The 260 Journey

Day 223 Today's Reading: 1 Peter 1 Seventeenth-century evangelist John Wesley was returning home from a service one night when he was robbed. Unfortunately for the thief, Wesley had only very little money and some Christian literature. As the robber turned to leave, Wesley said, “Stop! I have something more to give you.” The surprised robber paused. “My friend,” said Wesley, “you may live to regret this sort of life. If you ever do, here’s something to remember: ‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin!’” The thief hurried away, and Wesley prayed for the man. Years later, after a Sunday service, a man approached him. It was the robber! Only now, he was a believer in Christ and a successful businessman. “I owe it all to you,” said the man. “Oh no, my friend,” Wesley said. “Not to me, but to the precious blood of Christ that cleanses us from all sin!” The word precious is not used in common things. We use it today when we are dealing with metals and stones. We refer to diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds as precious stones. And gold, platinum, and silver are our precious metals. They are precious because they are rare. The Bible uses this word precious sparingly. There are only four things called precious in the Bible, and we find all of them in Peter’s epistles: precious cornerstone (1 Peter 2:6); precious blood of Jesus (1 Peter 1:19); precious faith (2 Peter 1:1); and precious promises (2 Peter 1:4). In today’s chapter, we focus on the precious blood of Jesus. Here are Peter’s words to remind us of the power of the blood of Jesus and why it is precious to us as believers:  "You know that your lives were ransomed once and for all from the empty and futile way of life handed down from generation to generation. It was not a ransom payment of silver and gold, which eventually perishes, but the precious blood of Christ—who, like a spotless, unblemished lamb, was sacrificed for us. "This was part of God’s plan, for he was chosen and destined for this before the foundation of the earth was laid, but he has been made manifest in these last days for you. It is through him that you now believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him so that you would fasten your faith and hope in God alone." (1 Peter 1:18-21, TPT) The blood of Jesus does two things—and these are two big theological words—expiation and propitiation. Sometimes called atonement, expiation is what the blood does for us (it washes away our sin). Whereas propitiation, sometimes called satisfaction, is what the blood does for God (it turns away His wrath from us because the blood of His Son satisfies His justice). R. T. Kendall explains it well: “Charles Spurgeon used to say there are two words you need in your theological vocabulary: “substitution” and “satisfaction.” There is no gospel apart from these two concepts.” Jesus acted as our substitute. Substitution is that Jesus literally did everything on our behalf by His keeping the law for us and dying for us. This is why we put all our hope on Jesus and His death. And satisfaction means that God’s justice has been completely and eternally satisfied by what Jesus did for us when He shed His blood. Why is the blood of Jesus precious to us? “Eternally speaking, there are two ways whereby God punishes sin: the fires of hell and the blood of Jesus,” R. T. Kendall says. “It’s not a question of whether your sin will be punished; it’s a question of how.” The blood of Jesus redeems you and me—not our hard work, not our tears, not our promises. The blood of Jesus is what God sees over our lives. The story goes that reformer Martin Luther had a dream one night in which Satan visited him and began attacking him. Satan unrolled a long

Day 222 Today’s Reading: James 5 Can you imagine what we would miss if we stopped short on verses in the Bible and just read half of them? What if we only quoted the second part of John 3:16: “Whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life”? What makes it powerful is the first part: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son . . .” To know that God loves me and that He gave His only Son for me gives me the ability to believe in a God of love. Devotional author Brennan Manning so insightfully said: “The temptation of the age is to look good without being good.” While everything looks good on the outside, we have a war waging on the inside. And no one knows about it. How can I get free? How can I be healed? I heard someone say once, “If you want to be forgiven, confess your sins to God. But if you want to be healed, confess your sins to each other.” James 5:16 is not only a powerful healing verse, but it is one of the most misquoted verses in the entire New Testament. Let me give you the misquote first: “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” I have heard this verse all my life in the church during prayer meetings. The problem is that those who said it chopped it in half. And when they did, it didn’t quite work the way it’s supposed to. This verse is not a prayer meeting verse, it’s a healing verse. Here is the actual: Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” Just saying part B makes me the subject of the statement that righteous people praying get things done. But that is not what James was saying. He is telling me that I am not the righteous man. I am the struggling man in this verse. James was challenging the church to transparency and confession of our struggle. And here was the challenge: if we can connect transparency with a righteous praying person, then healing is close by. James was really clear on who we are to be honest with. The person we pick to come clean with is not necessarily our buddy, or our BFF. It could be . . . only if they are a godly person who knows how to pray and get answers from God. For my healing and freedom, I don’t need you to know me, I need you to know God. When James says, “Confess your faults one to another,” two things are happening. First, he is creating humility in you and me and keeping sin in the open so it does not grow. Sin incubates in darkness. Sin grows in secrecy. There is no healing in hiding. And second, who we confess to is huge. He says the person we confess to better be able to pray. Get a praying righteous person. For freedom, I need someone who is walking with God, not someone with a counseling degree. I don’t care what your plaque or diploma says. The question on the floor is, “Are you a righteous person and are you a praying person?” Here’s a challenge for you today: Do you have someone in your life who meets the criteria of the second part of this verse? Your healing is connected to this important relationship. Look for people who pray—not simply those who golf or do what you do. It’s okay to find common denominators with friends. But friends don’t necessarily mean this is your James 5:16- part-B relationship. When you meet someone who has a prayer life, latch on to them and meet with them. I would ask them to pray for you. The words of pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer are powerful as he speaks about confession of a struggle to a brother: “A man who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person. As long as I am by myself in the confession of my sins everything remains i

Day 221 Today’s Reading: James 4 I was reading the story of a young man who had a call on his life to go on the mission field. The problem was that he still had an edge to him. He still had an independent spirit, which came out by what he did and the way he spoke to others. When he went to his leader to ask him about his call to be a missionary, the leadership wisely said to him, “Before you can be a missionary you have to be submissionary.” I grew up in a church where binding Satan was a big deal and done often. We’d pray, and it was called spiritual warfare. Those words were supposed to distance us from the devil. In today’s chapter, James gives us a way to put the devil on the run. James teaches us that binding is not done with the mouth but with the life, a life of submission: “Submit yourselves to God. Resist the Devil, and he will run away from you” (James 4:7, GNT). Submission. It is a hard word but a powerful one. It is powerful enough to put the devil on the run, yet hard to make it part of our daily lives. Submission is a fighting word to the devil, and its power is so easily missed by the Christian. Submission starts with recognizing authority, and then being willing to yield to that authority. When you recognize God as the authority in your life, you are saying not only is God more powerful than you are, but He is wiser than you, and you yield to Him, believing God knows better than you do. I heard someone once say: “I can take more ground and advance with submission rather than ambition.” Submission is powerful. The unsubmissive person says “I choose what is good, best, and right for my life.” The submissive person says, “I choose what God says is good, best, and right for my life.” The best way to “bind the devil”? Submit to God. We have so many Christians binding Satan over themselves, people, churches, and cities without a submissive spirit. Satan doesn’t flee without a submissive spirit to God. It’s impossible to resist the devil in any area if there is not a submission to God in every area. The greatest binding you can do is to always say yes to God. Submission to God is the believers’ way of binding Satan—keeping him out of their lives. The truth of the matter is, speaking is always easier than lifestyle. But always remember that lifestyle gives authority to your speaking. They cannot be divorced from each other. Christian writer Edwin Cole says it like this, “Ability to resist temptation is directly proportionate to your submission to God.” For example, if we know the Word of God tells us not to marry a non-Christian, and we decide our love for the person trumps the Word of God and we go ahead and marry that person, then we are not submissive to what God says. Submission is not just obeying. Submission is not just doing what someone said. Submission is obeying with the right attitude. That’s what makes submission difficult. A mother ordered her disobedient son to sit in a corner. After a couple of minutes sitting, he told his mother, “I’m sitting down on the outside, but I’m standing up on the inside!” He obeyed, but he didn’t submit. I want to live a life that says yes to God with a smile on my face, knowing that He knows better. Three-time World Series champion New York Yankee second baseman Bobby Richardson is an outspoken Christian. Before Mickey Mantle passed away, Bobby led him to the Lord. Bobby’s prayer is a great prayer for all of us who want to bind the devil without saying, “I bind you, Satan!” It’s the ultimate prayer of submission and the ultimate spiritual warfare prayer: “Dear God, Your will: nothing more, nothing less, nothing else!” Now that will put the devil on the run.

Day 220 Today’s Reading: James 3 If there is one book in the Bible that reminds us that our words matter, it is the book of James. In fact, the book of James has five chapters, and all five have something to say about the tongue. Let’s sample a verse or two from each chapter. From James 1: “Everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger. . . . If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless” (verses 19, 26). From James 2: “Speak and so act as [people should]” (verse 12, AMPC). From James 4: “Do not criticize one another, my friends” (verse 11, GNT). From James 5: “Say only ‘Yes’ when you mean yes, and ‘No’ when you mean no, and then you will not come under God’s judgment (verse 12, GNT). You might think I skipped chapter 3. I didn’t. James thought it wise to dedicate almost an entire chapter to the power of the tongue. Why? Because words matter. And that is James 3: “Don’t be in any rush to become a teacher, my friends. Teaching is highly responsible work. Teachers are held to the strictest standards. And none of us is perfectly qualified. We get it wrong nearly every time we open our mouths. If you could find someone whose speech was perfectly true, you’d have a perfect person, in perfect control of life. “A bit in the mouth of a horse controls the whole horse. A small rudder on a huge ship in the hands of a skilled captain sets a course in the face of the strongest winds. A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! “It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. “This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can’t tame a tongue—it’s never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth!” (Verses 1-10, MSG) My friend, this can’t go on. When James speaks about the tongue, he is telling us about our words. In the book of James, the tongue equals words. This is why it’s important: Your words influence (verse 1). James says not to rush into teaching because you are held to a higher standard. Why are teachers held at a high standard? Because you are influential at vulnerable moments of people’s lives. You’re getting a blank slate to write on. Your words reveal maturity (verse 2). James says the best way to see how mature someone is is not to look at their age, if they have gray hair, or if they have experience, but to listen to them speak. Listen to their word; their talking. I think wise people talk less, not more. As Proverbs 17:27-28 (TLB) says, “The man of few words is wise; therefore, even a fool is thought to be wise when he is silent. It pays to keep his mouth shut.” Your words make a difference. The tongue is little, but its effect is big. James gives four illustrations of this: the horse and bridle (verse 3); the ship and the rudder (verse 4); the forest fire and the spark from a match (verses 5-6); the animal and the animal trainer (verse 7). What do these word pictures mean? Something so small can cause great damage if not under control. The tongue is small but the tongue can cause a lot of damage. Hearing a comment can hurt people and ruin a friendship. Being called a name can sink into someone’s soul and can make the person start believing the lie of that word. I’ve heard it said, “Lig

Day 219 Today’s Reading: James 2 In It Worked for Me, former Secretary of State Colin Powell tells a story about a time he slipped out of his office and past the secret service agents and snuck down to the building’s parking garage. He explains the set-up: “The garage is run by contract employees, most of them immigrants making only a few dollars above minimum wage. The garage is too small for all the White House cars. The challenge every morning is to pack them all in. The attendants’ system is to stack cars one behind the other, so densely packed that there’s no room to maneuver. Since number three can’t get out until number one and two have left, the evening rush hour is chaos if the lead cars don’t exit the garage on time. Inevitably a lot of impatient people have to stand around waiting their turn. The attendants had never seen a Secretary wandering around the garage before; they thought I was lost. They asked if I needed help getting back “home.”” He told them that he wasn’t lost, but was just there to look around and chat. They seemed pleased. As they talked, Powell asked them, “When the cars come in every morning, how do you decide who ends up first to get out, and who ends up second and third?” The attendants looked at each other with knowing looks and smiled. Then they explained their system. “When you drive in, if you lower the window, look out, smile, and you know our name, or you say ‘Good morning, how are you?’ or something like that, you’re number one to get out. But if you just look straight ahead and don’t show that you even see us or that we are doing something for you, well, you are likely to be one of the last to get out.” Guess whose car was always first to get out? Colin Powell’s! Today’s chapter talks about the importance of how to treat people for who they are and not what they possess. That was the challenge for this new church that James was addressing. It was parking-garage talk to the people, spoken like a secretary of state: Listen to it. “My dear friends, don’t let public opinion influence how you live out our glorious, Christ-originated faith. If a man enters your church wearing an expensive suit, and a street person wearing rags comes in right after him, and you say to the man in the suit, “Sit here, sir; this is the best seat in the house!” and either ignore the street person or say, “Better sit here in the back row,” haven’t you segregated God’s children and proved that you are judges who can’t be trusted? "Listen, dear friends. Isn’t it clear by now that God operates quite differently? He chose the world’s down-and-out as the kingdom’s first citizens, with full rights and privileges. This kingdom is promised to anyone who loves God.” (James 2:1-5, MSG) Then a few verses down, James gives a name for this type of rule: the royal rule or royal law. Why is it royal? Because it was given by a King: “You do well when you complete the Royal Rule of the Scriptures: “Love others as you love yourself.” But if you play up to these so-called important people, you go against the Rule and stand convicted by it. You can’t pick and choose in these things, specializing in keeping one or two things in God’s law and ignoring others.” (Verses 8-10, MSG) James starts off this chapter speaking to two words that are incompatible: faith and favoritism. Faith in Christ and prejudice toward people are contradictory. If there is no passion for Jesus, then there will be no compassion for people. The word favoritism in this verse is made up of two Greek words, which means to receive the face. You receive someone based upon what you see (color, jewelry, clothing). This word is found in only three other places in the New Testament, and in every place, God is the subject and it tells us that God is not in

Day 218 Today’s Reading: James 1 In May 2012, a thirty-two-carat Burmese ruby-and-diamond ring—from the collection of Lily Safra, one of the richest women in the world—was sold at auction. The pre-auction estimate for the ring was $3 to $5 million, but the final sale price ended at $6.7 million. It is believed to be the most expensive ruby ever sold. As valuable as rubies are, the Bible tells us there is something more valuable than that: wisdom. As Proverbs 8:11 says, “For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it” (KJV). In today’s chapter, James begins by telling us how to find this invaluable and rare jewel called wisdom. First we need to understand that wisdom is not simply information. I know a lot of intelligent people who are not wise. Being old is no guarantee of wisdom. And neither education nor experience alone make someone wise, although wisdom does include experience and education. And wisdom is not knowledge either. As former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.” Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens. As Doug Larson said, “Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you would have preferred to talk.” Each year in the United States 800,000 new books and 400,000 periodicals are published. As Brian Buffini rightly said, “We are drowning in information and starving for wisdom.” So what is wisdom and how do we get it?   Charles Spurgeon best defined it when he gave the difference between wisdom and knowledge: “Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. But to know how to use knowledge rightly is to have wisdom.” R. T. Kendall, who has been a spiritual father and mentor to me, also offers definitions of wisdom: • Wisdom is saying or doing the right thing—at the right time! • Wisdom focuses on knowing the next step forward in making decisions.  • Wisdom is to possess the ability to get things done. • Wisdom [is] knowing what to do next. • Wisdom is getting God’s opinion. Kendall explains, “God always has an opinion on any matter. He therefore should be consulted first when we are wanting to know the next step forward.” God always knows the next step but is rarely asked. I have good news. Wisdom is not far away. And James 1:5 tells us where wisdom can be found. James says if you want wisdom, it’s found in prayer: “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” I think counseling has gone up in the church because prayer has gone down. We get counseling to gain wisdom when we could have started with God instead of an office. I think prayerlessness is an insult to God. Every prayerless day is a statement by a helpless individual that says, I do not need God today. Baptist preacher Vance Havner said, “If you lack knowledge, go to school. If you lack wisdom, get on your knees.” Wisdom is available to those who ask God in prayer for it. That means wisdom and prayer go together. You can’t have one without the other. No one who is wise is prayerless. And no one who is prayerless will ever be wise. We will never attain wisdom apart from the presence of God. Colossians 2:3 says, “In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (NLT). So He is our source and the source of wisdom. That means we can have an MBA or a PHD and still be D-U-M-B. Because if God is divorced from our lives, then we are divorced from the all-wise God. Every man of wisdom is a man of prayer. What God has joined together, let no man put asunder . . . and i

