Today’s Verse – Job 23:10-11
He knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold. My feet have closely followed his steps; I have kept to his way without turning aside. —Job 23:10-11 Thoughts on Today’s Verse… How we long for Job’s words in this verse to be our true confession. We are not yet gold, but long to be. We are not yet fully following the LORDs steps, but are trying to follow faithfully. We have tried not to turn aside from God’s ways, but we sometimes falter. Thank God for his grace until our intentions and desires are fulfilled in our genuine discipleship. Until that day, we pursue Jesus as we seek to reflect his character and compassion, trusting in the Holy Spirit to do the work of transformation (2 Corinthians 3:18) so that the following may be true of us as it was in Jesus: He knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold. My feet have closely followed his steps; I have kept to his way without turning aside. My Prayer… Magnificent Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, I confess my sin and my inadequacies in following your paths completely. Forgive me as I commit my life to serve you in holiness and joy. Thank you for your grace, which covers my sin and perfects in me the character of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. In the name of my Savior, Jesus, I pray. Amen. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.
Today’s Verse – Psalm 73:25-26
Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. —Psalm 73:25-26 Thoughts on Today’s Verse… What can truly fulfill and sustain you? Maybe the best way to answer that question is by asking another: What can we keep when our bodies are placed silently in their graves at death? Only our relationship with God, our Christ-like character, and our loving relationships with Jesus’ disciples are permanent. These last beyond the grave. So, if these are lasting, then why would we displace them for anything that isn’t lasting? Earth’s treasures fail, wither, dissolve, and decay. What we have in God is forever! My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. My Prayer… Mighty Yahweh, Strong One of Israel, Keeper of the Covenant and Fulfillment-Maker of every prophecy, you are my hope, my strength, and my future. I live this day in wide-eyed amazement that the Keeper of the Universe knows my name, hears my voice, and cares for me. Thank you for being my past, my present, and my future. You are the Great I Am. You, O God, are the strength of my heart forever! In the name of Jesus, my Immanuel, I pray. Amen. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.
Today’s Verse – Matthew 22:37-39
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. —Matthew 22:37-39 Thoughts on Today’s Verse… Some things are just not complicated to understand. However, that doesn’t mean putting them into practice is easy for me. Jesus was clear in what he said. Living for God can be boiled down to two principles: Loving God with everything I am and have. Loving others and treating them as I would like to be treated. Those principles are certainly not too hard to understand. It’s the living of them that is our challenge. So, let’s not just understand these two principles of love; let’s live them out in our daily lives: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. … Love your neighbor as yourself. My Prayer… Dear Father, the one true and living God, please accept the work of my hands, the words of my mouth, the moments of my rest, and the love of my heart as my worship to you this day. I pray that these are pleasing and refreshing to you as I seek to live out your two love commands in my life today. In the name of your Son, the LORD Jesus, I pray. Amen. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.
Today’s Verse – Ephesians 2:4-5
Because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved. —Ephesians 2:4-5 Thoughts on Today’s Verse… God is rich in mercy and generous with grace! Isn’t that wonderful for us? I don’t know about you, but I sure know I have failures, shortcomings, sins, and transgressions. Without God’s mercy, I would be lost in my sins (Romans 3:23-25). Without his grace, I would be cut off from the life God longs for me to have (Romans 5:6-11). God is rich in mercy and generous with grace! He acted on our behalf when he sent Jesus to show us his love (1 John 4:9-10). Now, because of his rich mercy and generous grace, we are dead to that old sinful self, and our lives are now tied to Jesus’ glorious future (Colossians 2:12, 3:1-4). “God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ”! My Prayer… Father of all grace and mercy, thank you. Thank you for being who you are – the Father of mercy and the God of all grace (1 Peter 3:13, 5:10)! Thank you for extending your grace when we did not deserve it. Thank you for giving mercy when we most needed it. Thank you for blessing us with life when we thought our lives were doomed and hopeless. May we be rich in mercy. May we be people of grace. We desire to be wealthy in these ways, like you, more than being rich in earthly riches that are destined to perish (Matthew 6:19-20). Help us, O LORD, to be more like you, to be rich in mercy. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.
