In today’s devotional, Jeremiah Burroughs explains the rare jewel of Christian contentment. A grace-filled heart finds its satisfaction in knowing and loving God and is content with whatever God sees fit to give in this temporal life. A heart capable of knowing God can be satisfied with nothing less than God himself.
Read MoreIn today’s devotional, Octavius Winslow explains that the deeper our views of God’s holiness grow, the deeper our love grows. We love the truth, because it is on the side of holiness; we love the saints, because they are the reflection of holiness; we love the discipline of our heavenly Father, because it makes us partakers of His holiness; how much more intense, then, our affection for God, as the holiness of His being, the purity of His character, unveils to our admiring eyes!
Read MoreToday’s devotional is taken from Jeremy Walker’s book, A Word in Season: 50 Days of Hope for Hard Times. These brief yet solidly biblical daily readings could be an excellent addition to your quiet time or family worship. Today’s excerpt helps us look to the Savior in times of fear and doubt.
Read MoreThe world and the devil would have us believe that God’s commands are tedious, harsh, severe, and heavy to bear. Scripture tells us they are easy, sweet, beneficial, and excellent. In today’s devotional, Thomas Watson gives us 7 statements to help us experience the truth that God’s commands are not burdensome.
Read MoreIn today’s devotional J. I. Packer shows us how to make Christian joy a reality in our lives. Joy, both natural and spiritual, will periodically come upon us as a gust or glow of unsought exhilaration, for which we should be grateful every time. But we are not to think of joy as essentially a mood of euphoria for which we ask and then sit down to wait. Joy is a habit of the heart, induced and sustained as an abiding quality of one’s life through the discipline of rejoicing. Joy is not an accident of temperament or an unpredictable providence; joy is a matter of choice. In Philippians 4:4, Paul directs his readers to choose to rejoice because it is through rejoicing that joy becomes a personal reality.
Read More“The very attributes which are full of terror to the King's enemies are full of comfort to the King's friends.” God’s omniscience is one such attribute. “When others say, like Joab, ‘Why didst thou not do so and so?’ and we know or find that full reasons cannot be given or cannot be understood, what rest it is to fall back upon the certainty that our King knows all about it! When we are wearied out with trying to make people understand, how restful it is that no explanations are wanted when we come to speak to Him!”
Read MoreToday’s devotional is from our new study, Kingdom Life by Stephen Yuille. He reminds us: When it comes to God’s power, there is no match, no equal, and no rival. “If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty!” (Job 9:19). God never acts without prevailing, never resists without conquering, and never decides without accomplishing. Here is strength when struggling with strong temptations, encouragement when languishing under difficult circumstances, and hope when facing powerful enemies. We stand firm in the knowledge “that power belongs to God” (Ps. 62:11).
Read MoreToday’s devotional is a hymn by Charles Wesley that echoes the heart of a believer longing to be like the Lord Jesus. Hymns can be so helpful in stirring our hearts in private worship as well as in public worship. Let your soul sing, “O for a heart to praise my God, a heart from sin set free, a heart that always feels Thy blood, so freely shed for me.”
Read MoreIn ancient times, an actor in a Greek drama was known as a hypokrites, a compound word derived from hypo (under) and krites (judge). The hypokrites would use multiple masks to portray different characters, but the audience never saw his actual face. Moreover, these masks depicted various emotions without necessarily reflecting the actor’s true emotional state. We can easily see how the term hypokrites quickly moved from the theater into common parlance, where it was used to describe someone who pretends to be what he is not—one who literally hides behind a mask. Christ makes it clear that we are to avoid hypocrisy (a desire to please man) and pursue sincerity (a desire to please God). What kind of impact would such an approach to religious life have upon the church?
Read MoreThe Prince of Preachers unveils the secret of a happy life found in Psalm 16. If our Lord, who bore all our sins and griefs, could say his lines had fallen in pleasant places, surely we can say the same. Living in God’s presence and trusting in his presence leads to a life of contentment and confident hope.
Read MoreA smoldering candle must be handled gently. If you blow too hard, it will go out. However, coax it with a soft breath, and it can be rekindled. Richard Sibbes reminds us of Christ’s kindness toward His wavering children.
Read MoreDo you want to be blessed (happy)? Of course you do. Happiness is our most fundamental pursuit. Happiness does not reside in changing conditions or circumstances but in an unchanging God. As the psalmist declares, “Blessed are you, O Lord” (Ps. 119:12). How do we find this blessedness? Dr. Stephen Yuille helps us to understand in today’s devotional.
Read More