Day 217 Today’s Reading: Hebrews 13 Anything can happen before the year ends. You may meet your mate. You may get pregnant. You may graduate, start a new career, or move. You may have your first job interview. You may become an empty nester or attend your child’s wedding or have your first grandchild. You may start attending a new church or you may start a new walk with God. The bad stuff can come just as fast. You may get a divorce, have a miscarriage, deal with a foreclosure. You may get fired. The doctor may say you have cancer. Your child may become an atheist. You may experience the death of a spouse, a child, a parent, or a close friend. Nothing seems to be concrete or forever. And for all the change that happens in our lives, Hebrews 13 reminds us that despite change, there is One who does not change: “He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me” (Hebrews 13:5-6, KJV). There is a tribe in South America that has an initiation rite for their young men when they turn twelve years old. One of the things they do is take them into the deepest part of the jungle and leave them all night by themselves. It was their own father who had to lead them and leave them there for their dreaded night alone. The boy would sit in fear all night listening to the ghoulish sounds of the forest. When the sun finally rose the next morning, the boy would look just a few feet away and would see that his father had been sitting there the entire time; he just didn’t know. The boy would ask, “Have you been there all night?” To which the father would reply, “Of course I was there all night. Do you think I would leave you alone? Do you think that I would have ever left you in this place alone?” God says the same thing that this South American father says. God says, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Hebrews 13:5 is a rare verse. It has been translated by many as simply, “He will never leave you nor forsake you.” That is good English, but it is not good Greek in this instance. This verse contains an unusual triple negative. That is not good English (like “I ain’t got no money”), but it is good Greek. It should actually be translated, “He will never, never, never leave us nor forsake us.” In fact when the verse is complete, it has five negatives in total—reassuring the Christian believer that the Lord will never, ever, no not once, never forsake nor leave us. This is such a beautiful truth. God has promised never, no, not ever, never, to leave nor forsake us. That means a lot of negatives is a real positive for us Christians. Jewish commentators believe it was a way of confirming the truth in the testimony of more than two witnesses. Jesus used that method often: “Verily, verily, I say unto you.” One verily was not enough for Jesus. When in conflict or hard times, our tendency is to ask the same question over and over. And it seems that God wants to make sure we get it immediately that He’s not going anywhere and that He’s here to stay for you. When C. S. Lewis married the American Joy Davidman, and then soon found out that Joy was dying of cancer, Lewis wrote in A Grief Observed that he could have used a screaming room. Why do we feel that way? We feel that God is nowhere to be found. And like C. S. Lewis, we want to scream. But according to Hebrews 13:5, things may change, people may change, but God won’t. He is always going to be there. That is a promise you can count on. Gladys Aylward was a missionary to China in the early 1900s and was forced to flee when the Japanese invaded Yangcheng, the area where she lived. However, she was determined not to be the only one to make it to safety, so with only one assistant, she led more than a hundred orphans o

Day 216 Today’s Reading: Hebrews 12 Today’s chapter ends with the shortest verse of the chapter and probably of the entire letter. It’s about God’s nature: “For our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). That’s it, but that’s enough. God desires to set His servants on fire. He wants to consume them. One man He consumed with passion was Jim Elliot. Elliot was a missionary to a remote tribe of Auca Indians of Ecuador in the 1950s. He was martyred alongside four other missionaries during Operation Auca on January 8, 1956. After his death, his widow, Elisabeth, went on to impact many people through her writings and her biography of Jim, called Through Gates of Splendor and Shadow of the Almighty, which later became a movie of his life called, The End of the Spear. Even though Jim died at age twenty-nine, he wrote. Thank God, Jim wrote. His journal and his biography are filled with spiritual gems, such as these two: “Father, make of me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.” And “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” But there’s one statement he wrote in his journal that both challenged and convicted my soul and has affected me since the beginning of my ministry more than thirty years ago. I committed it to memory. It was something he wrote after his morning devotional reading of Hebrews. (Warning! Don’t read this quote if you want to just stay where you are spiritually.) “[He makes] His ministers a flame of fire,” he wrote. “Am I ignitible? God deliver me from the dread asbestos of ‘other things.’ Saturate me with the oil of the Spirit that I may be aflame. But flame is transient, often short-lived. Canst thou bear this, my soul—short life? In me there dwells the Spirit of the Great Short-Lived, whose zeal for God’s house consumed Him. . . . ‘Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God.’” Jim Elliot leaves us with two huge and penetrating questions: Am I ignitable? And what other things have been asbestos to keep me from being ignitable? Since God is a consuming fire, I need to be, I must be ignitable. That is why I must bring judgment to everything I do, see, watch, have friendship with to this one standard: are those things asbestos? If I am not on fire for God, it’s not God’s inability to ignite me. So the question always haunts me, “Am I ignitable?” Every time the fire of God fell in the Bible, it was looking for something to fall on. In the Old Testament, it was looking for an animal sacrifice. But in the New Testament, it was looking for people. Fire fell on people on the day of Pentecost. As Tommy Tenney said, “If you want the fire of God, you must become the fuel of God.” One of my favorite devotional writers, Samuel Chadwick, said this about the fire of God: “The soul’s safety is in its heat. Truth without enthusiasm, morality without emotion, ritual without soul, make for a Church without power. Destitute of the Fire of God, nothing else counts; possessing Fire, nothing else matters.” Am I Ignitable? What things in my life is asbestos to retard the fire of God? John Wesley said these words about the Methodist church he founded in the midst of revival: “My fear is not that our great movement, known as the Methodists, will eventually cease to exist or one day die from the earth. My fear is that our people will become content to live without the fire, the power, the excitement, the supernatural element that makes us great.” Content to live without the fire? May it never be for any of us. I want to say with Jim Elliot to our God the consuming fire, “Make me Thy fuel flame of God.” Jim was right when he later wrote in his journal,

Day 215 Today’s Reading: Hebrews 11 Hebrews 11 is known as the faith chapter. We don’t get but a few verses into this chapter when we are faced with creation. Which means that faith and creation go together. The writer of Hebrews says this in verse 3: “Faith empowers us to see that the universe was created and beautifully coordinated by the power of God’s words! He spoke and the invisible realm gave birth to all that is seen” (TPT). The writer jumps right into a twenty-first-century science classroom firestorm. The writer just says it like the first verse of the Bible does in Genesis 1. Let me give you four false “facts” that homiletics students of West Coast Baptist College put together: 1. Books write themselves without the need of an author. 2. Cars build themselves without the need of a manufacturer. 3. Music composes itself into beautiful harmonies without the need of a composer. Now, any kindergarten student could testify that the above three statements have as much truth to them as the flat-earth theory. However, countless university lecturers and professors are paid big dollars to promote the “reality” of this last false fact: 4. The whole universe came into being through a process of random chance and beneficial mutations, without any need of a Designer. The true fact of the matter is that evolution is just a big fairytale for grownups! The French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire states it most simply: “If a watch proves the existence of a watchmaker but the existence of the universe does not prove the existence of a great Architect, then I consent to be called a fool.” The evolutionist’s argument is so illogical, it really lends toward deception. There is a Designer of this wonderful universe: “In the beginning God.” Australian pastor J. Sidlow Baxter gives this powerful breakdown of the first verse of the Bible: ““In the beginning God”—that denies Atheism with its doctrine of no God. “In the beginning God”—that denies Polytheism with its doctrine of many gods. “In the beginning God created”—that denies Fatalism with its doctrine of chance. “In the beginning God created”—that denies Evolution with its doctrine of infinite becoming. “God created heaven and earth”—that denies Pantheism which makes God and the universe identical. “God created heaven and earth”—that denies Materialism which asserts the eternity of matter. Thus, this first “testimony” of Jehovah is not only a declaration of Divine truth, but a repudiation of human error.” No one can get by the first verse of the Bible without having to submit to the authority of the Bible. Couldn’t God have used evolution? That is a silly and intrusive question. God told us He didn’t use evolution. He did everything in six days. Evolution needs more than six days. People reject the creation account because they don’t want to deal with the God of Scripture. Evolution is hostile to the Word of God. Ask people if they believe in a literal six days. If they conjugate that part of the Scripture, what will stop them from conjugating other parts of Scripture? If the culture can overturn the clear teaching of the Genesis account, the culture can overturn any scriptural mandate. The Bible repeats the six days of creation from different parts of Scripture. It states it again in Exodus 20:11: “In six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.” Proverbs 30:1 (MSG) says, “The skeptic swore, ‘There is no God! No God!—I can do anything I want!” But if you believe in Creation, then you have to face these maxims: If I believe in creation, then I have a Creat

Day 214 Today’s Reading: Hebrews 10 I have heard this question many times: “Do I have to go to church to be a Christian?” The answer is obviously, “No, you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.” But that’s not the entire answer. The end of the answer is this, “You do have to go to church to be a growing Christian.” One of my dear friends says it like this: “Only weak people think they are strong enough to do the Christian life alone.” I grew up hearing and reciting Hebrews 10:25 as the reason for attending church: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together” (KJV). But I love the way the Passion Translation opens the passage. It’s much more profound and challenging: “Discover creative ways to encourage others and to motivate them toward acts of compassion, doing beautiful works as expressions of love. This is not the time to pull away and neglect meeting together, as some have formed the habit of doing, because we need each other! In fact, we should come together even more frequently, eager to encourage and urge each other onward as we anticipate that day dawning.” (Verses 24-25) T. M. Luhrmann, professor of anthropology at Stanford, wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times weekend edition several years ago called, “The Benefits of Church.” Consider what she said about why going to church is good for you: “One of the most striking scientific discoveries about religion in recent years is that going to church weekly is good for you. Religious attendance—at least, religiosity—boosts the immune system and decreases blood pressure. It may add as much as two to three years to your life.” When we are connected to the church, we are better people. Think about it this way. Many members of the church can accomplish collectively what the same members cannot do individually. Think of an airplane. One hundred percent of it is made up of non-flying parts, but when we put them together, they can lift 175,000 pounds. How much can you bench by yourself? The power of the body of Christ is that together we can do the unimaginable. The writer of Hebrews says that consistently not attending church is the habit of some. What a dangerous habit. If absence makes the heart grow fonder, then some people must really love church because they are absent a lot. Honestly, though? Absence makes the heart go wander. Popular reformer and author R. C. Sproul said it brilliantly: “It is both foolish and wicked to suppose that we will make much progress in sanctification if we isolate ourselves from the visible church. Indeed, it is commonplace to hear people declare that they don’t need to unite with a church to be a Christian. They claim that their devotion is personal and private, not institution or corporate. This is not the testimony of the great saints of history; it is the confession of fools.” The writer of Hebrews goes on to explain why this habit is not healthy: “Because we need each other! In fact, we should come together even more frequently, eager to encourage and urge each other onward as we anticipate that day dawning” (verse 25, TPT). The church’s job is to encourage and urge each other onward. What a great job. The Amplified Bible, Classic Edition expands it even more with these words: “admonishing (warning, urging, and encouraging) one another.” In a world and in a time that is so dark and discouraging, the church should be the place we go and come out better than we went in. Russ Blowers, a minister in Indianapolis, knew the Rotary Club members would ask about his profession when he attended a local meeting. He didn’t want to just say, “I’m a preacher,” so when his turn came to introduce himself to the group, he said, “I’m with a global enterprise. We have branches in every country in the world. We have ou

Day 213 Today’s Reading: Hebrews 9  I was speaking to a major league baseball player once who was struggling with the idea of death. I told him, here is your anxiety about death, starting with the least and moving to the greatest anxiety: • The unlived life. You didn’t do your bucket list—so many things you wish you would have done. You start to realize what you didn't do and how much time you wasted. • The regretful past. This is going backward and wishing you could take back words and actions. You wish you would have let more things go, apologized more, spent more time with your kids and your family. • The gnawing possibility of accountability. This causes the greatest anxiety. It is the eternity issue. Is there a heaven and hell? Am I accountable? Will God judge me? If so, how will God judge me? The first two on that list deal with mortality. The final item on that list deals with immortality. Is there something after death? That causes people’s anxiety to grow as they think, “Before I was only anxious about my last years on earth, but now I’m anxious about what is beyond and forever.” We can brush off dreams unrealized. We can even brush off the stupid stuff we did that we wish we could take back. But eternity is different. Eternity keeps talking to us. And today’s chapter gives us a sobering reality check on it: “Every human being is appointed to die once, and then to face God’s judgment” (Hebrews 9:27, TPT). Everyone will stand before God, either as our Judge or as our Redeemer. His role is determined by the choice we make on earth. When CNN cancelled Larry King’s interview show in 2010, King began obsessing with his death, becoming aware that there will come a day when he dies. But he doesn’t believe in the afterlife, so each day he started taking four hormone pills for human growth, and made plans to have his body frozen so that someday he will live again. He admits he knows “it’s nuts," but at least he believes when he dies the potential of him being resurrected someday thanks to cryonics gives him some hope. Larry King says, “Other people have no hope.” Our hope is not in extending life here but extending life on the other side in heaven. Larry King is trying to extend the wrong way. What he fails to understand is that eternity is too long to be wrong. There’s another who doesn’t want to face eternity. In The Last Word, Thomas Nagel, professor of philosophy at New York University and an atheist, admits he doesn’t want there to be a God: “I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.” Those words are raw and honest, and I appreciate the professor’s candor. But again, eternity is too long to be wrong. In 1974 Muhammad Ali was set to box against George Foreman for the Heavyweight Champion title. While he was training, a father and his son, Jimmy, came to Ali’s training camp, because he wanted to meet the Champ. When Ali discovered Jimmy was battling leukemia, he told him, “I’m going to beat George Foreman, and you’re going to beat cancer.” Two weeks later, Ali visited the boy, who was dying. Ali told him, “Jimmy, remember what I told you? I’m going to beat George Foreman. You’re going to beat cancer.”  “No, Muhammad,” Jimmy answered. “I’m going to meet God. I’m going to tell Him, you’re my friend.”  Ali’s kindness and name recognition throughout the world has always impressed me. But on the day

Day 212 Today’s Reading: Hebrews 8 Why should you go to heaven? I have asked many people that question. The number one answer I get is, “I am a good person.” I remind them about what Jesus said. Jesus, who cannot lie, said that, “No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18). And based on that person’s answer . . . now two are good in the universe: God and that person. They start to see not only is that not the right answer, they start to see the futility of that answer. God the Father did not send His only Son to suffer horrifically on the cross so that you can do your best to get to heaven. The cross means more than that. Jesus did not die to get you to church. Jesus died to get you to heaven. You have no way to get to heaven on your own, you need help. You need a miracle. You need a new covenant. The old covenant put you in the driver’s seat to do your best, and the Old Testament revealed that even at your best, it can’t get you to heaven. Hebrews 8 shows us the help and the miracle—it’s the new covenant: “Now Jesus the Messiah has accepted a priestly ministry which far surpasses theirs, since he is the catalyst of a better covenant which contains far more wonderful promises!” (verse 6 TPT). What is the “far more wonderful promises” of the new covenant? What makes this so different? It’s what God says next in the form of two words. What follows verse 6 reveals the heart of God and offers us great help and hope. Those two words? I will. Seven times in this chapter, God says, “I will.” The new covenant is all on God. Where the old covenant was man trying to do better, the new covenant is God saying, You can’t, but I will. We live in a culture that embraces the I will: I will be better. I will get this right. I will be a success. I will be rich. I will get to heaven. If you answer the question “How do I get to heaven?” with something you do, then the “I” of the “I will” is you. You can’t be the “I.” The “I” is the Son of God. It’s what He has done for you in the new covenant. Martin Luther so powerfully reminds us of this when he said: “What makes you think that God is more pleased with your good deeds than he is with his blessed son?” What follows the statement of “far more wonderful promises” is this (all quoted from the NIV): “I will make a new covenant.” (Verse 8) “This is the covenant I will establish.” (Verse 10) “I will put my laws in their minds.” (Verse 10) “[I will] write them on their hearts.” (Verse 10) “I will be their God.” (Verse 10) “I will forgive their wickedness.” (Verse 12) “[I] will remember their sins no more.” (Verse 12) The new covenant is what God does for you, not what you do for God. Another word for you being the “I” is legalism. You are working to make God like you and bring you to heaven. Legalism eliminates God’s involvement in your life and puts it all on you. Legalism says that God will really love you if you can change. As Tullian Tchividjian said, “The ironic thing about legalism is that it not only doesn’t make people work harder, it makes them give up.” That is when God says, I have a better covenant for you. In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis said something that reminds me of the greatness of God’s I Will. Digest these powerful words: “Christ offers something for nothing: He even offers everything for nothing. In a sense, the whole Christian life consists in accepting that very remarkable offer. But the difficulty is to reach the point of recognising that all we have done and can do is nothing.” That’s the new covenant.