Today’s Verse – Romans 13:9-10
The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. —Romans 13:9-10 Thoughts on Today’s Verse… Wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t have to have laws to keep people in line! That’s the point behind Paul’s message here. Treat our neighbors as we would like to be treated. Love them as we want to be loved. If we do that, then we’re not going to do anything that would hurt them, much less violate a command of God’s law that would hurt them. My Prayer… Loving Father, you are God who gave Moses the Law on tablets of stone. Please write your character and will on my heart (Proverbs 3:3; Jeremiah 31:33) that I might be a living testimony of your righteousness and grace toward all people. Help me to think more carefully about how my neighbors feel and what they need before I act or react to them – not just today, but every day! In the name of your Son, Jesus. Amen. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.
Today’s Verse – Proverbs 17:9
He who covers over an offense promotes love, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends. —Proverbs 17:9 Thoughts on Today’s Verse… You’ve probably heard this poisonous statement many times: “It’s just a little harmless gossip.” The Wise Teacher reminds us that gossip is neither little nor harmless. Sharing someone else’s stumble, offense, failure, or flaws separates friends and causes horrible damage. The consequences of such gossip are severe, and its damage is often lasting and devastating, especially to relationships. Instead, it is much better to be a peacemaker and an offense-mender, someone who covers over an offense with grace, forgiveness, and love. As Jesus said: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God (Matthew 5:9). A peacemaker is one who covers over an offense and promotes love and peace. Let that be said of us! Video Commentary… ToGather Worship Guide | More ToGather Videos My Prayer… Father of Glory, I confess that I am often more a peace lover than a peacemaker. Being a peacemaker seems to be a lot harder for me. Covering over offenses feels a lot more difficult than passing on the gossip about an offense. So, please give me the character not to repeat gossip, but instead to have the wisdom and strength to be an offense-mender and an offense-coverer. Through the Prince of Peace, himself, I pray. Amen. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.
Today’s Verse – 1 John 4:11-12
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. —1 John 4:11-12 Thoughts on Today’s Verse… Can you imagine what an honor it is to have the Creator of the universe, the LORD God Almighty, living inside of you? Yet when we love each other, that is exactly what happens. When our hearts are full of love, there is room for God, a great deal of room for God, because God is love. When they are not full of love, we leave little room for God to take up residence and produce his character in us. Let God complete his love in you: commit to doing loving things for others today, and each day that follows, until you can express your love for your Father, face-to-face in glory! My Prayer… Abba Father, I find it so comforting to know that you are not far away – that I live in you and you live in me (Colossians 3:1-4). Please help me see others with your eyes and respond to their needs with your heart so that your love may be complete in me and demonstrated in my actions. In the name of Jesus, the Servant and Savior of all, I pray. Amen. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.
