Devotional

Read the Word: Acts 4:13-31 Meditate on the Word: I had someone recently comment that, because I attended seminary, I should know a lot of Bible because it had been “drilled into me”. I can understand the perception, but truthfully, seminary is not a big three-year long Sword Drill (anyone remember those?). It would be… Read More »

Read the Word: Ecclesiastes 5:1-7 Meditate on the Word: How often do we make the mistake of telling God what we intend to do for Him instead of listening to what He wants us to do? There can be several reasons for this. When King David wanted to build a Temple for God, it was… Read More »

Read the Word: James 5:1-6 Meditate on the Word: Our  Lord’s brother here gives one of the strongest warnings about ill-gotten gain. Of course, we know that often, the wealthy do not rely on God, but instead rely on their wealth. We have a certain mental picture when it comes to what constitutes wealthy, and… Read More »

Read the Word: James 4:11-12 Meditate on the Word: A couple of years ago, boxer Mike Tyson posted, “Social media made y’all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.” A cursory look through my Facebook feed seems to confirm Tyson’s claim. The world has certainly gotten less… Read More »

Read the Word: Psalm 1:1-6 Meditate on the Word: I can remember growing up, when print newspapers were still a thing, two advice columns that were widely published and well respected. Dear Abby and Ann Landers, were known for dispensing advice on a variety of topics to anonymous writers with a variety of questions. Now, people go… Read More »

Read the Word: 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 Meditate on the Word: Preaching is a very strange line of work. There are some Sundays that I have struggled to get a point across and people have responded enthusiastically. There are other Sundays that I feel things have gone really well and…crickets! Preaching is an occupation that subjects… Read More »

Read the Word: Psalm 73:21-28 Meditate on the Word: Not all wounds are visible. Many among us carry scars from various things in our lives that have wounded us deeply. Perhaps someone we loved dearly failed us. Perhaps we’ve been abused, neglected, or abandoned. Perhaps things we’ve said in confidence have gotten out. Perhaps we… Read More »

Read the Word: Colossians 3:1-11 Meditate on the Word: Paul’s admonition in verse 2 can be difficult to do in practice. We may want to keep our eyes on things above, but we are continually surrounded by the things of the earth. Now more than ever, the world has ways to continually bombard us anger, worry,… Read More »

Read the Word: Proverbs 22:8-12 Meditate on the Word: In these few wise sayings, we get a glimpse of a wonderful contrast–that of the “unjust” person with the “generous” person. In the news coverage, we see a lot of injustice, mocking, and treacherous words. Some of these are actually considered features of some celebrities and… Read More »

Read the Word: Psalm 19:7-11 Meditate on the Word: When I replaced a handful of old dim fluorescent lights in my basement with new LED lighting, my daugher jokingly referred to the new lights as “the light of God.” They seemed so incredibly bright, and you could suddenly see everything. It was almost blinding. In… Read More »