Day 211 Today’s Reading: Hebrews 7 Comedian Ray Romano said this about parenting: “Having children is like living in a frat house—nobody sleeps, everything’s broken, and there is a lot of throwing up.” For us parents, this is so true. Let me tell you an “everything’s broken” story. When my son was little, he loved to color. One day while I was away from my laptop, my son decided to take his coloring skills to a new level. He grabbed a black Sharpie permanent marker and drew all over the screen. I walked into my office and caught him. I was frozen, not sure what to do other than plan my son’s funeral. Then it hit me. My laptop was a Dell, and at the time, Dell had an amazing guarantee that if anything happened to the laptop, they would replace it. No way that guarantee means a Sharpie and a two-year-old, I thought, but figured I’d call Dell and tell them the story. The customer service representative laughed and said they would ship out a new laptop in a day and I could use that box to send back to Dell the one my son signed. They did guarantee their product. Hebrews 7 takes guarantees to a whole new level. This chapter compares the old covenant under Old Testament priests with the new covenant under the High Priest and Savior, Jesus. And the writer finally arrives at the guarantee portion of the covenant: “This makes Jesus the guarantee of a far better way between us and God—one that really works! A new covenant. Earlier there were a lot of priests, for they died and had to be replaced. But Jesus’ priesthood is permanent. He’s there from now to eternity to save everyone who comes to God through him, always on the job to speak up for them.” (Hebrews 7:22-25, MSG) Jesus is the guarantee that the new covenant works and is better. Let me explain. When we are born again and come to God through Jesus Christ, we have a guarantee that we will make it to heaven. Under the old covenant a person was only as safe and secure as their next sin. And then they had to wait till the yearly sacrifice of the high priest for the sins of the nation of Israel. Under the new covenant, the writer tells us there is a guarantee. The Bible uses a comparable word to guarantee. It’s the word surety. That word means a person who takes responsibility for another’s performance of an undertaking. For example, their appearing in court or the payment of a debt. Remember the reality show Dog, the Bounty Hunter? He was a bail bondsman. When a person was released on bail money, but skipped appearing in court, Dog would hunt that person down to get that person to court. That’s why it’s hard to be a backslider when our surety is Jesus. He comes after those who walk away from God, because He is the guarantee to get them not to court but to heaven. Jesus is the surety that we will make it to heaven. Jesus is, in a sense, your Dog, the bounty hunter. Ouch, I know that’s hard to say, but He is. He has too big of an investment in you to lose you. How does Jesus help you in that? That’s where verse 25 explains an important point: “He is able to save fully from now throughout eternity, everyone who comes to God through him, because he lives to pray continually for them” (TPT). Jesus is praying for you and me right now. And all of Jesus’ prayers get answered. He is committed to getting us home. Robert Murray McCheyne said it like this: “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference because He is praying for me.” The short life of the Old Testament priests made their guarantee weak, and the writer of Hebrews tells us that since our Great High Priest, Jesus lives forever, this warranty lasts that long. Puritan writer Thomas Watson shares this wonderful insight about our guarantee: “When God calls a man, He doe

Day 210 Today’s Reading: Hebrews 6 An old Presbyterian preacher named Clarence Macartney made a keen observation about airplanes and the Christian life: “Between an airplane and every other form of locomotion and transportation there is one great contrast. The horse and wagon, the automobile, the bicycle, the locomotive, the speedboat, and the great battleship—all can come to a standstill without danger, and they can all reverse their engines, or their power, and go back. But there is no reverse about the engine of an airplane. It cannot back up. It dare not stand still. If it loses its momentum and forward-drives, then it crashes. The only safety for the airplane is in its forward and upward motion. The only safe direction for the Christian to take is forward and upward. If he stops, or if he begins to slip and go backward, that moment he is in danger.” This is what the writer of Hebrews is speaking of in today’s chapter: “Leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.” (Hebrews 6:1-2) Let us press on to maturity. Those are the words for moving forward and upward. It is the challenge of growth for the Christian. Always remember that maturity is not a gift, it is a journey. Inventor Rowland Hill once watched a child riding a rocking-horse and remarked, “He reminds me of some Christians. There is plenty of motion but no progress.” Hebrews 6 is a plea for progress. It seems that these new Christians got stuck. The writer says we should know the foundational principles of faith, repentance, and laying on of hands, and that we should not stall out on these issues but press on toward maturity. As The Message so aptly puts it: “So come on, let’s leave the preschool fingerpainting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ” (verse 1). It is easy to confuse maturity with experience. Experience is a wonderful thing but not always the best teacher. There’s nothing more tragic than when the years don’t match the maturity. A group of tourists were visiting a European village and walked by an old man sitting. With a patronizing tone, one tourist asked him, “Were any great men born in this village?” The old man replied, “Nope, only babies.” Every born-again believer starts life as a baby in Christ. Whether the new convert is six or sixty, that person is still a new Christian and needs to grow in the Lord. A baby Christian who has been saved for forty years is a tragedy. God intends for us to grow and mature so we can be a positive influence in the lives of others. Until we learn to dig into the meat of the Word for ourselves, we will never grow. Amy Carmichael once penned these thoughts: “Sometimes when we read the words of those who have been more than conquerors, we feel almost despondent. I feel that I shall never be like that. But they won through step by step, by little bits of wills, little denials of self, little inward victories, by faithfulness in very little things. . . . No one sees these little hidden steps. They only see the accomplishment, but even so, those small steps were taken. There is no sudden triumph on spiritual maturity.” That is the work of the moment. Maturity comes through taking small steps, introducing new habits, and stopping bad ones. In one Peanuts comic strip, Sally was struggling with her memory verse for Sunday, when she finally remembered, “Maybe it was something from the book of Reevaluation.” I think every time we read the Bible, it should be in the book of "re-evaluation" for us to see if we are growing. In most homes that have childre

Day 209 Today’s Reading: Hebrews 5 In talking about the power of mentoring, UCLA’s great basketball coach, John Wooden wrote: “[President Abraham] Lincoln fiercely believed in self-sufficiency, and in the maturity and character that struggles and hardships can bring. This lesson is so important for teachers and parents. It is only natural for us to want to shield our students and our children from anything that might possibly cause them hurt or to suffer or even to be uncomfortable. But some degree of pain is necessary for a person to become suited for the responsibilities that lay ahead.” Pain is necessary. Those are true but tough words to swallow. In today’s chapter we encounter a topic that is not often discussed in our culture. The writer of Hebrews speaks of a classroom that is often overlooked but more so avoided—the classroom of suffering. And we see that Father God was doing exactly what Lincoln and Wooden spoke about with His Son Jesus: “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered” (Hebrews 5:8). Suffering and learning. These are words we don’t normally associate together. Suffering and learning are partners, and they are integral in the life of Jesus. Malcolm Muggeridge, one of the great British Christian writers, did not come to faith until later in life. His words on suffering and learning are powerful: “Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my 75 years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my experience, has been through affliction and not through happiness. Amy Carmichael can attest to that. Carmichael was a missionary to India in the early 1900s. She was the originator of the safe house, rescuing young girls at a time when the world did not know about the horrific exploitation of them. She did this at the risk of her own life. In 1932, Carmichael was badly injured in a fall, which broke her leg and twisted her spine, and which left her mostly bedridden and in constant pain for the next twenty years until her death. Rarely did she sleep through a night without waking up in pain. However, while bedridden, Carmichael wrote sixteen books that are filled with awe-inspiring revelation. All coming from a fall, sleepless nights, and back pain. We could learn from her suffering. Helen Keller said, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” Those are the learners. We try to avoid pain instead of learning from pain, which leads us to where we waste our pain. A. W. Tozer was spot on when he said: “It is doubtful whether God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.” Our Daily Bread tells the story of A. Parnell Bailey who toured an orange grove where an irrigation pump had broken down. The season was in a drought, and the trees were beginning to die. Next Bailey visited another orchard where irrigation was used sparingly. “These trees could go without rain for another two weeks,” the man giving Bailey the tour told him. “When they were young, I frequently kept water from them. This hardship and pain caused them to send their roots deeper into the soil in search of moisture. Now mine are the deepest-rooted trees in the area. While others are being scorched by the sun, these are finding moisture at a greater depth.” That’s what happens in pain, we learn to go deeper in God. Pain takes us deeper so we are not hurt by the pain but have learned to draw our resources from a place of depth. As Mildred Witte Struven explained: “A clay pot sitting in the sun will always be a clay pot. It has to go through the white heat of the furnace to become porcelain.”</

Day 208 Today’s Reading: Hebrews 4 The second most difficult book in the Bible to understand is Hebrews, because of its assumption that the reader is familiar with the Old Testament. It is dependent upon reader’s understanding of the book of Leviticus and it is written to Jews who would know this book completely. The two key words in the book are sacrifices and priest. In today’s culture, we are not familiar with the concept of priesthood and sacrifices. The basic premise of Hebrews is that these Jews were getting tired of the battles that go along with being a Christian. The more secular the world becomes, the more at odds we appear to be. The more we are committed to Christ, the more we experience conflict and collision. Some of these Hebrew believers were being persecuted and even their property was being taken from them. These new Christians’ wondered, How can we make it? Is it worth it? They were considering going back to the world and back to their old ways.&nbsp; The author of Hebrews had one simple message to give them: Jesus. He wanted them to know they had a friend in high places who would get them through because He really understands what they were experiencing: “We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:15-16) That message is still true today: you are not alone. You have Someone with you and He is Someone who has been through what you are going through. The Message says it like this: “We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.” Wow! We serve a Jesus who has experienced it all. Why is this important? Charles Spurgeon said it well: “A Jesus who never wept could never wipe away my tears.” Is this really true? Does Jesus understand what you are going through because He has been through it Himself? Jesus doesn’t just know what you are going through, He knows what it’s like to go through it. This makes Him a personal Savior. There is nothing you have gone through that He has not gone through in some form or fashion. He understands what it is to be let down by friends. He understands betrayal. He understands fear and wanting to quit. He knows the pain of losing loved ones. He understands having someone close to Him murdered. Just to name a few. &nbsp;He found out what it’s like to discover your life is on the clock. (Some hear it like this: “You have cancer; you have three months to live.”) He was a carpenter. He knows what it is to work a 9-5 job. He had deadlines and work orders. He knew homelessness: Jesus said, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20). Jesus knew what it’s like to cry out to God and ask why when things got tough: He said on the cross: “My God, My God, why . . .?” (Matthew 27:46). So what is the result of having this kind of Jesus? The writer of Hebrews tells us in the first word of the next verse: Therefore. It means, “here’s the reason” I just told you what I told you. Hebrews 4:16 reads: “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” He says, now that you know you have a High Priest who understands the pain of life, what are you going to do about it? And he gives

Day 207 Today’s Reading: Hebrews 3 Thomas Edison had very little formal education. In fact, he was only in school a few months before his mother pulled him out and began teaching him herself. She encouraged him in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and allowed him to pursue other interests that appealed to him. Always a curious boy, he was particularly fascinated with mechanical things and chemical experiments, which his mother encouraged. How did it come about that his mother pulled him out of school? And why? According to a rare interview Edison gave to a now-defunct literary journal, T. P. Weekly, published on November 29, 1907, his mother’s staunch support and belief in him made him the successful inventor he became: “One day I overheard the teacher tell the inspector that I was “addled” and it would not be worthwhile keeping me in school any longer. I was so hurt by this last straw that I burst out crying and went home and told my mother about it. Then I found out what a good thing a good mother is. She came out as my strong defender. Mother love was aroused, mother pride wounded to the quick. She brought me back to the school and angrily told the teacher that he didn’t know what he was talking about, that I had more brains than he himself, and a lot more talk like that. In fact, she was the most enthusiastic champion a boy ever had, and I determined right then that I would be worthy of her and show her that her confidence was not misplaced.” Thomas Edison’s mom spoke encouragement, life-giving words, into her son’s life and gave us one of the greatest inventors in history. Because of her staunch belief in her son and her words about and to him, the world has the light bulb, phonograph, camera, telegraph, generators, microphones, alkaline batteries, cement, and a host of other things. Words are powerful. As Mother Teresa said, “Words which do not give the light of Christ increase the darkness.” In today’s chapter, the writer of Hebrews describes the heart challenge we all face and the antidote for it to be fixed: “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” (Hebrews 3:12-13) We are told that any one of us can find our heart moving into unbelief. The writer says that we are to be aware of that enemy. And before we can even be afraid, we are told there is an answer to it—encouragement. Encouragement is what keeps our hearts soft. That is the power of encouraging words. Those kinds of words don’t just give us a Thomas Edison, they give us strong, faithful Christians. Can I vent for a moment? I want to give you my pet peeve of “religious” encouragement. It’s when people give you the preface before the encouragement. They say something like, “I don’t want you to get a big head or get prideful, but you preached well, you sang well, your words were powerful.” Their preface waters down their encouragement. I want to tell them, “You’re not the pride police. Just say something nice without the caveat.” People are so discouraged today, and a word of encouragement gets them in the game, so give someone a word of encouragement without your “concern” for their pride. Be more concerned of an unbelieving heart than a prideful heart. That means just say the good words. More people fail for lack of encouragement, I think, than for any other reason. Encouragement is oxygen to the soul. We don’t have enough encouragers out there. We need more encouragement in the home and in the church. Who knows what a word of encouragement could do for your spouse, your child, or the person you sit next to at your job. Just a “great job” could get someone through the day. We

Day 206 Today’s Reading: Hebrews 2 My wife, Cindy, and I were sitting with our children’s pastor some years ago. As we were talking in our living room, our four children were playing in the basement. All our kids were under the age of eight, so there was a lot going on. At that time the children’s pastor was not married and had no children. While we were talking we all heard a cry from the basement, but Cindy and I just kept talking. Finally he said, “Aren’t you guys going to do something?” “It’s okay,” we told him. “That’s a ‘You took my spot!’ cry. It’s all good.” We kept talking and then another cry came from the basement. We never flinched. He was unnerved. “Should we go check on them?” “It’s all good,” Cindy and I said. “That’s a bug cry.” We kept talking. Then a third cry came and we got up and left. He sat confused. “Where are you going?” “That’s an ‘I’m hurt!’ cry,” we said as we rushed to the basement. “Someone hurt themselves and we need to go.” Meeting postponed. When you are a parent, you know the cry of your children. Hebrews 2 is about our Savior who knows the cry of His kids. Let’s read this very encouraging passage: “He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.” (Hebrews 2:17-18) The King James Version doesn’t use the phrase, come to the aid. It uses a very old English word, “He is able to succor them.” The word succor actually means to run to the cry. I think it’s important to know that Jesus runs to the cry and not to the articulate. Sometimes all we have is a cry, and that moves our Savior to our rescue. Psalms show us this over and over: “In my distress I cried out to the Lord . . . my cry to him reached his ears.” (Psalm 18:6, NLT) “In my trouble I cried to the Lord, and He answered me.” (Psalm 120:1) “I love the Lord because he . . . heard my cry.” (Psalm 116:1, NIRV) David over and over uses cries for prayer. A cry is inarticulate but still has meaning. A cry is not grammatically correct, but it is understandable to God. A cry may be wordless but speaks with force and passion in the ears of God. Tears are prayers. Tears talk when we can’t. There’s an old poem by John Vance Cheney that says in part, “The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.” Let me show you the rainbow of this verse. The writer of Hebrews was telling us that since Jesus became like us “in all things,” He knows the cry and the pain of those things. He can recognize the emotions of situations that we forget Jesus became familiar with.&nbsp; In 100 Days in the Arena, David Winter recounts a horrific time in the early church when the Christians were being killed for their faith. He includes this prayer: “You give yourself with such total generosity, it might almost seem that you need us. There has never been a king like you ever before. You have made yourself available to everyone who needs you. Instead of high security, you have made yourself vulnerable even to those who hate you.” What makes Jesus amazing is that our tears are enough to get His attention. It’s not our experience, our vocabulary, our education, our position, or our finances. A cry is enough to make Him run to our help. There is no such thing as a bad prayer—even if it’s just a cry. Bruce Howell tells the story of a father and his young son and daughter who went swimming in the Atlantic Ocean off New Jersey. Though they were all great swimmers they got separated, and the dad, looking around, realized that the tide was carryi

Day 205 Today’s Reading: Hebrews 1 At Trafalgar Square in London stands the 170-foot-high iconic Lord Nelson column. Resting on top of the pillar is Lord Nelson. It towers way too high for a passerby to distinguish his features and really know who it is. So about forty years ago a new statue, an exact replica of the original that is on top, was erected at eye level so everyone could see Lord Nelson way up there. Someone had the idea that if you want to know who is “way up there,” we have to bring the exact representation down low enough for everyone to see. This also happened about two thousand years ago in a very big way. God transcends our ability to see Him for who He is. The eyes of our understanding cannot define or figure out His divine features. So God pulled a Lord Nelson for us. He set before us an exact representation, “the image of the invisible God.” Now to know God, we must only look at Jesus. Here’s what the writer of Hebrews tells us: “In these last days he has spoken to us through his Son. God made his Son responsible for everything. His Son is the one through whom God made the universe. His Son is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact likeness of God’s being. He holds everything together through his powerful words. After he had cleansed people from their sins, he now holds the honored position—the one next to the majestic God [the Father] on the heavenly throne.” (Hebrews 1:2-3, GW) We live in a highly religious society today. I don’t think America is godless; I think America has many gods. The issue is, what does America’s god look like? One of the first things God did when He gave the Ten Commandments was to issue a warning from the very beginning about counterfeit gods. The Bible says this in Exodus 20 in the first commandment: “You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.” (Exodus 20:3-5) Here is what stands out—that God gave the commandment against other gods not to pagans and idolaters but to Israel, the very people of God, a monotheistic people. Being religious never guarantees the worship of the true God. This was what we remember as we enter the book of Hebrews. Hebrews was written to religious people who were losing sight of Jesus. They were losing sight of the exact representation and likeness of God seen only in Jesus. And the book reminds them that God is in Jesus. Divine truth must come from outside to us. It cannot be self-generated by us and come from within ourselves. Truth must be revealed by God to us. Without Jesus we come up with our own version of God; thus the thousands of religions in the world who have self-defined God instead of letting God define Himself in Jesus. As Colossians 1:15 says, “We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen” (MSG). God is fully revealed in Jesus. That’s why any religion that doesn’t give Jesus the honor that God gets is counterfeit. Jesus tells us, “The Son will be honored equally with the Father. Anyone who dishonors the Son, dishonors the Father, for it was the Father’s decision to put the Son in the place of honor” (John 5:23, MSG). The Son is equally honored with the Father, because the Son is God in the flesh. There are only two approaches to knowing God: one that begins with humans or the one that begins with God. Jesus is God’s self-revelation. We know God only through Jesus. Lloyd C. Douglas was the author of the classic book, The Robe. He lived in a boarding house when he was a university student. He tells the story that when he lived on the first floor, he resided next to a retired music teacher, wheelchair bound and unable to leave his apartment. Every morning

