28:16-25; 29:1-2; Isaiah 12:1-6; 17:1-14; Hosea 1:1-2:13.  “Faithful Expressions” Faithfulness is the theme of the week.  We will see illustrations of God’s faithfulness to us and the people’s faithfulness to Him.  We will also read vivid real-life examples of what it means to be unfaithful.  We will see what God thinks of being unfaithful,...  Read More

Faithfulness is the theme of the week.  We will see illustrations of God’s faithfulness to us and the people’s faithfulness to Him.  We will also read vivid real-life examples of what it means to be unfaithful.  We will see what God thinks of being unfaithful, and we will also see how He responds to it (believe it or not, faithfully—both in love and judgment).  Read More

Isaiah 8:1-11:16.  “No Fear” There is something about refusing to show fear that is a rite of passage for boys as they seek to become men.  I remember wanting to have a persona of having no fear in high school so badly that I wore shirts that even said “No Fear” on them.Isaiah was told in chapter 8:11-14 that he was to only fear the LORD Almighty.  This message holds true for us today as well.  If...  Read More

2 Kings 15:32-16:9; 2 Chronicles 27:1-28:15; Isaiah 7:1-25; Micah 1:1-16. “Testing God” “Do not test the Lord your God” (Matt. 4:7).While in the wilderness, Jesus quoted the above verse from Deuteronomy 6:16.  His purpose in quoting it was to fend off the temptation from Satan.  Satan wanted Jesus to test God’s promise of protection (Psalm 91:11-12).  In Isaiah 7, King Ahaz is in a similar situat...  Read More

2 Kings 14:28-29; 15:6-29; 2 Chronicles 26:22-23; Isaiah 6:1-13; Amos 7:1-9:15.  “Fear of Santa” Like many kids, my son had a paralyzing fear of Santa Clause when he was younger.  I find this phenomenon very curious since there is nothing about this character, even if he were real, that is to be truly feared.  The worst he could do would be to give you coal in your stocking instead of toys.The fea...  Read More

Amos 1-6. “Declared Righteous” I want you to think of that one person or that particular group of people that you know for certain deserves God’s judgment.  For God’s people that would have been the surrounding nations against whom Amos declared God’s judgment.  How popular Amos’ message must have been as he spoke of the very thing God’s people wanted to hear.  And then that all changed as God tu...  Read More

2 Kings 13:12-13; 14:1-27; 15:1-5; 2 Chronicles 25:1-26:21; Jonah 1-4. “Too Familiar” We are all very familiar with the story of Jonah; it is after all a whale of a tale.  Sorry, I know – bad joke.  But seriously, I encourage you to look at the story with a fresh perspective and consider for me, if you will, the use of irony in this historical story.Jonah, a prophet of God should model a proper f...  Read More

2 Kings 12:17-13:11, 14-25; 2 Chronicles 24:23-27.  “Why Fear God?” “Have no fear, have no fear, said the cat in the hat.”  I read that line today at lunch in the book I was reading to my daughter.  As I was reading it, I thought about our theme this week and the subsequent mess that the cat in the hat made.  Fortunately for the children in the story, the cat cleaned up his mess, but life doesn’t ...  Read More

2 Kings 10:32-12:16; 2 Chronicles 22:10-24:22. “Learned Helplessness” This week’s theme is the fear of the Lord.  This is an often puzzling subject and can be difficult to fully comprehend.  God loves us and we love Him in return, and yet we are also supposed to fear Him.  Sometimes this fear is a sense of awe and respect because of the holiness of God and the fact that He is so vastly different ...  Read More

  This week’s theme is the fear of the Lord.  This is an often puzzling subject and can be difficult to fully comprehend.  God loves us and we love Him in return, and yet we are also supposed to fear Him.  Sometimes this fear is a sense of awe and respect because of the holiness of God and the fact that He is so vastly different than we are.  Sometimes this fear of God is because, as the sovereign Lord, He is the one who judges our actions and thoughts and has the power and authority to save and to condemn at the same time.    Read More

2 Kings 8:23-10:31; 2 Chronicles 21:8-22:9.  “Obedient Conspiracy” Jehu was anointed by Elijah and Elisha and sent forth to destroy the family of the evil King Ahab.  He did so, obediently and faithfully.  He destroyed the idols and priests of Baal.In the end God told him he had done fairly well in doing what he was asked, but he “did not obey…with all his heart.”  He was a bit careless in what he...  Read More

2 Kings 5:1-8:15. “Hoping for the Loud” Have you ever expected God to answer a certain way only to find out He answered differently?  Naaman was angry when the answer he expected to hear from God’s prophet came back differently.  In fact, Naaman’s officers confronted him on this point.  They asked him why he was only looking for a loud and great reply, and not willing to listen to the simple and ...  Read More

2 Kings 2:1-25; 4:1-44.  “What Do You Hear Him Say?” A wealthy woman from Shunem sensed Elisha had a need and then took it to the next step and met that need.  There are several wonderful attributes displayed in her life.  First, in discerning a need she had to be sensitive and open to the hardships of others.  She was obviously a person of compassion and grace.  Secondly, she was obedient and res...  Read More