A Memorial Day Thank You and Devotion How do you get peace in a really bad situation? You may be in the fight of your life financially and about to lose your home. It may be that you've been diagnosed with lung cancer as my father-in-law was last week. It may be that your marriage is falling apart. You fill in the blank. We're either headed into a crisis, in the midst of one, or coming out of one....  Read More

Amos 5:1-15Hear this word which I take up for you as a dirge, O house of Israel: She has fallen, she will not rise again - The virgin Israel.  She lies neglected on her land; There is none to raise her up.  For thus says the Lord God, "The city which goes forth a thousand strong Will have a hundred left, And the one which goes forth a hundred strong Will have ten left to the house of Israel."  For...  Read More

REBELLIOUS DECISIONSA few years back, the Supreme Court summarized a decision to move our country and its laws further from biblical principles by stating that their ruling epitomized “the progress of a maturing society.” As we often see throughout biblical history in general, and the book of Judges in particular, when society sees itself “casting off the fetters” of God’s moral precepts and his j...  Read More

UNWHOLESOME TALKGod’s word commands followers of Christ to “not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths” (Eph.4:29). Often the Bible gauges our spirituality by our vocabulary (Jms.3:2-12). If our words are unsavory Jesus provides the needed diagnostic when he reveals that “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” because we should learn to see that “the good man brings good thin...  Read More

Be a DoerBut be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.James 1:22As believers, our lives can and should be marked by minds that are trained in and subjected to the truth of God’s word, and we should surround our circumstances with prayer (Philippians 4:6-8). But still, if we are to know and enjoy God’s power at work within us, we must take what we hear in the Scriptures and ...  Read More

By: C. H. SpurgeonPsalm 22:14 I am poured out like water,and all my bones are out of joint;my heart is like wax;it is melted within my breast;Did earth or heaven ever witness a sadder spectacle than this? In soul and body, our Lord felt Himself to be weak as water poured upon the ground. The placing of the cross in its socket had shaken Him with great violence, had strained all the ligaments, pain...  Read More

Amos 4:4-13Enter Bethel and transgress; In Gilgal multiply transgression!  Bring your sacrifices every morning, Your tithes every three days.  Offer a thank offering also from that which is leavened, And proclaim freewill offerings, make them known.  For so you love to do, you sons of Israel, Declares the Lord God.But I gave you also cleanness of teeth in all your cities And lack of bread in all y...  Read More

We All Worship SomethingI will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them. They are turned back and utterly put to shame, who trust in carved idols, who say to metal images, ‘You are our gods.’Isaiah 42:16-17In the words of Bob Dylan, you gotta serve somebody.[1] It’s true—we all worship something. The only que...  Read More

The Lord Be With You!And behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem. And he said to the reapers, ‘The Lord be with you!’ And they answered, ‘The Lord bless you.’Ruth 2:4You can learn a lot about a person from their hellos.When Boaz entered his field (and the book of Ruth) and greeted his workers, the depth of his character and of his relationship with God became clear.Boaz lived with the awareness of God’s ...  Read More

Freedom From Ourselves Mark 9:33-3533 And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” 34 But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. 35 And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”Rivalry is part a...  Read More

Living in the Spirit’s FullnessEphesians 5:18-1918 and do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing  one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,At certain times in life, such as the birth of a new child or a cross-country move, a lot seems to happen all at once. The beginning of a ne...  Read More

The Tapestry of God’s Providence What often appears to us to be a mess of knots is just the back view of the tapestry God is weaving.Naomi and Ruth had experienced their share of frayed threads in life. They arrived in Israel widowed and penniless—a perilous position for women in a lawless society (see Judges 21:25). In Old Testament Israelite society, the law allowed for the poor to enter the fie...  Read More