Day 204 Today’s Reading: Philemon 1 You can be forgiven of your past but still have an unfixed past. Forgiven and fixed are two different things, and sometimes people confuse them at salvation. Being born again will change your relationship with God, but won’t necessarily change your relationship with your family, the courts, the IRS, the law, a judge, a probationary officer, VISA, a collection agency, a halfway house, or a bad marriage. At least not immediately. You are forgiven but not fixed yet. Let me give you a scenario. If you robbed a bank and got saved after that, are you forgiven and really going to heaven? Yes. Are you going to jail? Yes. Are you now innocent since you are forgiven? Nope. You are forgiven, but you may have a past that still needs to be fixed. You can be going to heaven and going to jail at the same time. God’s forgiveness always exonerates in the courts of heaven, but is not guaranteed in the courts on earth. Salvation forgives sin (past, present, and future) but it does not resolve it. This is such an important issue that a whole book of the Bible is devoted to it. A twenty-five verse book, which is the best and most practical help on this issue—Philemon. The verses will pop off the page when I give you the background. We have three characters in the story: Paul, who is in prison, is the aged apostle and the writer of the letter; Philemon is a Christian who had a slave who ran away (and has the church in his house); Onesimus is the slave who ran away and who gets saved while he is trying to get lost among the residents in Rome. In the first century, two million of the five million people in Rome were slaves. To purchase a slave was very expensive. There were 120 occupations for them—some were executives and had salaried positions; most slaves served between ten and twenty years and usually were free by the age of thirty. But if a slave ran away, it was like he was committing suicide. It was punishable by death or branding the letter “F” on his head, which stood for the Latin word Fugitivus. Bottom line: Onesimus ran away. Bottom line: by law he can be killed or branded. Paul knows this. Onesimus knows this. Philemon knows this. While Paul is in prison in Rome, guess who he meets? Onesimus. And guess who Paul leads to the Lord? Onesimus. Now we come back to our original thought: you can be forgiven but your past is still unfixed. So Paul has to write a letter and send Onesimus back to Philemon with that letter. Listen to some of Paul’s letter to Philemon. This is a masterpiece: “I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my imprisonment, who formerly was useless to you, but now is useful both to you and to me. I have sent him back to you in person, that is, sending my very heart, whom I wished to keep with me, so that on your behalf he might minister to me in my imprisonment for the gospel; but without your consent I did not want to do anything, so that your goodness would not be, in effect, by compulsion but of your own free will. For perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while, that you would have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.” (Philemon 1:10-16) Jesus has forgiven Onesimus. Will Philemon forgive Onesimus? Paul doesn’t mention the name Onesimus in the letter for nine verses. I want you to keep this in mind—this letter is being hand delivered. The Jerusalem postal service is not doing it, but the subject of the letter is; Onesimus. I wonder if he knows exactly what is in the letter as he is coming back to Philemon. Commentary writer William Barclay says, “Christianity never entitled anyone to default on

Day 203 Today’s Reading: Titus 3 Research experts tell us we communicate only 7 percent with our words, 38 percent with our tone of voice, and 58 percent with our actions. This is why Paul emphasizes the word deeds to the young pastor Titus. In today’s chapter we are getting from the apostle Paul the last of the pastoral letters. His emphasis to Titus in chapter 3, and really throughout the entire Epistle, is focused on the 58 percent. I imagine Paul feels like Benjamin Franklin who said, “Well done is much better than well said.” Basically, it is better to be a good doer than a good talker.&nbsp; John Donne said: “Of all the commentaries on the Scriptures, good examples are the best.” Another word for example in the book of Titus is good deeds. The apostle Paul is really careful to tell us it’s not the good deeds that make us Christians and get us to heaven: “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit” (Titus 3:5). But it is good deeds that should be coming from God’s people. He wants us to know that though we are not saved by good deeds, we pursue good deeds because they are the outflow of the work of God in our lives:&nbsp; "Remind the people to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed. . . . This is a trustworthy statement; and concerning these things I want you to speak confidently, so that those who have believed God will be careful to engage in good deeds. These things are good and profitable for men." (Verses 1, 8) Be ready for every good deed and engage in good deeds. Then he repeats in verse 14: “Our people must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful.” Again, he encourages us to engage in good deeds. But these exhortations are not limited to Titus 3. In Titus 1:16, Paul tells Titus about people who know how to talk but not live: “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.” Or as one Colin Morris put it, “Your theology is what you are when the talking stops and the action starts.” Then Paul speaks about good deeds in chapter 2, two more times: “In all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds, with purity in doctrine, dignified. . . . Who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds” (verses 7, 14). Zealous for good deeds. It seems like “good deeds” is the emphasis Paul is giving to Titus: Titus, let your people show their Christianity, not just speak it. You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips. Our challenge is to live what we say. People will see with their eyes before they will listen with their ears. Our actions can bring someone closer to Jesus or be the very thing that turns them from Jesus. Charles Banning was right when he said, “Too many of us have a Christian vocabulary rather than a Christian experience. We think we are doing our duty when we’re only talking about it.” People may doubt what we say but they will believe what we do. As the late British evangelist Gypsy Smith once quipped, “There are five Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and the Christian, but most people never read the first four.”

Day 202 Today’s Reading: Titus 2 Do you have the happiest or the unhappiest job? Recently Bloomberg Work Wise put out a list of the happiest jobs in America, based on fulfillment, coworkers, supervisors, and balance of home and life. Here are the top five: firefighters topped the list, followed by machine operators, pediatricians, communication professors, and guidance counselors. Bloomberg also listed the top jobs in which people are asking, “Is it 5 p.m. yet?” These are the jobs where lunch hour rescues them. They are: mail clerks and sorters are the first on the list, followed in order by court and municipal clerks, house cleaners, insurance claims and policy clerks, telemarketers. When talking about work, A. W. Tozer said: “We must do worldly jobs, but if we do them with sanctified minds, they no longer are worldly but are as much a part of our offering to God as anything else we give to Him.” In today’s chapter Paul wants to teach us a lesson on work, regardless of which list we are on. And we find no better place to know how to sanctify our minds and make our job an offering to God than in Titus 2:9-10: "Servants are to be supportive of their masters and do what is pleasing in every way. They are not to be argumentative nor steal but prove themselves to be completely loyal and trustworthy. By doing this they will advertise through all that they do the beautiful teachings of God our Savior." (TPT) In Titus 2, Paul begins to give advice to a number of different groups. He speaks to the men and women who are part of AARP; he calls them older men and older women. Then he has advice for young men and young women. And then Paul speaks to laborers who encompass all these groups. Author Dorothy Sayers, one of C. S. Lewis’s literary friends said: “The only Christian work is good work well done.” That’s our goal: good work well done. In their book, The Edge of Adventure, Keith Miller and Bruce Larson wrote, “If you are miserable or bored in your work, or dread going to it, then God is speaking to you. He either wants you to change the job you are in or—more likely—he wants to change you.” I think Paul helps us here, regardless of what job we have, and I think Titus 2 is a good place to start with wanting us to change. Paul says when we work the right way in our jobs, we advertise God the Savior through what we do, not what we say. A lot of people like to talk, but it is those who do rather than talk who make the greatest impact. Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz said: “When all is said and done, more is usually said than done.” Let’s be a people who do more than say more. Here is Paul’s challenge for us, our on-the-job training: • be supportive • do what is pleasing in every way • do not be argumentative • don’t steal • prove to be completely loyal and trustworthy Paul tells us to make those things our priority and we will be a walking advertisement for God. The Living Bible paraphrases that last part like this: “In this way they will make people want to believe in our Savior and God.” We make God attractive by being a great employee. We witness for Jesus without even saying the name of Jesus. Jesus alluded to this principle in the Sermon on the Mount: “Your lives light up the world. Let others see your light from a distance. . . . Let it shine brightly before others, so that the commendable things you do will shine as light upon them, and then they will give their praise to your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16, TPT). Here it is in its simplicity. People see your good actions and attribute them to God in your life. It goes like this: your Christian faith should translate into good employee habits—showing up on time, not stealing, not being argumentative, being loyal, being trustw

Day 201 Today’s Reading: Titus 1 A deacon sent in his apologies for the Sunday morning service, claiming that he was ill with the flu. One of the church members, however, said he had seen the deacon on his way to a baseball game. After the service, the minister visited the deacon. “Brother,” he said. “I have information that you were not sick at all this morning, but went to watch a ball game.” The deacon protested and was angry: “That’s a vicious lie about me! I’ll show you my fish to prove it!” Men lie, but God doesn’t. That’s the message of Titus 1. And Paul wants that to be clear for the young pastor, Titus, who is dealing with a culture of lying and deceit on the isle of Crete, as he embarks on a mission in a new area for the gospel. Consider some of the biggest lies ever told: The check is in the mail. I’ll start my diet tomorrow. Give me your number, and the doctor will call you right back. One size fits all. It’s not the money, it’s the principle of the thing. Even though we are not seeing each other anymore, we can still be friends. I’ve never done anything like this before. This hurts me more than it hurts you. Your table will be ready in a few minutes. Open wide, it won’t hurt a bit. A study done by researchers at Michigan State University found that the average number of lies people tell a day are 1.6—that means we lie about five hundred times a year! A 2004 study at Temple University School of Medicine found that lying takes more brain energy than telling the truth. Researchers divided participants into two groups. They asked those in the first group to shoot a toy gun and then lie and say they didn’t do it. Those in the second group watched what happened and then told the truth about it. An MRI machine indicated that the liars had to use seven areas of the brain in their response. By comparison, those who told the truth only used four areas of the brain. We serve a God who always tells the truth. In theology we call it the veracity of God. Titus 1 starts off with reminding us of this fact. Paul is writing to Titus who used to be his travel companion. Paul led Titus to Christ, which is why he calls him “my true child in the faith.” Paul has left Titus at Crete to bring things in order there. And the first thing that Paul reminds Titus is that whatever God says is true because God cannot lie:&nbsp; "From Paul, God’s willing slave and an apostle of Jesus, the Anointed One, to Titus. I’m writing you to further the faith of God’s chosen ones and lead them to the full knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness, which rests on the hope of eternal life. God, who never lies, has promised us this before time began." (Titus 1:1-2, TPT) Paul is telling Titus that he knows he left him in a place where a lot of lying is going on. And he tells Titus in verses 10-12 that Titus is surrounded by liars and deceivers. That is why Paul wants him to know one thing, and the people there need to know it also: that God cannot lie. It’s the veracity of God. The word veracity means habitual truth. It means you always tell the truth. God not only tells the truth but designed us to do the same. He knows our body works better when we tell the truth. A USA Today article lists body signals of lying, which include: increased blinking and pupil dilation; a facial expression incongruous with what’s being said; increased body movement (especially hand gestures); shorter sentences; more speaking pauses and errors; more negative words and extreme words. Think about it. Why do lie-detector tests work? Authorities can tell we are lying because of our heart rate, sweat, tone of voice, and oth

Day 200 Today’s Reading: 2 Timothy 4 Let me give you an apostle Paul timeline. Paul’s conversion is in Acts 9 around&nbsp;AD 34. Second Timothy is his last letter and that is in AD 67. He writes it thirty-three years after the day he met Jesus. Paul’s entrance into the ministry is in Acts 13, in AD 48—fourteen years after his salvation experience on the road to Damascus. So he has been preaching and in full-time ministry for about two decades. Now two verses before he is about to pen his last words ever, he throws in a sentence of mystery: “Erastus remained at Corinth, but Trophimus I left sick at Miletus” (2 Timothy 4:20). Paul couldn’t leave well enough alone. He has to say something in regards to sickness and Christians. Only someone who has been in ministry for as long as the apostle can throw that sentence in his final letter. The Trophimus mystery is the mystery every Christian battles: why are people still sick when Jesus heals? At some point in our lives we have asked those questions either for ourselves or others. Paul’s seven words leave us hanging, longing for the answer: But Trophimus I left sick at Miletus. The man who God used to bring healing to people’s lives leaves a seven-year companion sick in Miletus. Paul has healed people in Acts 14, 19, 20, and 28, but not 2 Timothy 4. Paul heals others, but Trophimus he leaves sick. It doesn’t seem to make sense. Everyone he heals in the book of Acts he does not know personally, but Trophimus he does. So why has he left this one sick at Miletus? There is much speculation but no definitive answer. Some say divine chastisement. Some say he might not have had faith to be healed. And some put it on Paul: “Paul healed in Lystra and cast out demons in Philippi and wrought miracles in Ephesus but he failed with Trophimus.” We do not know the answer. Paul does a lot. But I like knowing that Paul’s track record isn’t perfect. There is a sick guy in Miletus. Whatever the answer is, there are times we must leave Trophimus sick at Miletus. We may win many to Christ but not everyone. There is always one. There are scores of answered prayers but there are some for whom God says no, and the prayer is like Trophimus, left without an answer. Miletus is one spot on the map where a man was not healed. We will have our Miletus too. I am rather glad for Trophimus here in the Bible. I am helped by the fact that we don’t have this unbroken record of successes and that everything Paul did was a success. I could not keep up with that. The great Baptist preacher Vance Havner said we must “leave room for Trophimus, allow for a Miletus to be somewhere along your journey.” Some days are sick days. Some days are “I blew it” days. “One of the reasons why mature people stop growing and learning,” says John Gardner, “is that they become less and less willing to risk failure.” Because someone didn’t get healed doesn’t mean we stop praying for people. Just because they did not respond the right way when we shared Jesus with them doesn’t mean we stop telling people the Good News. I’m glad Trophimus is in the Bible. And we need to remember that Trophimus being left sick in Miletus does not diminish Paul or his work or his character. Former figure skating Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton and his wife, Tracie, have four children, including two adopted from Haiti. While he was pursuing his success as a skater, he once said he dropped out of church involvement and started what he jokingly called “The Church of Scott.” But through the love of his wife and other Christians, he came to a sincere faith in Christ. Rooted in his faith, Hamilton had an interesting take on dealing with personal sin and failure. In a 2018 New York Times interview, Hamilton said: “I calculated once how many tim

Day 199 Today’s Reading: 2 Timothy 3 Biblical prophecy provides some of the greatest encouragement and hope available to us today. Just as the Old Testament is saturated with prophecies concerning Christ’s first coming, so both the Old Testament and the New Testament are filled with references to the second coming of Christ. One scholar has estimated there are 1,845 references to Christ’s second coming in the Old Testament, where seventeen books give it prominence. In the 260 chapters of the New Testament, there are 318 references to the second coming of Jesus. That means one out of every thirty verses talk about Jesus coming again. And twenty-three of the twenty-seven New Testament books refer to it. For every prophecy in the Bible concerning Christ’s first coming, there are eight that look forward to His second coming! Both of Paul’s letters to Timothy speak of Christ’s second coming. And in today’s chapter, Paul warns Timothy about the condition of humanity just before Christ comes again. The prophetic words he gives to the young pastor are not only chilling but eye opening—because the condition he describes can be easily attributed to our culture today. That means we are closer than ever to the second coming of Jesus. Billy Graham said, “Some years ago, my wife, Ruth, was reading the draft of a book I was writing. When she finished a section describing the terrible downward spiral of our nation’s moral standards and the idolatry of worshiping false gods such as technology and sex, she startled me by exclaiming, ‘If God doesn’t punish America, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.’” Consider what Paul says about what the planet will look like before Jesus comes: "In the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power." (2 Timothy 3:1-5) Paul gives nineteen descriptions in verses 2-4 to distinguish what humanity will look like and how they will be controlled. What is striking is that five of them have to do with love. It is a misdirected love, a misconstrued love, a deceptive love. It’s humanity not loving the One for whom they were created but finding a very bad substitute.&nbsp; Look at what they love instead of God: self, money, pleasure. Then look at the other two: they are unloving or without love and not lovers of God. The phrase without love or unloving means without true love. It means that people today are not without love—it’s just the wrong love. Paul wants to warn Timothy that when people are not lovers of God, they will start to believe that “there is no God, and since there is no God, let us start loving other things—self, money, and pleasure.” But we also find hope in these verses. Notice what verse one tells us: “In the last days difficult times will come . . .” Paul is saying, In the last days, Satan will unleash his worst—but God will unleash His best. Remember those words, In the last days. There is another section of Scripture that starts off with those words. It’s found in Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2: “It shall be in the last days,” God says, “that I will pour forth of My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on My bondslaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit and they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:17-18) Wow! That is so encouraging. That means the second coming of Jesus is not to dis

