Devotions from the Proverbs
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Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 10:00AM We have to be among the few who will take the risk, make the sacrifice and invest the time, emotion and energy in a journey that might not pay immediate dividends, but which promises eternal reward.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 10:00AM For decades, we have witnessed a spiritual recession in the currency of biblical interest, even among the people of God. An unhealthy collision between itching ears and glib doctrine produced a generation that counted religion to be a matter of entertainment and recreation, of almost absolute tolerance and compromise even where conviction should have stood fast.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009 at 10:00AM The disciples of Christ are very much pilgrims and strangers in this world, bound for a heavenly Canaan land, but sometimes distracted and dissuaded by life’s little skirmishes along the way to a grander battle of conquest, sacrifice and victory.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009 at 10:00AM It is not good that man should be alone. When it came time for the cross, God saw fit to add the redeemed daily to a church – a universal body of believers, but also a local collection of those who shared a common, precious faith. Friends thus became brothers.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009 at 10:00AM Self-denial can change your entire life’s plan, shake up your comfort zone and even drive you out of your fortress of familiarity. Self-denial is the only attitude that will make you a stranger and pilgrim in the world, bound for the next without regret.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 10:00AM A redeemed person can quickly forget from whence he came – how awful was slavery and the hopelessness it engendered until freedom came. A redeemed person can lose sight of where he should be headed – to a Promised Land more wonderful than Canaan. A redeemed person might even begin to wonder if he was really better off back in slavery.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 10:00AM Greeting brethren is mandatory and commanded, but the kissing form of greeting is only one example, and not at all exclusive. When a kiss is chosen, however, is must be holy and pure.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 10:00AM While no one can snatch us out of Christ’s hand, we surely have the potential to jump, unless “we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul” (Hebrews 10:39).
Wednesday, March 4, 2009 at 10:00AM Frankly, the “disgusted with hypocrites” explanation for forsaking the church is naught but a smokescreen. It is the fainthearted pot commenting unfavorably upon the blackness of yonder kettle. No one really leaves the church because of the hypocrisy of someone else. People leave the church because of their own hypocrisy.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009 at 10:00AM In the night he was betrayed, Jesus fulfilled the Passover promise and lit the way for all men to approach the heavenly land of perfect promise. “For Christ our passover lamb has been sacrificed” (First Corinthians 5:7).
Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 10:10AM James’s familiarity with Leviticus 19 is instructive. So much truth is foreshadowed in the tablets and scrolls of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 10:10AM For some, anything that can be described with love is justifiable, even if it contradicts the will of God; there is an unspoken assumption that God’s word is anachronistically flawed or underestimates the complexity of our circumstances and thus we are practically required to alter his ethics and adopt our own.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 10:11AM It is not exactly shocking how often love for God, goodness and other people is harmed by the things Paul identified – love of self, money and pleasure. Every vice, every indulgence, every act of selfishness, disrespect and dishonesty is rooted in misplaced affections.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009 at 10:11AM Absent a reverent, thoughtful spirit, the Lord’s Supper is nothing more than a meager snack. A mind trained on Calvary and a life built to match cause this table of the Lord to be an altar of self-sacrifice and glory.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009 at 10:11AM Talk that will promote lust, lewd behavior or crudeness can hardly be described as edifying. It instead testifies to a state of corruption in the speaker which seeks to spread to the hearer.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 10:11AM Most political candidates crave the opportunity to make their election certain. They used to kiss babies and pose with puppies, but today they are more likely to produce a YouTube video or reach out on Facebook. Ensuring one’s selection to spend eternity with God is a different matter altogether.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008 at 10:13AM Younger generations of saints have been raised on fast-paced media, seven-second sound bites, 30-second promotions, and rapid-fire data. They are accustomed to having a TV remote control in one hand and a joystick in the other, always prepared to hop to the next channel or blast away at any foe. It is impossible for a sound gospel preacher to wedge himself and his message into that culture without looking absolutely ridiculous or emasculating his teaching. Probably both.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 10:13AM Fear of Hell went out with the fear of God and our society is sick with shameless behavior which can hardly be rebuked at all. “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ” (Ephesians 4:17-19)!
Friday, November 21, 2008 at 10:13AM No Christian is destined to live perfectly, but the one who does not even try will usually end up far more imperfect than he ever imagined. Godliness is about dedicating the attempt to a sovereign God, a sacrificial savior and a Holy Spirit, without making excuses for coming up short.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 at 10:14AM A snare drum is too dumb to have ideas. A piano believes nothing. An organ has pedals but no principles. An electric guitar works on current, not conviction. Only the worshiper himself can treasure and remit the sacrifice of praise to God through the fruit of his lips.
