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