Day 198 Today’s Reading: 2 Timothy 2 Bill Bright has been one of the most influential Christian leaders of our generation. He and his wife, Vonette, founded Campus Crusade for Christ , which is now active in 190 countries, and consists of 26,000 staff members and an additional 553,000 trained volunteers, who work on campuses and in various settings around the world. Campus Crusade also produced the Jesus film that has been seen by more than 5.5 billion people to date, and the “I Found It” campaign, which swept the globe in 1975 and brought millions more to Christ. Bill also wrote more than one hundred books. He wrote his last one, The Journey Home, when he was slowly and painfully losing his battle with a debilitating illness called pulmonary fibrosis. This is how his physician told him he didn’t have much longer to live: 'He sat me down one day—Vonette and me—in his office and said, “You don’t seem to realize what’s happening to you. You’re dying. It’s worse than cancer. It’s worse than heart trouble. We can deal with these in some measure, but nobody can help you with pulmonary fibrosis. You are going to die a miserable death. You need to get your head out of the sand and be prepared for it.” So I said, “Well, praise the Lord. I’ll see the Lord sooner than I’d planned.”' American poet W. H. Auden wrote, “Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.” Think about that. While everyone is eating and enjoying the day, we all know there is an end. One Puritan writer said, “If you attempt to talk with a dying man about sports or business, he is no longer interested. He now sees other things as more important. People who are dying recognize what we often forget, that we are standing on the brink of another world.” Second Timothy is the apostle Paul’s “long journey home” book. This is number fourteen of Paul’s letters. It’s his last one. And it's an investment into leaders and, more specifically, young leaders. Former United States Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, said, “The task of the leader is to get their people from where they are to where they have not been.” This was the charge Paul gave Timothy: "No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. Also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules. The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops." (2 Timothy 2:4-6) In this challenge to Timothy, Paul uses three images: a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer. With each of these images and examples, Paul specified something importantly inherent in each of them: to be effective. Be a soldier. If you are in active service, you don’t entangle yourself in the affairs of everyday life. Or as one version says: “For every soldier called to active duty must divorce himself from the distractions of this world” (TPT). The soldier sees the big picture. He is not distracted by minutiae, but is in it to please the One who enlisted Him. The soldier lives for his General. Be an athlete. Compete according to the rules. There are no shortcuts to winning. Paul is saying the prize is for those who keep the rules. With so many performance-enhancing drugs hitting professional athletes today, it’s a perfect example of trying to cut corners to win. Winning in the Christian life has no shortcuts. It may be a longer path and journey but God is doing something in your training. Be a farmer. He is referred to as the hard-working farmer. Hard work gets results. The fruit of the farmer’s labor is inevitable; a crop comes because of his commitment to that field. In God’s Kingdom, it seems God gives promises, but they are not automatic. God gives the children of Israel the promis

Day 197 Today’s Reading: 2 Timothy 1 The apostle Paul gets three verses into Timothy’s second letter as a young pastor and reminds him that serving God must be done with a clear conscience: “Timothy, I thank God for you—the God I serve with a clear conscience, just as my ancestors did. Night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers” (2 Timothy 1:3, NLT). Serving God with a clear conscience. This is paramount in our relationship with God. For the most part a clear conscience helps us to know the voice of God. One of my dear friends and mentors Winkie Pratney said: “A clear conscience is absolutely essential for distinguishing between the voice of God and the voice of the enemy. Unconfessed sin is a prime reason why many do not know God’s will.” Your conscience is where you hear the whisper of God and feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit. The old saying goes, “Conscience does not keep you from doing anything. It just keeps you from enjoying it.” I love a small boy’s definition of what the conscience is: “something that makes you tell your mother before your sister does.” A clear conscience makes you stop before it’s too late. It helps you to slam on the brakes before you say and do something that you will regret later. So many people skip a clear conscience and keep going till consequences show up. And so many Christians assume it’s okay to blow by the warning of their conscience and to continue on when really God has given us a mechanism to pause before moving forward. Our goal is to have a clear conscience. There are different types of violated consciences in the New Testament, which are important for us to take note of. It comes after a conscience that was not kept clear: • Paul warns Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:2 of a seared conscience. • Paul tells Titus in Titus 1:15 to be aware of a defiled conscience. • The writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 10:22 warns of an evil conscience. I believe that every time we fail to keep our consciences clear, you border on a defiled or evil or even seared conscience. Do not dismiss conviction. It’s the brake for moving forward into regret. Many of us have regrets because we did not respond to conviction. And so it’s important for us to respond to conviction instead of waiting for consequences. What makes us stop and pause? Conviction or being caught? Conviction is when we feel something deep inside that is like an alarm telling us there is an intruder. Embarrassment will make us stop late, but conviction will go deeper to make us seriously pause early. Have you ever been in the middle of a conversation and were about to say something that was not edifying about a person, something that was gossip, and you felt this feeling, Don’t say it. That’s God’s warning mechanism for a clear conscience. Don’t finish that statement. Don’t start that joke—it compromises who you are. Don’t . . . Stay in tune with the whisper of God. That will promote a clear conscience every single day, not just on Sundays at church. When you serve God seven days a week, you fight every day to keep a clear conscience. &nbsp;There was a ship that had a regular route from California to Colombia. One day shortly before leaving for California, some drug dealers sent the ship’s captain a message that offered him $500,000 to allow a small shipment of drugs to get through to the United States. The captain replied with a no. On his next three trips, they raised the offer each time until they reached $2 million. He hesitated, and then said, “Maybe.” Then he contacted the FBI, which set up a sting operation, and the drug dealers were arrested. One of the FBI agents asked the captain, “Why did you wait until they got to $2 million before contacting us?” The captain replied, “They were ge

Day 196 Today’s Reading: 1 Timothy 6 There’s a word in the game of football that keeps enduring—Hut! An article in The New York Times pondered why this word keeps hanging around: It is easily the most audible word in any football game, a throaty grunt that may be the sport’s most distinguishing sound. Hut! It starts almost every play, and often one is not enough. And in an increasingly complex game whose signal-calling has evolved into a cacophony of furtive code words—“Black Dirt!,” “Big Belly!,” “X Wiggle!”—hut, hut, hut endures as the signal to move. But why? . . . “I have no idea why we say hut,” said Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce. . . . “I guess because it’s better than yelling, ‘Now,’ or ‘Go.’” Joe Theismann, the former Washington Redskins quarterback . . . reckons he shouted “hut” more than 10,000 times during games and practices. . . . “I’ve been hutting my way through football for 55 years—but I have no clue why.” The article conjectures that “hut” may come from the military backgrounds of many early pro football players. But that’s just a guess. This is similar to what Christians believe and why. Many people have been told what to believe without the why or the rationale behind that belief or doctrine. And it’s been around so long, they don’t have a clue about the explanation. The word doctrine means a set of beliefs or teachings from the Bible. Why do we believe what we believe? Or are we just saying hut, hut every Sunday and not knowing why? Will we get thousands of years into Christianity since the resurrection of Jesus and be asked why we say and do certain things and not have an answer? Fortunately, we learn some answers in today’s chapter, where Paul tells us the why. Paul takes a thirty-thousand-foot view of doctrine. He talks about doctrinal diversions but gives us one big statement. Here are Paul’s important words: "If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain." (1 Timothy 6:3-5) There it is: the bombshell phrase, the thirty-thousand-foot view of why we believe: doctrine conforming us to godliness. To know if a belief system is true, the end result of our belief should make us godly, which means it should make us look more like Jesus. Religion tries to get us to look like the club, the people on Sundays and in the pew. The goal is not to look like Sunday people but to lift our eyes a lot higher to heaven. Our goal is not to look like the person in the pulpit but the One who sits on the throne of heaven. That’s what doctrine is supposed to do. It conforms us to godliness. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “If your knowledge of doctrine does not make you a great man of prayer, you had better examine yourself again.” Paul wants to help us better understand how it plays out practically, so he offers the question “Can you be rich and a Christian?” as the test case. The answer is “yes, absolutely.” But Paul reminds us of some things in our lab work: "Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." (Verses 9-10) Paul challenges not being rich, but the reason behind why we want to

Day 195 Today’s Reading: 1 Timothy 5 A truck driver had been hired to deliver fifty penguins to the state zoo. As he was driving his truck through the desert, his truck broke down. Three hours passed, and he began to wonder if his cargo would survive in the desert heat. Finally he was able to wave down another truck. He offered the driver five hundred dollars to take the penguins to the zoo for him, and the other driver agreed. The next day, the first truck driver finally made it to town. As he drove, he was appalled to see the second truck driver walking down the street with the fifty penguins walking in a single-file line behind him! He slammed on his brakes, jumped out of his truck, and stormed over to the other trucker. “What’s going on?” he shouted. “I gave you five hundred dollars to take these penguins to the zoo!” The other trucker responded, “I did take them to the zoo. And I had some money left over, so now we’re going to see a movie.” Miscommunication leads to complication and confusion. Just a little miscommunication can mean a lot of problems. In today’s chapter, Paul gives us a lesson on effective communication. As author William H. Whyte so aptly said: “The great enemy of communication, we find, is the illusion of it.” Paul wants to remove the illusions for us. And his advice is priceless. He starts off 1 Timothy 5 with explaining how to communicate to people: Never speak sharply to an older man, but plead with him respectfully just as though he were your own father. Talk to the younger men as you would to much-loved brothers. Treat the older women as mothers, and the girls as your sisters, thinking only pure thoughts about them. (Verses 1-2, TLB) This passage can so easily be passed over and we miss Paul’s powerful lesson on how to communicate to different groups of people. All people don’t hear the same way; ages and gender contribute to that. Paul tells us the importance of knowing who we are speaking to and how to speak to them. It’s about knowing our audience. I have had the privilege of doing chapels in different venues. I have spoken to MLB and NFL teams, and in those environments, I make sure I do certain things. The window is short, and I realize for the entire season, this is these professional players’ church. I must not only respect their time but also must make sure I am making use of their time. Here are my two rules in these settings: lift up God’s Word and lift up God’s Son. First, I always bring a physical Bible and read from it. Why? Isaiah 55:11 says, “My word shall never return void.” That means better than a leadership principle or a pep talk, the best thing I can do for those players is give them a Bible principle, because it will always be productive. Second, I lift up God’s Son. Jesus said in John 12:32, “If I’m lifted up I will draw men to Myself.” When we don’t lift up Jesus, then people are attracted to the wrong thing: us. And we don’t have what they need. The apostle Paul gave us his important chapel rules as well when we are talking to certain groups of people. He said when we have to have a hard conversation with a person older than we are, harsh and hard talk must be dispensed with and we must take the posture of a son and see that person as a parent. This strategy goes from if we’re a supervisor with senior citizens on our staff, to having to tell our elderly neighbor to keep their dogs off our lawn. Plead with them as if they were your own father. He says the same treatment goes for elderly women. His plea about how we speak to our peers is much needed also in our generation. Young men talk to other young men as beloved brothers, as though they are our own flesh and blood. And when we see a young lady, we treat them as flesh and blood also and keep our thoughts pure about them. This is profound communication advice from Paul for all of us.

Day 193 Today’s Reading: 1 Timothy 3 One of the toughest tasks for a church is choosing a pastor. One church was in this painful process, as the board kept rejecting applicant after applicant. Finally, frustrated with the board’s No one is good enough attitude, one of the members submitted a bogus application to see what the board would do with it: "Gentlemen: Understanding your pulpit is vacant, I should like to apply for the position. I have many qualifications. I’ve been a preacher with much success and also some success as a writer. Some say I’m a good organizer. I’ve been a leader most places I’ve been. I’m over fifty years of age. I have never preached in one place for more than three years. In some places I have left town after my work caused riots and disturbances. I must admit I have been in jail three or four times, but not because of any real wrongdoing. My health is not too good, though I still get a great deal done. The churches I have preached in have been small, though located in several large cities. I’ve not gotten along well with religious leaders in towns where I have preached. In fact, some have threatened me and even attacked me physically. I am not too good at keeping records. I have been known to forget whom I have baptized. However, if you can use me, I shall do my best for you." The board member looked at the others on the committee. “Well, what do you think? Shall we call him?” The board was appalled. “Call an unhealthy, trouble-making, absent-minded ex-jailbird? Are you crazy? Who signed the application? Who had such colossal nerve? The board member looked at them. “It’s signed, the apostle Paul.’” Drop the mic. I think we have gone adrift from what a Christian leader looks like and have bought into the lie of what we see in the media. In today’s chapter, Paul gives criteria and qualities of what a pastor and deacon should have: A pastor must be a good man whose life cannot be spoken against. He must have only one wife, and he must be hard working and thoughtful, orderly, and full of good deeds. He must enjoy having guests in his home and must be a good Bible teacher. He must not be a drinker or quarrelsome, but he must be gentle and kind and not be one who loves money. He must have a well-behaved family, with children who obey quickly and quietly. For if a man can’t make his own little family behave, how can he help the whole church? The pastor must not be a new Christian because he might be proud of being chosen so soon, and pride comes before a fall. (Satan’s downfall is an example.) Also, he must be well spoken of by people outside the church—those who aren’t Christians—so that Satan can’t trap him with many accusations and leave him without freedom to lead his flock. The deacons must be the same sort of good, steady men as the pastors. (1 Timothy 3:2-8, TLB) If this is the criteria for hiring a pastor or selecting a deacon, I think we have been using the wrong grid and criteria. Some places have used the vote method instead of following this passage. Titus 1 adds a few more things, and they both comprise a powerful grid for pastoral leadership. Paul lists twenty-five qualifications. Of the twenty-five, only one deals with preaching. Several translations, including the King James Version, says the pastor must be “apt to teach.” I love that word apt. It sounds like he doesn’t have to be an amazing preacher. Why? Because there are twenty-four other things churches have to look at. If this list is a good grid to start, that means “communicating” is 1/25 of the pastoral skill set, which is 4 percent. If the main thing we do in choosing a pastor is simply listen to their sermons, we may be in for a train wreck. Remember, I am speaking as a pastor. Preaching is hard work, but so are the other twenty-four things. I’m afraid we hav

Day 192 Today’s Reading: 1 Timothy 2 I want to help you get involved in politics. I knew that would get your attention. When it comes to being a Republican or a Democrat, let’s be careful before labeling ourselves. I am of the school of C. S. Lewis, who said these important words about politics: “He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself.” Our heart, emotions, and energies first belong to God. We must be careful of giving these to a candidate to stay in office or to get one in office and give God less. So what part do we play as Christians in politics? There is a part we play, according to Paul, and its outcome is best for us: "The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live. He wants not only us but everyone saved, you know, everyone to get to know the truth we’ve learned." (1 Timothy 2:1-4, MSG) Wow! Our involvement is first on our knees. I am grateful we have Christians in government. I am grateful we have chaplains in Congress. I am thankful we have men and women fighting for godly principles. But the best way we unify the church is not around a candidate but around a king—the King. The way we unify the church politically is by getting the church to pray. And notice, Paul was saying for those in office not for those to beat those who are in office. Whether or not we agree with their politics or policies, our responsibility is to pray for our leaders in local, in state, and even in the White House and on Capitol hill. Paul says, “This is the way God wants us to live.” What is our prayer? We are first to pray that they rule well. And if they don’t, then pray more. The Passion Translation says it like this: “Pray for every political leader and representative, so that we would be able to live tranquil, undisturbed lives, as we worship the awe-inspiring God with pure hearts. It is pleasing to our Savior-God to pray for them” (verses 2-3). We pray for them “so that we would be able to live tranquil, undisturbed lives as we worship God.” We are praying for our leaders so our lives can find peace and quiet instead of contention and division. Our government may be in the condition it’s in because of the condition of prayer in the church. Call a prayer meeting for your church to pray for your local, state, and national leaders and see how many show up. That may be the reason we are in trouble—not because of a Republican president or a Democrat Congress or vice versa, but because of a non-praying church. A prayerless church messes up our government more than the government messes up the government. Don’t dismiss this. Why is this country everything but quiet when it comes to the political landscape? Because this prayer has not been answered; because this prayer has not been offered. The part we play in politics is to pray for our leaders—not the leaders we wish were there and not just the leaders we agree with. Let’s for a moment remove the adjectives before the word Christian. There is no such thing as a Republican Christian or a Democrat Christian or an Independent Christian or a Libertarian Christian, we are Christians! Which means we pray regardless of the election and its outcome. Why do we pray for our leaders? Paul says pray for this outcome: “This is the way our Savior God wants us to live. He wants not only us but everyone saved” (verses 3-4, MSG). The “everyone” here are the politicians. We pray for the