Some of My Very Best Gifts
Note from Jesus My Beloved, Far too often in your world, children and their fathers have great difficulty communicating. Sometimes this situation is because of non-communicative fathers. Other times, however, children go through periods where they don’t want to talk with their fathers because they feel their fathers cannot understand their problems or the world in which they live. On the other hand, some children are just rebellious and don’t want their father interfering in their lives. My Abba Father, your Abba in heaven, doesn’t want these obstacles to come between you and Him. Your heavenly Father wants you to know how to communicate with Him. He wants you to seek Him even when you don’t know what to say or when you don’t know how to say what’s on your heart. Today, I want to give three assurances that when you speak to the Father, He hears you: Remember that He is your loving Abba Father — you come to him as His beloved child (Romans 8:15-16). You can know that even simple words will be heard (Luke 11:1-13). The Holy Spirit intercedes for you (Romans 8:26-27). Providing you with words to speak to God and assuring you that God will hear you are some of the greatest gifts I can give you. Please be blessed and take great advantage of being able to speak with the Creator of the universe as your Father. Know that whenever and wherever you choose to draw near to speak to Him, he will listen to you! Verses to Live My first disciples wanted to learn how to pray. They had seen Me pray many times. They knew I would sometimes withdraw from everything and spend time with the Father. My disciples knew that one of the great blessings a teacher gave his disciples was to teach them to pray. So, their request was a good one. I hope you long for Me to guide you in how to pray. Please notice all the different times I prayed in My life and ministry. Pay attention to how I prayed, where I prayed, and what I prayed. Today, My beloved disciple, I want you to know that prayer is not about saying a lot of different or magical or profound words that sound religious. You are My Father’s child, too. Your prayers don’t need to impress Him. He longs to hear from you. So, please, don’t focus on your words, but on your relationship with the Father. Be honest and simple in what you pray. Recognize that only a few things are truly essential in life and in your Christian service and focus on them. Another time Jesus was praying, and when He finished, one of His disciples approached Him. Disciple: Teacher, would You teach us Your way of prayer? John taught his disciples his way of prayer, and we’re hoping You’ll do the same. Jesus: Here’s how to pray: Father in heaven. May Your kingdom come. Give us the food we need for tomorrow, And forgive us for our wrongs, for we forgive those who wrong us. And lead us away from temptation. Imagine that one of your friends comes over at midnight. He bangs on the door and shouts, “Friend, will you lend me three loaves of bread? A friend of mine just showed up unexpectedly from a journey, and I don’t have anything to feed him.” Would you shout out from your bed, “I’m already in bed, and so are the kids. I already locked the door. I can’t be bothered”? You know this as well as I do: even if you didn’t care that this fellow was your friend, if he keeps knocking long enough, you’ll get up and give him whatever he needs simply because of his brash persistence! So listen: Keep on asking, and you will receive. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened for you. All who keep asking will receive, all who keep seeking will find, and doors will open to those who keep knocking. Some of you are fathers, so ask yourselves this: if your son comes up to you and asks for a fish for dinner, will you give him a snake instead? If your boy wants an egg to eat, will you give him a scorpion? Look, all of you are flawed in so many ways, yet in spite of all your faults, you know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to all who ask! (Luke 11:1-13) And, My beloved disciple, even when you don’t get your words exactly correct, or when you can’t find the right words to express your heart, remember that I have given you the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is your spiritual DNA that connects you to God as your Abba Father. You are His beloved child. The Spirit will take your emotions, your confusion, and your concerns to the Father. When you don’t have words, point your heart to heaven and ask the Spirit to take your groanings, including those that are too deep for words, and present them acceptably to the Father. He is your Abba. You are His child. The Spirit is your assurance. Offer the Father your heart, your emotions, and your fears, and the Holy Spirit will make them all known to our Father! You see, you have not received a spirit that returns you to slavery, so you have nothing to fear. The Spirit you have received adopts you and welcomes you into God’s own family. That’s why we call out to Him, “Abba! Father!” as we would address a loving daddy. Through that prayer, God’s Spirit confirms in our spirits that we are His children. … A similar thing happens when we pray. We are weak and do not know how to pray, so the Spirit steps in and articulates prayers for us with groaning too profound for
Today’s Verse – 1 John 3:11
This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. —1 John 3:11 Thoughts on Today’s Verse… The original message? Love one another. The enduring message? Love one another. The most convincing message? Love one another. The most difficult message? Love one another. The clearest message? Love one another.This call to love one another reminds me of the convicting verse I once heard a preacher use about loving our brothers and sisters: To dwell above with saints we love, O that will be glory. But to dwell below with saints we know, Now that’s another story. But it’s the story we’re called to write with our lives. Love one another. It’s Jesus’ enduring message to us is clear: Love one another! My Prayer… Loving Father, I commit to you that I will intentionally show my love for your children in what I do and say. I do this trusting in your grace and the Holy Spirit to empower me to do more loving things and be more loving than I could be on my own. I want to obey my Lord’s command to love others as he did. Through Jesus, my Savior, I pray. Amen. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.
