January 30, 2022 | Psalm 89:1-18 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue “Stop praying for stuff and start praying for God,” wrote pastor David Platt. “The primary point of prayer is not to get something—it’s to know Someone. When you go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is in secret, there […]
January 29, 2022 | James 1:2-8 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue For many years I had a love-hate relationship with today’s Scripture passage. The “love” part related to testing, perseverance, maturity, and wisdom. That made sense to me. The “hate” part related to the first line, “Consider it pure joy” (v. 2). “Seriously?” I thought. […]
January 28, 2022 | Mathew 9:9-13 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue Caravaggio’s masterpiece The Calling of Saint Matthew pictures Matthew as an older man engaged in counting money from his tax collecting. He has just realized Jesus is summoning him to become His disciple, and he’s pointing to himself as if to say, “Who, me?” […]
January 27, 2022 | ProVerbs 9:1-12 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue Jesus told a parable about a man going on a journey. He gave his servant five bags of gold and the man set to work, gaining five more for a total of ten. Another servant was given two bags of gold and increased his total […]
January 26, 2022 | Proverbs 1:20-33 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue One of our bicycles recently needed repairs. We checked the extended warranty, fully expecting that (as in the past) it had just expired. To our surprise and delight, the warranty still had two weeks to go, and we were able to get the bike fixed […]
January 25, 2022 | Proverbs 1:1-9 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue In his 1644 essay “Of Education,” English poet John Milton explained the purpose of learning from a Christian perspective: “The end, then, of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to […]
January 24, 2022 | Luke 2:41-52 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue Our family had just arrived at the Kansas City Zoo. We gathered inside the gate…then had that sinking feeling almost all parents experience at some point: One of our children was missing. Perhaps he’d rushed ahead to see his beloved giraffes. We prayed and spread […]
January 23, 2022 | Psalm 73 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue Mental health is an important dimension of our well-being that we sometimes don’t like to address. In any given year, an estimated 26 percent of adults have a diagnosable mental illness. During our lifetime, at least half of us will have a mental health issue, […]
January 22, 2022 | Genesis 50:15-21 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue In 1877, American abolitionist (and escaped slave) Frederick Douglass met his former master, Thomas Auld. Douglass had previously written strong condemnations of Auld’s cruel treatment of his slaves. But when they met near the end of Auld’s life, Douglass forgave him. They shed tears, were […]
January 21, 2022 | Jeremiah 35 DEVOTIONS This Month’s Issue Sometimes no matter how great the teacher, we fail to learn the lesson. In today’s reading, God directed the prophet Jeremiah to use a family called the Rekabites as an object lesson (v. 13). Who were the Rekabites? During the reign of King Jehu, the […]