Day 191 Today’s Reading: 1 Timothy 1 Erwin Lutzer, author and long-time pastor of Moody Church in Chicago said, “There is more grace in God’s heart than there is sin in your past.” This is something the apostle Paul knew and wrote about in today’s chapter: "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus." (1 Timothy 1:12-14) A. W. Tozer tells us how right Paul is: Sometimes I go to God and say, “God, if Thou dost never answer another prayer while I live on this earth, I will still worship Thee as long as I live and in the ages to come for what Thou hast done already.” God’s already put me so far in debt that if I were to live one million millenniums I couldn’t pay Him for what He’s done for me.&nbsp; The only currency we have to offer God for all He has done for us is thanksgiving. And sometimes we don’t do well with gratitude. How can we get better? Here’s a good place to start from Priscilla Maurice: Begin by thanking Him for some little thing, and then go on, day by day, adding to your subjects of praise; thus you will find their numbers grow wonderfully; and, in the same proportion, will your subjects of murmuring and complaining diminish, until you see in everything some cause for thanksgiving. The apostle Paul starts off by thanking God for putting him in the ministry. The Message says it like this: I’m so grateful to Christ Jesus for making me adequate to do this work. He went out on a limb, you know, in trusting me with this ministry” (1 Timothy 1:12). And just like Priscilla Maurice said, as he started thanking God, the list grew. After thanking God for trusting him with the ministry, his heart went into the past and realized that God had gone out on a limb to pick Paul to represent Him. Here is the limb God went out on for Paul: “Even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus” (verses 13-14). Paul used three words that built to a climax—blasphemer to persecutor to violent aggressor. What’s crazy is how important our crazy past is. Instead of being tempted to hide it or ignore it, he shared it. Author Brennan Manning encourages us to do the same—to tell our terrible stories: “In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.” And as Warren Wiersbe reminds us: “The past is a rudder to guide you, not an anchor to drag you.” That means Paul used his crazy past to guide his gratitude and thanksgiving. Maybe we don’t think enough of our past and so our praise limps. Here is what Paul did. The thing that stands out in this passage is Paul’s insistence on remembering his own sin in a very revealing ascending order. He piled up his words on top of one another to show the awfulness of what he had done and the kind of person he really was. Paul said he was an insulter of the church. He’d flung hot and angry words at the Christians, accusing them of crimes against God. Then he moved up to being a persecutor, taking every means to annihilate the Christian church. Then he moved up again and admitted he became a violent aggressor. The word in Greek indicates a kind of arrogant sadism; it describes someone who is out to inflict pain for the sheer joy of inflicting i

Day 190 Today’s Reading: 2 Thessalonians 3 I recently read this quote: “Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes but when you look back, everything is different?” The apostle Paul encourages us in our day by day in 2 Thessalonians 3. He reminds us that the day-to-day responsibilities and duties can be wearying but worth it in the long run: “Do not grow weary of doing good” (2 Thessalonians 3:13). I don’t know who said it but it is so true: “The years reveal what the days do not tell.” That’s what Paul is trying to tell us—that doing what’s right and good every day without getting exhausted is our challenge. Fred Craddock, in an address to ministers, caught the practical implications of how the day-to-day things matter when he said: To give my life for Christ appears glorious. To pour myself out for others . . . to pay the ultimate price of martyrdom—I’ll do it. I’m ready, Lord, to go out in a blaze of glory.&nbsp; We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking a $1,000 bill and laying it on the table— “Here’s my life, Lord. I’m giving it all.” But the reality for most of us is that he sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $1,000 for quarters. We go through life putting out 25 cents here and 50 cents there. Listen to the neighbor kid’s troubles instead of saying, “Get lost.” Go to a committee meeting. Give up a cup of water to a shaky old man in a nursing home.&nbsp; Usually giving our life to Christ isn’t glorious. It’s done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at a time. It would be easy to go out in a flash of glory; It’s harder to live the Christian life little by little over the long haul. My prayer is this: “Jesus, help me to be consistent with my twenty-five cents a day. Teach me that faithfulness counts. Teach me not always to look for the big moment but to look for the little places where I can show charity—especially where no one is around and no applause can be heard, except a Well done whispered in my spirit.” Those twenty-five-cent days are the day-to-day good decisions Paul is talking about. Not big exchanges of cash but little quarter decisions that pay off over time. I want to tell you a cheese story. We know the guy but forgot about how a cheese delivery changed his life. He was doing a good thing for his dad and his brothers and because he did not get weary in submitting to his father, it changed the trajectory of his life. The delivery guy? David. How did David start on the journey toward his destiny of eventually becoming king? A cheese delivery—saying yes to an errand his dad asked him to do: “Take these ten wedges of cheese to the captain of their division. Check in on your brothers to see whether they are getting along all right, and let me know how they’re doing—Saul and your brothers, and all the Israelites in their war with the Philistines in the Oak Valley.” David was up at the crack of dawn and, having arranged for someone to tend his flock, took the food and was on his way just as Jesse had directed him. (1 Samuel 17:18-20, MSG) David’s destiny started by simply doing a small errand for his dad. And he took the cheese out of his hand and put a sling and rock in it shortly after. But who knew? Don’t get weary of doing good. I believe entry ramps into your destiny starts with humble little tasks that don’t even match what you want to do in the future. I really don’t think David’s dream was to be a Velveeta cheese delivery guy. But he was faithful in doing the little things. As Hudson Taylor said, “A little thing is a little thing, but faithfulness in a little thing is a big thing.” Don’t dismiss little things that are good. Many times the people who can defeat the giant are never selected because they hate cheese assignments. Don’t be a cheese hater. You don’t kill goliaths on

Day 189 Today’s Reading: 2 Thessalonians 2 If you are a parent, you have most definitely heard these words from your children at one time or another, “But you said...” What that means is they are holding you to your word. Nothing is more incriminating than being quoted and held accountable. It seems that the only time they do listen is when it’s a promise or commitment. God is a Father and He who keeps His word loves to hear His children tell Him, “but You said.” I think that thrills the heart of God. In Hebrews 4:12, we are told that the Word of God is powerful. If you take God’s powerful Word and pray it back to Him, that is exponential in power. Adding a “You said” to your prayer language gets God’s attention just as a “you said” does for any parent. I don’t think anything is more powerful than when you pray the Scriptures. You are just reminding God of what He told you. I want to give you a great prayer to start your day. It’s using God’s words in prayer. It is basically saying, “If You said, then why wouldn’t You hear and respond”: “May Jesus himself and God our Father, who reached out in love and surprised you with gifts of unending help and confidence, put a fresh heart in you, invigorate your work, enliven your speech. (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17, MSG). Consider the trilogy of requests: put a fresh heart in me, invigorate my work, enliven my speech. Let’s briefly unpack each of these so we can spot it when God answers it in our day. That’s called “watch and pray.” If we ask for something, we have a responsibility to watch with expectancy. First, ask God to put a fresh heart in you. Fresh is the word you would use when describing how you look when you’ve just returned from a two-week vacation. How do you freshen up your heart? How do you make your heart look as though it just got off vacation? Let your heart take a trip . . . a trip to heaven. Each morning let your heart take a trip into the presence of God. You cannot make that trip without coming out with a fresh heart. Second, ask God to invigorate your work. The word invigorate means to give strength and energy to what you do. How does God invigorate your work? He has to refocus your attention on who you are doing it for. Listen to what the apostle says in Colossians: “Put your heart and soul into every activity you do, as though you are doing it for the Lord himself and not merely for others” (Colossians 3:23, TPT). Your work is invigorated when you do it for Jesus. Every activity counts, not just church activities. Martin Luther King Jr. said it like this: If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music. . . . Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well. Whatever your occupation—CVS cashier, TSA agent at the airport, police officer, first responder, teacher, or ambassador. Whether you work for the government or the church, may God invigorate your work. You work for the Boss, so you’re doing it for Him. Third, ask God to enliven your speech. The word enliven means to make your speech more entertaining, interesting, and appealing. When you open your mouth, you want life to come out. Not complaints, not ingratitude, just joy and encouragement. As Proverbs 18:21 reminds us: Words kill, words give life; they’re either poison or fruit—you choose” (MSG). Let’s choose words of life today. My prayer for you and me today is this: “God, put a fresh heart in us. Invigorate our work. And enliven our speech. In Jesus’ name, amen.” Now go and have an amazing day!

Day 188 Today’s Reading: 2 Thessalonians 1 When the famed cellist Pablo Casals reached ninety-five years old, a young reporter asked, “Why do you still practice six hours a day?” To which Casals answered, “Because I think I’m making progress.” Your goal is to make progress every day of your life. We call it growth. As John Newman said, “Growth is the only evidence of life.” That is true naturally and especially spiritually. The Thessalonian Christians were new Christians and more importantly growing Christians. The Thessalonian church was under heavy persecution, yet continued to grow through it. This is important: they were not just going through it but growing through it. What a lesson for us. That when we are faced with difficult times, we remember that we can grow through them.&nbsp; Growth is not arrival, it’s movement. Growth is not perfection but better. The writer of the hymn, “Amazing Grace,” John Newton, said it best: “I am not what I might be, I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I wish to be, I am not what I hope to be; but I thank God I am not what I once was, and I can say with the great apostle, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am.’” Listen to Paul’s words of commendation to these young Christians who were not what they used to be but growing: You need to know, friends, that thanking God over and over for you is not only a pleasure; it’s a must. We have to do it. Your faith is growing phenomenally; your love for each other is developing wonderfully. Why, it’s only right that we give thanks. We’re so proud of you; you’re so steady and determined in your faith despite all the hard times that have come down on you. We tell everyone we meet in the churches all about you. (2 Thessalonians 1:3-4, MSG) These new believers were growing through hard times. They were growing in two areas: their love for others was developing wonderfully and their faith was growing phenomenally—the New American Standard Bible says, “your faith is greatly enlarged.” And all of it happening in difficulty. He was basically saying, “Your faith is getting supersized.” We know that word supersize because we know McDonald’s. Supersize to us means bigger fries and bigger Coke. But it does cost to supersize. Paul was saying, “You paid the extra cost for the supersize of faith and it’s evident.” What was the cost? That’s the next verse: “Your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions which you endure” (verse 4). Notice it says “persecution and affliction.” Those two words are important. One is about the outside battles. The other is the mental battles. And Paul was commending them by acknowledging, “You are getting hit outside and inside and holding your own, because you are holding on to God.” A family-owned coat store in Nottingham, England, has a sign that hangs for all to see: We have been established for over 100 years and have been pleasing and displeasing customers ever since. We have made money and lost money, suffered the effects of coal nationalization, coat rationing, government control, and bad payers. We have been cussed and discussed, messed about, lied to, held up, robbed and swindled. The only reason we stay in business is we can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow. It seems that the Thessalonians should have put that sign on their church. Tomorrow for the Thessalonians was phenomenal faith and developing love. Tomorrow for many is fearful but not for these new Christians. They were growing through their adversity. A daughter complained to her father about how difficult things were for her. “As soon as I solve one problem,” she said, “another one comes up. I’m tired of struggling.” Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen where he filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon th

Day 187 Today’s Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5 My mentor R. T. Kendall said: “The happiest pillow on which you may rest your head is the knowledge of God’s will. I cannot imagine a more miserable situation than consciously to be out of God’s will.” Paul gives us two pillows to rest on in 1 Thessalonians. Those pillows are the clear will of God. And Paul makes it very clear that we know this is what God wants for us. My friend Winkie Pratney says, “Many say they can’t get God’s guidance, when they really mean they wish He would show them an easier way.” Yesterday we looked at the first verse: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Sexual purity is God’s clear will, that is pillow #1. Here is pillow #2: “In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Paul couldn’t have stated God’s will and guidance for us any clearer: sexual purity and thanksgiving in everything. Difficult verses to live out? Absolutely. Possible to live out? Absolutely. But not without God’s help. Always remember, God will never ask us to do anything that He will not give us the power to obey. Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica about AD 54 while he was staying in Corinth. This was also the first letter of his fourteen Epistles Paul ever wrote. It was written mainly to Gentile converts, and was in effect, a design for discipleship, a practical primer on living the Christian life. So here in the fifth chapter of his first letter he ever wrote, he tells them, in everything give thanks. Paul did not say for everything but in everything. To say “for everything” would almost seem inhumane. No one can give thanks for everything, because some really horrible things happen to us. But when it gets hard, we can find thanksgiving in the situation. We can always find something to thank God for. And that’s what Paul is telling us to do: in every situation find something to give thanks for. How was your day? Terrible. I had a flat tire on the way to work. No. Give thanks in everything. We can thank God that He gave us a car to get a flat tire with, a job to pay for the car that we got a flat tire in, the jack in the back that was there when we got the flat, and breath that we still have because the flat tire did not go bad and hit any other cars causing a fatal accident. Want to read the craziest I’m-thankful-in-everything scenario ever said? It has only been said in this place by only one man. Strange sounds, organs, all around him and here is the verse: “I will sacrifice to You with the voice of thanksgiving” (Jonah 2:9). No big deal, you think? It is a big deal when you realize who said that! Jonah—while he was in the belly of the whale. He gave thanks when he was inside a whale. If Jonah could say it where he was then you and I can be thankful in whatever situation we find ourselves. Famous English Bible scholar Matthew Henry was once attacked and robbed. Afterward he wrote in his diary: “Let me be thankful, first, because he never robbed me before; second, although he took my purse, he did not take my life; third, because although he took all I possessed, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.” I believe it’s God’s will to thank Him before you ask Him. As Philippians 4:6 says, you are to make your requests known with thanksgiving.” Thank Him before you ask Him. It will purge your asking. How does thanksgiving purge the ask? Thanksgiving reminds you of all that God has already given to you. Former New York Yankees second baseman, Bobby Richardson, who is also a strong Christian, prayed at a meeting of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. This was his short prayer: “Dear God, Your will: nothing m

Day 186 Today’s Reading: 1 Thessalonians 4 God’s will is the exact place God wants you to be at the right time. It’s being in the right relationship, the right job, living in the right city, reading the right book of the Bible. As Elisabeth Elliot said, “The will of God is not something you add to your life. It’s a course you choose. You either line yourself up with the Son of God . . . or you capitulate to the principle which governs the rest of the world.” First Thessalonians 4 teaches us something very valuable about understanding the will of God for our lives. God’s will is the safest place on the planet. It is safer for me to be in the most anti-Christian country (such as North Korea) in God’s will than it is to be living in a mansion in Cabo San Lucas outside of God’s will. There is peace and safety and confidence in God’s will, but it’s not always easy. As missionary Joanne Shetler said: “God never said doing His will would be easy; He only said it would be worth it.” But how do we know if something is God’s will? I know of people who have tried flipping through the Bible and whatever passage they land on is what they are going to do. The story is told of a man who used this flip-open-the-Bible method to see what God wanted him to do in his life. The first verse he landed on was Matthew 27:5, which says Judas “went away and hanged himself.” Since he was not sure how this verse applied to him, he flipped to another passage. The Bible fell open to Luke 10:37: “Said Jesus unto him, ‘Go and do the same.’” The man was quite upset and did not know how he could ever obey that, so he decided to turn to one more place. Again he opened the Bible at random and to his horror his finger fell on John 13:27: “Jesus said to him, ‘What you do, do quickly.’” Not a good way to figure out God’s will. I think it is a lot simpler. The problem is that the will of God always seems to be this treasure hunt that everyone is on. Where should I live? What should be my career? Should I go, should I stay? What college? Do I buy this house? Do I rent this apartment? Do I date this guy? Do I marry this person? We treat the will of God like God whispers it one time and if we miss it, we’re left on our own to figure it out. I wonder if we don’t know more of God’s will for our personal lives, because we have not done what is clearly spelled out. Sometimes we don’t get more specific future instructions because we have not obeyed what is clearly written for us right now. There are two will-of-God verses that Paul clearly spells out for us in the Bible. We know this because Paul says, “for this is the will of God.” Let’s look at one today and one tomorrow. I believe if we follow these two verses, other future decisions will become clearer for us. After reading each of the verses, ask yourself: Am I doing this? If you aren’t, here’s something to ponder: why would God entrust you with more if you won’t do what is right before you? Here is the clear will of God for our life: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Let’s be really clear and define sexual immorality: it is having sex outside the boundaries of marriage. “I love him” or “I love her” does not make sex outside of marriage right. “We are engaged” does not change what God has said. To engage before the marriage commitment is to sabotage your marriage before it happens. Why? The Bible says that “love is patient.” That is the first definition of love in the long list. If you can’t be patient till the wedding day, then love is suspect. The will of God says abstain from sexual immorality. You will prove your love to the person you love by your patience to do things the ri

Day 185 Today’s Reading: 1 Thessalonians 3 No one seems to wrap gifts anymore in boxes and wrapping paper. We use a gift bag and some colored tissue paper on top. If we forgot the occasion, whether it’s a birthday or an anniversary, usually a gift card (which means I forgot to shop) lies beneath the tissue paper. Here in 1 Thessalonians 3, the apostle Paul shows us a special gift that we can easily miss because of the packaging and its wrapping. At times I have prayed for things and never realized that the answer came in wrapping I never expected. We know Paul spent some months with this Thessalonian church and preached in their city. After being gone a few months, Paul sent Timothy to check on the church there. He wrote this letter to encourage them, because they faced false teachers, whom he did not want infiltrating the young church, as well as some difficult persecution. He knew that in the midst of those difficult times, they needed strength and encouragement “so that no one would be disturbed by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we have been destined for this” (verse 3). Those words, disturbed by these afflictions, are revealing. In fact, the actual word is deceived [by these afflictions]. I have learned that hard times can deceive people. Hard times can deceive us about God, deceive us about ourselves, and deceive us about life. We begin to believe the lies that say, God doesn’t love me. That’s why I am going through this and These hard times are punishments for the bad things I have done. I’m the only one who goes through stuff like this. I am all alone. It’s the deception of hard times. When people go through difficulty, so does their faith. So Paul sent to these young Thessalonian believers much-needed gifts: encouragement and strength. But the packaging was different. Listen to verse 2: “We sent Timothy, our brother and God’s fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith.” God packaged strength and encouragement in a person—Timothy. The movie The Blind Side chronicles a Christian family, the Tuohys, who took in a homeless young man, Michael Oher, and gave him the chance to reach his God-given potential. That homeless boy became the first-round NFL draft pick for the Baltimore Ravens in 2009. At a recent fundraiser, Sean Tuohy noted that the transformation of his family and Michael all started with two words. When they spotted Michael walking along the road on a cold November morning, Leigh Ann Tuohy uttered two words that changed their world. She told Sean, “Turn around.” They turned the car around, put Michael in their warm vehicle, and ultimately adopted him into their family. Hope was packaged for Michael Oher in the Tuohy family. Sometimes we don’t recognize the packaging. The Thessalonian church was about to discover their friend in their adversity. They just needed to be aware of God’s packaging for this gift who was coming. Sometimes we ask for things and miss God’s answer because of the packaging. We all need strength and encouragement every day. What does that answer look like? Paul told the church of Thessalonica that they needed strength and encouragement so “we sent Timothy.” Timothy was to be their strength and encouragement. That is why God places a high value on making sure we stay right with brothers and sisters. That person you are fighting with may contain your answer to prayer. Locked up in them may be your strength and encouragement for today. God’s packaging of His answers is usually wrapped up in flesh and blood. How about the greatest “flesh and blood” packaging? Jesus. Is there a friendship that needs to be repaired with an apology? You may be missing more than a friend, you may be missing your answer to your prayer. Make it a priority not only to call today