Take Me Into Your Heart
Note from Jesus Dear Child of God, Don’t miss the heartbreak of the events described in the Scripture below. Despite all I had said and had done, people turned away from Me. As long as I would do miracles for them, they were quite happy to hang around with Me. But when I would not do their wish list miracles-on-demand and when I told them the truth about My divinity, they got testy with Me and My followers. In fact, many quit following Me. So here’s the challenge. You need to take Me — My truth, My power, and My words — into your heart. Some of the things I ask of you will be hard — some of them hard to do and some of them hard to understand. But here’s the point: to the best of your ability and empowered by the Holy Spirit within you, do what I ask, believe what I say, and live what I teach. My words are life-giving and life-preserving. The Holy Spirit is at work giving you guidance, using you in My service, and conforming you to My words. There will be times when you are confused. Some of that confusion will be because life is hard. Sometimes your confusion will come from your own selfishness and rebelliousness. Some of your confusion will be there because some of what I say can be hard to understand or you are not ready for it. But despite all the shortcomings you can find in Peter and My other apostles, please notice Peter’s words — spoken for all of the apostles. I asked if they would walk away from Me, too, and this is what Peter said: “Lord, if we were to go, whom would we follow? You speak the words that give everlasting life. We believe and recognize that You are the Holy One sent by God.” Verses to Live Notice all the back-and-forth below in John’s account. There is a lot of talk about faith. Bottom line: just TALK about faith really doesn’t mean much. What matters is what Peter and the apostles DO: they (except for Judas) risk all to follow Me because of their choice to believe in Me even when many are turning away from Me: Some of the Jews began to grumble quietly against Him [Jesus] because He said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” Crowd: Isn’t Jesus the son of Joseph? We know His parents! We know where He came from, so how can He claim to have “come down from heaven”? Jesus: Stop grumbling under your breaths. If the Father Who sent Me does not draw you, then there’s no way you can come to Me. But I will resurrect everyone who does come on the last day. Among the prophets, it’s written, “Everyone will be taught of God.” So everyone who has heard and learned from the Father finds Me. No one has seen the Father, except the One sent from God. He has seen the Father. I am telling you the truth: the one who accepts these things has eternal life. I am the bread that gives life. Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and they died as you know. But there is another bread that comes from heaven; if you eat this bread, you will not die. I am the living bread that has come down from heaven to rescue those who eat it. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever. The bread that I will give breathes life into the cosmos. This bread is My flesh. The low whispers of some of Jesus’ detractors turned into an out-and-out debate. Crowd: What is He talking about? How is He able to give us His flesh to eat? Jesus: I tell you the truth; unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you will not know life. If you eat My flesh and drink My blood, then you will have eternal life and I will raise you up at the end of time. My flesh and blood provide true nourishment. If you eat My flesh and drink My blood, you will abide in Me and I will abide in you. The Father of life Who sent Me has given life to Me; and as you eat My flesh, I will give life to you. This is bread that came down from heaven; I am not like the manna that your fathers ate and then died! If you eat this bread, your life will never end. He spoke these words in the synagogue as part of His teaching mission in Capernaum. Many disciples heard what He said, and they had questions of their own. Disciples: How are we supposed to understand all of this? It is a hard teaching. Jesus was aware that even His disciples were murmuring about this. Jesus: Has My teaching offended you? What if you were to see the Son of Man ascend to return to where He came from? The Spirit brings life. The flesh has nothing to offer. The words I have been teaching you are spirit and life, but some of you do not believe. From the first day Jesus began to call disciples, He knew those who did not have genuine faith. He knew, too, who would betray Him. Jesus: This is why I have been telling you that no one comes to Me without the Father’s blessing and guidance. After hearing these teachings, many of His disciples walked away and no longer followed Jesus. Jesus (to the twelve): Do you want to walk away too? Simon Peter: Lord, if we were to go, whom would we follow? You speak the words that give everlasting life. We believe and recognize that You are the Holy One sent by God. Jesus: I chose each one of you, the twelve, Myself. But one of you is a devil. This cryptic comment referred to Judas, the son of Simon