Day 184 Today’s Reading: 1 Thessalonians 2 Listen really carefully: whatever God backs, Satan attacks. In today’s chapter Paul has a great desire to be with the Thessalonian Christians, but Satan fights to stop it from happening. I wonder how many things we have in our hearts to do that Satan fights against. Listen to Paul’s desire and fight in 1 Thessalonians 2:18: “We really wanted to come. I myself tried several times, but Satan always stopped us” (CEV). We have forgotten that we have an enemy who wants to disrupt our plans. Sometimes the best confirmation that our plans and desires are from God is Satan’s attack on them. The last thing the devil wants us doing is the will of God. Paul has a desire to go to this new church in Thessalonica, and Satan is bent on stopping the apostle from visiting. Sometimes Satan succeeds. Those last words of this verse remind us of the war we are in: “I tried several times but Satan always stopped us.” These aren’t the words of a one-hit wonder. This is the apostle Paul. And Paul tries a number of times and cannot seem to get through Satan’s roadblocks. C. S. Lewis was right when he said: “There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.” Always remember there is a counterclaim happening. Whatever God backs, Satan attacks. Or as Robert Murray McCheynne said, “I know well that when Christ is the nearest, Satan also is busiest.” The closer you get to what God wants you to do, the closer Satan comes in. But some people don’t believe in the devil. Two boys struggled with the problem of the devil’s existence. As they walked home from Sunday school after hearing a message about the devil, one boy said, “What do you think about all this Satan stuff?” The other replied, “Well, you know how Santa Clause turned out. It’s probably just your dad.”&nbsp; In his classic work The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis reminds us of two errors when it comes to Satan: “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.” You can give the devil too much or too little attention. The Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary of the New Testament gives us an insight to the enemy’s tactics. The verb enkoptō, which literally means “to cut into,” originally referred to the military practice of cutting up a road so as to make it impassable for a pursuing army. Paul wants his readers to know that his present absence from them is not due to his personal choice but to the activity of Satan, who, in typical military fashion, has destroyed the apostle’s path back to Thessalonica. “We are evidently no friends of Satan,” says J. C. Ryle. “Like the kings of this world, he doesn’t war against his own subjects. The very fact that he assaults us should fill our minds with hope.” I want to challenge you. What is it that you have been trying to do lately, and you are really convinced it’s something God wants you to do, but you can’t seem to make it happen? Maybe you are being hindered by Satan from doing God’s will like the apostle Paul was. Maybe it’s purity in a relationship. Maybe it’s inconsistency in reading the Bible. Maybe it’s going to church or serving at church. Perhaps it’s forgiving an offense that is still lingering in your heart. Whatever it may be you have tried multiple times but have failed to gain any ground. What should you do? It may be time to launch a “gnu” attack. There is a strange animal called a Gnu. When it catches sight of one of its predators, its enemies, it immediately drops down on its knees

Day 183 Today’s Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1 Some time ago I was flying on a 10 p.m. flight. Earlier that day I’d preached four messages. I was exhausted. I noticed the man sitting next to me was reading Heaven Is for Real. This is good. He is a Christian, I thought. I can go to sleep because we are both going to heaven. He saw my Bible, which I’d pulled out to read, and began talking to me—a lot. Come to find out, he was part of a cult. I prayed the strangest prayer that flight: “God, I am so tired. Please don’t use me. Find someone else. But I do ask that You don’t let this kid die and go to hell.” I felt terrible praying that way, but I simply didn’t have the energy to engage him in conversation. As disappointing as I know I must have been to God, the amazing thing is that I was still secure in God’s love for me. His love did not decrease one ounce because of my poor tired attitude. He loved me exactly the same when I prayed that lame prayer as when I preached for Him. One of the saddest things that happens in Christianity is that we overemphasize what we do for God rather than what God has done for us. I used to think God loved me only when I was doing good. But 1 Thessalonians reminds me of the truth. Paul starts chapter 1 with a thunderbolt. In fact, I consider it the greatest truth I know, and it’s all in verse 4: “My dear friends, God loves you” (CEV). God loves you! Those words change everything and cost everything.&nbsp; I came from a background in Christianity where the emphasis was on how much we love God and not on how much God loves us. In fact, I thought my actions determined how much God loves me. But there is not one thing you and I can do to make God love us any more than He does right now. We believe this in theory but we don’t live this way. We think God loves us more when we are at our spiritual best. Here is good news: God loves us the same when we are at our worst on planes praying Don’t use me prayers. William Coffin reminds us: “God’s love doesn’t seek value, it creates value. It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value.” Every religion in the world is based on what we do. The stars in those other religions is anyone who dies a martyr, carries a briefcase, rides a bike, or gives up years on the mission field. In Christianity, however, it’s all about what God has done. One of my favorite authors, Brennan Manning, said: “My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it.” That’s the scandal and that’s the deal of the century. So if those words, God loves you, are difficult to accept, let me help you today. There is no greater place to deal with doubts of God’s love than at the only place that settles the question—and that’s at the cross. In the man Jesus, the invisible God became visible and audible. God can’t not love us. The cross is the proof of His love—love that He demonstrated at Calvary. The well-known saying goes like this: I asked God how much He loves me, and He said this much. And He held His hands wide to his side and died for me. When you look at the cross, you see what price you are worth to God. God loves you just as you are and not as you should be. He died for you at your worst. He did not wait for you to change in order to die for you. Isn’t it staggering to think you are worth the death of someone and most of all, God? That is what puts a large gulf between Christianity and other religions, such as Islam. Islam asks you to die for Allah, but Christianity has God dying for you. Brennan Manning tells an amazing story in Souvenirs of Solitude: More than a hundred years a

Day 182 Today’s Reading: Colossians 4 Colossians 4 contains only 406 words. And of those 406 words, one in particular is big. It tells a story all by itself. But in order to grasp its importance, we need to call in two Bible verses. The one word is a name, and it’s in verse 14: Demas. Paul was finishing up an Epistle unlike any other he had written. We call it a polemic letter; it’s a written debate. Maybe a better way to put it is that he issued fighting words. The church in Colossae was under attack, and Paul had to write a fighting letter, not to them but toward those trying to add anything outside to Christianity. In chapter 1, he challenged them to be grounded in truth, and there is no better truth to be grounded in than the Person of Jesus. In chapter 2, he put on the boxing gloves and challenged those who were trying to get the new Christians to add special days, rituals, and visions to their newly found salvation. Paul told them to have nothing to do with that. In chapter 3, Paul told them what Christianity really is. Paul closed out chapter 4 by mentioning some important people who had been part of spreading the truth of Jesus. He brought up eleven names, and with almost all of them, he included something of their contribution: There was “Tychicus, our beloved brother and faithful servant and fellow bond-servant in the Lord,” who would “encourage your hearts” (Colossians 4:7-8). There was “Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who [was] one of your number” (verse 9). Justus, who “proved to be an encouragement to me” (verse 11). “Epaphras, who [was] . . . always laboring earnestly for you in his prayers, that you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God” (verse 12). And Nympha, the woman who had church in her house (verse 15). Luke, “the beloved physician” (verse 14). Name after name included with some information. And then there was “also Demas” (verse 14). Demas was surrounded by eleven people who had godly contributions connected to their names, from praying to encouraging to providing their home for church services. He had nothing attached to his name. Why is this something we must take notice of? Because two years earlier, Paul wrote another letter called Philemon, and mentioned Demas in that letter. And in that letter, Demas got an attachment: “Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you, as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellow workers” (Philemon 1:23-24). Demas was considered one of Paul’s fellow workers. Two years later in AD 62, when Paul wrote Colossians, “fellow worker” was removed from his name and it was just Demas. Demas gets one more verse in the New Testament and it comes all the way at the end of Paul’s ministry, in AD 67. In fact, it’s in the last letter he wrote, 2 Timothy. Paul wrote, “Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me” (4:10). Five years after the Colossians passage, we learn that Demas deserted Paul. The Message says that Demas “left me here” because he was “chasing fads.” How did one of Paul’s workers go rogue? How did he turn from loving Jesus to loving this present world? I think the three-verse progression may explain it. In Philemon, Demas was called “my fellow worker,” along with Luke and Mark. Other translations calls them “coworkers” (MSG) and “companions in this ministry” (TPT). Then something happened two years later, in which “worker” was disconnected from Demas’s name. He was no longer a coworker. He was no longer a companion. He was just a name in the church, but not a contributor anymore. It seems Demas vacated his job of serving. I think that was the set up. That was the thing that turned his heart. It didn’t take long for Demas to exit when he was no longer invested. When we get to the end of Paul’s ministry, the Cont

Today’s Reading: Colossians 3 Every spring and summer, fields all over the United States are filled with athletes playing baseball. In the major leagues, the Bigs, the best players in the world come together in the thirty stadiums around the country. They draw great attention and praise. But those games wouldn’t happen or go well without the people on the field dressed in black jackets. They look different from any other person on the field, and they are called umpires. No matter how good the players are—how fast they can pitch, how far they can hit or throw . . . the emotions of the game can cloud their decisions. And they need those umpires to keep order. Umpires decide the course and calls of the game. Who is safe and who is out. Which pitches are balls and which are strikes.&nbsp; The baseball diamond needs a neutral party who sees the situation clearly and makes the correct call—not the call the fans or the players want, but the right call. They cannot be impaired by emotion, peer pressure, or even popular opinion. They must be moved by justice and the right thing. Baseball isn’t the only thing that needs an umpire. We need an umpire for the same reason. Emotions can cloud all our decisions. We want to do the right thing, but we have so many forces fighting against us. When peer pressure comes, and the voices from the outside try to get you to move into chaos, you too have an umpire to make a call. The apostle Paul tells the Colossian believers who are being inundated with outside religious opinions and additions to walk very carefully and keep Christ in focus. He says, “Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness” (Colossians 3:15, MSG). Think about this phrase, Let the peace of God rule in your hearts. The peace of God is your umpire. The key word is rule. In Sparkling Gems from the Greek, Rick Renner discusses this word: I especially want you to notice the word “rule” in this verse. It is from the Greek word brabeuo, which in ancient times was used to describe the umpire or referee who moderated and judged the athletic competitions that were so popular in the ancient world. Paul uses this word to tell us that the peace of God can work like an umpire or referee in our hearts, minds, and emotions. Peace must guide us to each place and in each decision. Colossians 3:15 could be translated: “Let the peace of God call the shots in your life”; “Let the peace of God be the umpire in your life and actions”; “Let the peace of God act as referee in your emotions and your decisions.” If we have no peace over something, then we are out at first base, and we need to get off the field. If we have peace over a decision, the umpire has told us that we are safe and we get to stay and continue on. Peace is the guiding principle for the believer—the umpire that tells us what’s right so that chaos doesn’t ensue. Do you ever say about a decision, “I feel funny about this” or “Something doesn’t feel right about going here or doing this”? That means you don’t feel peace. Don’t overrule the umpire. Peace is God’s mechanism to help you make good decisions today and stay on the field. As Curtis Hutson said, “When the believer is faced with a decision regarding a questionable matter, he should never proceed unless he has complete peace about it.” A host of emotions come to us because life throws so many things at us. And nothing can blur our decision making like emotions. Look at what Paul tells us after the peace verse. It’s brilliant: “Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense” (verse 16, MSG). Paul i

Day 180 Today’s Reading: Colossians 2 Charles Spurgeon told of an event that took place in ancient Rome. A severe famine had struck the North African colonies, so Emperor Nero sent ships to the stricken area. When the starving people saw the ships arriving, they shouted with joy. But Spurgeon recounted the tragic end of the story. When the ships sailed into port, the North Africans discovered they were full of sawdust to lay on the floor of the circuses Rome was exporting to the colonies. The people yearned for sustenance; they received sawdust. Unlike what was exported from Rome, I’m happy to say that in the book of Colossians we are about to find the arrival of something that will fill our hearts and souls—Jesus. The book of Colossians is a vessel bringing Christ back to His rightful and proper place and it’s a book that fights religions that want to export sawdust and a circus! The apostle Paul said to be very careful of people wanting to distract you from the main attraction. Consider his warning: "Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings. But that’s not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you can see and hear him clearly. You don’t need a telescope, a microscope, or a horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too. His power extends over everything. . . . So don’t put up with anyone pressuring you in details of diet, worship services, or holy days. All those things are mere shadows cast before what was to come; the substance is Christ. Don’t tolerate people who try to run your life, ordering you to bow and scrape, insisting that you join their obsession with angels and that you seek out visions. They’re a lot of hot air, that’s all they are. They’re completely out of touch with the source of life, Christ, who puts us together in one piece, whose very breath and blood flow through us." (Colossians 2:8-10, 16-19, MSG) When you have a lot of people, you have a lot of opinions. And you can have a lot of opinions, but not have a lot of truth. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not everyone is entitled to their own truth. There is a difference between truth and opinion. The problem comes when you think your opinion is the truth. We have to define what is opinion and what is truth. We must hold on to truth for dear life and hold onto personal opinion very lightly. Truth is that which is true for all times, all people, and all places. It can’t be an American truth. It can’t be a Democrat or Republican truth. Truth is truth. Opinions are for our personal world and always have an expiration date. Opinions don’t last forever. But truth doesn’t expire; it has no expiration date. Author and pastor Charles Caleb Colton once said, “The greatest friend of truth is time, her greatest enemy is prejudice, and her constant companion is humility.” What is catastrophic is when we think our opinion is truth and we are unwilling to listen to those who see it differently. The apostle Paul is telling the church to grasp onto truth and not opinion. Colossians is a fighting book, and Paul is telling us to fight against syncretism. Syncretism is when we combine Christianity with so called “cool stuff from other religions.” In Colossians, Paul was fighting against this because the believers were trying to get two things synched with Christianity—ceremonies and philosophy, or more specifically, Jewish ritualism and eastern mysticism. This is not just a first-century issue and problem. It is also a t

Day 179 Today’s Reading: Colossians 1 C. S. Lewis once said, “Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things.” Lewis is reminding us that even if good second things get first, we end up with nothing. If church is first, your denomination is first, worship music is first—those are good but they have to be second. In today’s chapter, Paul makes it really clear that Jesus is first and Jesus is everything. Paul is telling us what is at the heart of Christianity. What do lollipops, truffles, and the Christian life all have in common? It’s what’s at the center that counts! If you get to the middle of your lollipop or truffle and discover nothing, then there is nothing but disappointment.&nbsp; This may be obvious, but you can’t have the word Christianity without Christ. Otherwise, it’s just ianity. Like that makes sense. You can’t be a Christian without Christ, then the word is just ian. It doesn’t make sense. And if the chewy-centered Tootsie Pop or truffle of the church, or the Christian life, or the Bible, or prayer is not Christ, then it’s nothing but a farce and failure. Here is the center for Paul—and I’m replacing the pronouns with the name of Jesus, so it’s very clear: Jesus rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of [God’s] beloved Jesus, in Jesus we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Jesus is the image of the invisible God, Jesus is the firstborn of all creation. For by Jesus all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Jesus and for Jesus. Jesus is before all things, and in Jesus all things hold together. Jesus is also head of the body, the church; and Jesus is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that Jesus Himself will come to have first place in everything. For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Jesus and through Jesus to reconcile all things to Jesus, having made peace through the blood of Jesus’ cross. (Colossians 1:13-20, author changes in italics) Jesus first and Jesus everywhere. The word to describe this is preeminence. That big word means Jesus is first and everything. That’s what Paul is telling us in Colossians 1: Jesus is the center, not the circumference. My favorite part of Paul’s praise is in verse 18 where he states “that He would have first place in everything.” There is no place Jesus is not first and preeminent.&nbsp; Consider these words from Charles Spurgeon: “I believe there will be more in Heaven than in hell. If anyone asks me why I think so, I answer, because Christ, in everything, is to ‘have the pre-eminence,’ and I cannot conceive how He could have the pre-eminence if there are to be more in the dominions of Satan than in Paradise.”&nbsp; That is so good. There will be more in heaven than in hell. Why? Because He must be preeminent. You are familiar, no doubt, with one of the most famous paintings ever done by any artist: “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci, that classic portrayal of Christ and the twelve apostles at the table. Many stories have sprung up over the centuries about the painting. Many students of art history believe that the painting, when first created, was different from the version we now see. They believe that initially, an exquisite lace border ran the outside length of the tablecloth. Upon completion, when da Vinci invited a group of art students to view his masterpiece, they were impressed by the delica

Day 178 Today’s Reading: Philippians 4 Did you know Amazon keeps track of your highlights? When Kindle readers mark sentences, the online retailer notes it so that everyone can see a faint dotted line on their e-reader that tells them someone underlined the sentence or passage. Readers can also see how many other people underlined that same passage. Recently Amazon released a list of the most popular passages in some of its bestselling books, such as The Hunger Games, the Harry Potter series, and classics like Pride and Prejudice. Amazon also included the Bible in this list. Guess what the most highlighted passage in the Holy Bible was around the world? I covered the answer to see if I could guess correctly. I was certain it had to be one of three passages: John 3:16, Psalm 23, or the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13. But no, it was one that’s striking a deep chord in today’s worried world, and it comes from today’s chapter: Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7, NIV) Kindle readers throughout the whole world highlighted this Bible passage on their Kindle more than any other verse. Here’s the passage from The Message: "Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life." I love that part—“Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers.” As author Tiffany Berry once said, “If you’re going to worry, there’s no need to pray, and if you’re going to pray, there’s no need to worry.” We live in a worried world. And anxiety can get the best of us. In The Me I Want to Be, pastor John Ortberg offers insight on how to respond to anxiety: "Psychiatrist Edward Hallowell says it like this: Never worry alone. When anxiety grabs my mind, it is self-perpetuating. Worrisome thoughts reproduce faster than rabbits, so one of the most powerful ways to stop the spiral of worry is simply to disclose my worry to a friend." In today’s chapter, Paul tells us who our best friend is to disclose our worry to: God Himself. As Donald J. Morgan says, “Every evening I turn my troubles over to God—He’s going to be up all night anyway.” According to the apostle Paul, we choose to shape worries into prayers and that in essence is disclosing it to our Friend. I had someone once talk to me about their week. This person said, “I have sighed more than I breathed.” Wow, I have been there. Those are weeks weighed down with worry and not peace. When we’re in those kinds of weeks, as the saying goes, “It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.” Philippians 4 gives us a way to carry the load—by shaping our worries into prayers.&nbsp; When was the last time you meditated on a Bible verse? Some people get weird definitions of what “meditation” is. Let me explain it like the Puritan writers of the past explained it. They said you know how to meditate if you know how to worry, as worry is simply negative meditation. When you worry, you think about the problem all day long. When you meditate in a positive way, you take a Bible verse and turn it over in your mind all day long. This is one of those verses I would attempt to meditate on. Write it down and put it in your car so you can see it as you drive. Tape it on your bathroom mirror so that as you get ready for work in the morning, those are the first wo

Day 177 Today’s Reading: Philippians 3 We mentioned this powerful Kierkegaard quote in an earlier day’s reading, but it bears repeating, because it fits the apostle Paul. Kierkegaard said, “It is so much easier to become a Christian when you aren’t one than to become one when you assume you already are.” This statement seems to fit clearly with Paul’s evaluation of himself pre- and post-conversion in today’s reading. His assessment may shock you because it seems somewhat reversed. Here is how the apostle thought of himself before meeting Jesus in Acts 9 on the road to Damascus. As a reminder, in Acts 9, he was on his way to imprison and kill Christians. Let me read Philipians 3:4-6: It’s true that I once relied on all that I had become. I had a reason to boast and impress people with my accomplishments—more than others—for my pedigree was impeccable. I was born a true Hebrew of the heritage of Israel as the son of a Jewish man from the tribe of Benjamin. I was circumcised eight days after my birth and was raised in the strict tradition of Orthodox Judaism, living a separated and devout life as a Pharisee. And concerning the righteousness of the Torah, no one surpassed me; I was without a peer. Furthermore, as a fiery defender of the truth, I persecuted the messianic believers with religious zeal. (Philippians 3:4-6, TPT) Verse 6 in the New American Standard Bible says that “as to the righteousness which is in the Law, [he was] found blameless.” Found blameless? He was killing Christians, but he said he was innocent of any wrongdoing. One of the strongest deceptions of sin is that we exaggerate our goodness and importance and we become dismissive of our behavior. That’s exactly the lie of being a Pharisee.&nbsp;&nbsp; The New Testament will use this word, the flesh. It does not mean human skin. It means human effort. It deals with human energy to make our humanity acceptable and exceptional, especially to God. In the Bible, God is clear that human effort, the flesh, cannot make God like us any more than He does already.&nbsp; Here’s the part that Paul found as a hurdle to trusting his life to God—his flesh. Paul was saying, I had good flesh, or my flesh was making me look exceptional. That’s why Paul said if anyone could have bragged or boasted on how well he was doing it was Paul. This is what happens to a lot of moral people—they believe they are good and don’t see their need for a Savior. In the book A Grief Observed, C. S. Lewis profoundly observed, “All [of us are] equally bankrupt, but some have not yet declared.” Lewis was telling us that whether our flesh is good or bad, we are all bankrupt and need God. That’s our starting place with God—acknowledging, “I am bankrupt.”&nbsp; Now I want you to see the difference between pre-conversion Paul and post-conversion Paul. He encounters the resurrected Jesus and has a new assessment after declaring bankruptcy with God: I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back. (Philippians 3:12-14, MSG) Before he was blameless and innocent. Now he recognizes he doesn’t have it all together anymore and is not even close. When we think about it, we would think the opposite should happen. Before we become a Christian, we feel like we don’t have it all together and after we become a Christian, we have everything together. And Paul shows us the opposite happened to him. As C. S. Lewis wrote, “History . . . [is] the long terrible story of man trying to find somethi

Day 176 Today’s Reading: Philippians 2 We live in a time when it is more popular to be a celebrity than a hero. Numbers of followers or views have replaced the one who risks their life for others. Media has given us celebrities, where danger and risk give us heroes. The gap is much wider between fame and greatness. Heroism is linked to honor and bravery, while celebrities just have links. We have big names today but not big persons. The scary part of all this celebrity worship is that we are seeing celebrities and not heroes rise in the church. We must be careful that we don’t allow pastors to become the center of the story. Jesus is. We have to make sure the “stars” aren’t outshining the Son. Philippians 2 reminds us of who is the center of attraction. The apostle Paul gives us the Hero of the greatest story ever told: God exalted him and multiplied his greatness! He has now been given the greatest of all names! The authority of the name of Jesus causes every knee to bow in reverence! Everything and everyone will one day submit to this name—in the heavenly realm, in the earthly realm, and in the demonic realm. And every tongue will proclaim in every language: “Jesus Christ is Lord Yahweh,” bringing glory and honor to God, his Father! (Philippians 2:9-11, TPT) Paul not only wants us to remember this, he also wants to remind us of what the Father thinks of His Son. Paul tells us that God put Jesus on the pedestal. And we must always remember it’s all about the Son. As Augustine said, “Christ is not valued at all unless He is valued above all.” Don’t get it mixed up. It’s not what church you go to, it isn’t who your pastor is, it isn’t whether your ministry is on television. It’s whether or not you choose the Son! Anything before that means you have chosen celebrity over Hero. Hero Jesus. That’s the name that gets you it all. That’s the name that gets you to heaven. Jesus is the name that changes your life. I have had people tell me, “I tried Jesus and it just didn’t work.” “Wait one second,” I tell them. “You may have tried church. You may have tried religion, or a denomination. But you didn’t try Jesus. It’s impossible to say, ‘I tried Jesus and it just didn’t work.’” Why? Romans 10:11 answers that for us: “The Scriptures tell us that no one who believes in Christ will ever be disappointed” (TLB). Can you name one true follower of Jesus who was on his deathbed and said, “Jesus is a liar. I regret ever following Him”? Jesus is not a hobby. He is not a Sunday thing. The words Paul uses in Philippians 2 to describe Jesus is really important. He seemingly hijacks a verse from Isaiah 45, which speaks about Jehovah God, and he inserts it into his chapter to describe Jesus in Philippians 2:10: “At the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” And now Jesus is being bowed to and declared to be Jehovah. Let me make it even simpler. Listen to Isaiah 45:21-23: Is it not I, the Lord? And there is no other God besides Me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none except Me. Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. . . . To Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. God says in Isaiah that every knee will bow and every tongue confess to Him. Now in Philippians 2, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess to Jesus. It not only tells me about the deity of Jesus and that Jesus is God, it also reminds me that Jesus is the Hero of our story. Whenever I am tempted to follow a celebrity or try to be one, I need to remember Philippians 2. If we want to be reminded of our part of the story, remember the words of Robert Capon. Jesus came to raise the dead. The only qualification for the gift of the Gos

Day 175 Today’s Reading: Philippians 1 H. B. Charles Jr. said these poignant words about answered prayer: “It may seem God did not answer prayer when the real issue may be that we did not like the answer.” Today’s chapter discusses answered prayer in the apostle Paul’s life. If you don’t look closely, you can easily miss his prayer and his answer. Always remember that our job is to pray and not forecast the answer on how we think it should be done. We leave that to God to figure out. Let’s look together to see what Paul was praying throughout his life and how the answer came in Philippians 1. Paul had a great desire to preach the gospel in Rome and made it a matter of prayer. Listen to some of these passages that reveal his heart: Now after these things were finished, Paul purposed in the Spirit to go to Jerusalem after he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, saying, “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.” (Acts 19:21) He wrote to the church in Rome and told them of his desire and prayer: Always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you. . . . So, for my part, I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome. (Romans 1:10, 15) Paul had no idea how that prayer would be answered. But that wasn’t his problem, that was God’s problem. Philippians 1 tells us God did answer that prayer. How did it happen? Rome never became his fourth missionary journey on his itinerary, because he got arrested and put in jail. Can you imagine Paul saying, “I wanted to go to Rome and preach the gospel, and now I can’t go.” And then he was sent to Rome for his trial.&nbsp;&nbsp; He wanted to go as a preacher but he went as a prisoner. He made it to Rome but he was in chains. He was eager to preach the gospel there, but because of his circumstances, that seemed like a bust—at least in Paul’s mind. Remember, we pray and let God figure out the answer. But then it happened. Paul’s prison sentence became the platform. The trial was his answer. God came through. This is Philippians 1:12-14: I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear. (Philippians 1:12-14, NIV) The palace guards were the handpicked bodyguards of the Emperor Nero. Paul was saying that as a prisoner he was chained to a Roman soldier, which meant the gospel had been penetrating the handpicked bodyguards of the emperor. The gospel was going through the most guarded palace in the world and was advancing. It was going through a palace that was very anti-Christ. Nero persecuted the Christians so harshly and inhumanly, that God decided to bring the Good News through Nero’s front door and into his palace. Listen to Paul’s words again: “What has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel.” His prayer was answered and even better than he prayed. He was not only advancing the gospel, it made its way into the elite army. The message was getting to the palace guards. Paul in Rome as a preacher; he was limited, because he was there as a prisoner, yet he was in a place he could never have gotten into—Caesar’s palace. And he got to preach in that high-security place for two years! Paul was in Rome, the imperial city, capital of the world, the seat of the government, and right in the imperial palace—and so was the gospel of Jesus, because God answered Paul’s prayer better than Paul could ever have imagined. That’s why these words resonate even more on this palace answer from Ephesians: Glory be to God,

Day 174 Today’s Reading: Ephesians 6 Men will argue over which is the greatest “man movie” of all time. The movie “winners” range from certain Westerns to mob movies to the historical heroic tales of Braveheart, 300, and my favorite, Gladiator. Ridley Scott’s Gladiator is set during a time of both Roman world domination and Roman persecution of a group who seem to beat Rome without weapons, the early Christians. Russell Crowe plays Maximus, the Roman army general. In a scene where he is in the arena fighting for his life with other gladiators, he tells these men: “Whatever comes out of these gates, we’ve got a better chance of survival if we work together. If we stay together we survive.” And they did. Maximus gave them the key to winning the fight. In today’s chapter, Paul gives us a key to winning the spiritual fight. Ephesians 6 is called the spiritual warfare chapter. It speaks about the armor of the Christian by associating it with the armor of the Roman soldiers. Ephesians is called a prison letter, because Paul wrote it while in prison. During that time, if someone was in prison, he was chained to a Roman soldier 24/7. Many believe Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, was looking at the guard he was chained to and was giving the Christian a picture of his weapons in a bigger and different fight.&nbsp; In Ephesians 6, Paul gives us two contrasts in the fight that we need to focus on. First, Paul tells us that people are not our fight, the government is not our fight, Democrats and Republicans are not our battle. It’s much deeper and bigger than that: We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Verse 12, KJV) If you want to get really raw, listen to this verse in the Passion Translation: Your hand-to-hand combat is not with human beings, but with the highest principalities and authorities operating in rebellion under the heavenly realms. For they are a powerful class of demon-gods and evil spirits that hold this dark world in bondage. The apostle is warning us not to fight people but to realize we are fighting in another realm, the spiritual realm. That’s the first contrast—natural versus spiritual. The second contrast, which we often overlook, comes when we read verses 12 and 13 together. In verse 12, Paul says that “we wrestle not,” and then in verse 13 he says, “put on the whole armor of God.” Then he proceeds to go through each of the Roman soldiers’ equipment and associates each piece with a spiritual weapon we have. The sword the soldier carries represents the Word of God, the sword of the Spirit. The shield protects the Roman against fiery darts, but for us it is a shield of faith to protect us from the enemy’s missiles.&nbsp; The contrast comes between “we wrestle not” and “put on the whole armor of God.” For wrestlers in the first century, the men would oil up their bodies, enter a ring, and fight until one was actually killed. It was one man against one man. The apostle Paul is saying, though, that if we are Christians, we are not wrestlers, we are soldiers. That means we are not in the Christian life by ourselves. We have soldiers side by side. One of the great things the Roman army used to do when going into battle was to lock arms with each other, which would show strength and unity in the hand-to-hand combat. We often lose because we wrestle instead of being a soldier. Recently a number of Christian leaders, authors, and musicians have gone public, announcing that they are abandoning their faith. They have denounced everything from the books they have written to the songs they’ve composed. They have come to the conclusion that God does not exist

Day 173 Today’s Reading: Ephesians 5 In today’s chapter Paul reminds us of something that will take our Christianity to another level.&nbsp;&nbsp; When we become Christians, we don’t simply get church, we get God. And God is not limited to Sundays for a few hours. Religion wants a few hours on Sunday. A relationship with Jesus is God every day. That’s what today’s revolutionary verse out of Ephesians 5 is about. And it breaks away from denominationalism norms. This is pneumatology gone rogue. Pneumatology is the study of the Holy Spirit—something we keep bound in church or restricted to the classroom. But today Paul is telling us to break free of those boundaries. Listen to Ephesians 5:18 from the Contemporary English Version: “Don’t destroy yourself by getting drunk, but let the Spirit fill your life.” Devotional writer Oswald Chambers said this about the Holy Spirit: “The Spirit is the first power we practically experience, but the last power we come to understand.” I want to help you understand His power today. We don’t do this often, but it’s worth taking a little journey into the Greek.&nbsp; First, the verb fill is in the imperative mode. That means it is a command. It isn’t an option for certain Christians; we all need to be filled. Since this is a command, are we free to disobey any commands of God? This is as strong as, “Thou shalt not kill.” Thou shalt not kill and be filled with the Spirit are in the same category. Do you negotiate with the kill command? Of course not. Don’t do it with this one either.&nbsp;&nbsp; Second, the tense of the verb is present. Present tense in the imperative mode always represents action going on. It is not filling for preaching and doing stuff in the church but for the believer’s life every day in every task, moment by moment. Now get ready for the really revolutionary part. After Paul says to be filled with the Spirit, he tells wives to submit to their husbands, and husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church. He then tells children to obey their parents, parents to bring up their children in the instruction of the Lord, and workers to work as unto God. Remember, the original New Testament had no chapter or verse divisions, so from talking about being filled with the Spirit, Paul moves right into marriage, parenting, children, and working. How can we be a great . . . wife or husband? son or parent? worker on the job? We need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The filling of the Holy Spirit is not for Sundays, it is for every day. We need the Holy Spirit in our homes, our marriages, our parenting, and our jobs. Third, the verb is in the plural, which teaches us that this command is addressed not only to the preacher and the deacon but to every Christian. As A. W. Tozer reminds us, “The Spirit-filled life is not a special, deluxe edition of Christianity. It is part and parcel of the total plan of God for His people.” Fourth, the verb is in the passive voice. This grammatical classification represents the subject of the verb as inactive but being acted upon. This teaches us that the filling with the Spirit is not the work of man but of God. That means it’s easy. It is not a difficult command, because it is not you doing it but you receiving it. All this being true, we realize how important those words are to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Some have said that the most accurate interpretation of that verse is “Be being filled with the Holy Spirit” or “Keep being filled with the Holy Spirit.” The great American evangelist of the nineteenth century, D. L. Moody, was once asked why he urged Christians to be filled constantly with the Holy Spirit. He said, “I need a continual infilling because I leak!” A friend of mine was asked if he believed in the “second bles