Guidelines For Living Devotional

How To Overcome Jealousy

When your best friend marries the girl you dated, it's hard to get excited.  When the employee whom you hired gets promoted, leap-frogging over you, you may wish him luck and be polite, but inwardly you'd probably like to put a dagger in his back.  Your neighbor wins the lottery—not you.  How do you handle other people's good fortune?  Are you glad for them, or do you detest their good fortune, wishing it had happened to you?  There's a part of human nature which remains the same, year after year, generation after generation.

Why Is Time So Important?

What is it that can bring down empires, can literally shake down a craggy granite peak, yet has the power to heal a wound and change a life?  Described as the greatest power on earth by some, that force is TIME.  It was time that defeated Napoleon's forces at the gates of Russia's wealth.  It is the erosion allowed by time's forces that will eventually split the granite peak and bring it crashing to the floor of the valley.  It is time which allows healing of the human heart when the heart has been broken by loss and grief.  Time has been described as the most powerful force on earth, for it ultimately brings down the mightiest of men.  Some 200 years ago Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Dost thou love time?  Then use time wisely, for that's the stuff that life is made of."

How To Take Responsibility

An eighteen-year-old fathers a child and then walks away saying, "How do I know that I'm the only one who could have done this?"  A widow with a considerable bank account is overwhelmed with the personal interest shown to her by a man young enough to be her own son.  Following a romantic fling, she marries him.   Her family is quite certain that the man is more interested in her money than in her.  A father of three children, a great musician whose worship choruses are sung all over the world, walks out on his family, saying, "I don't want to be married anymore!"

Is It Too Late For God‘s Love?

When a reporter interviewed a prostitute on a late night TV show, he noticed that she was wearing a small cross on a gold chain around her neck.  "Are you a religious person?" he asked commenting on her cross.  Somewhat embarrassed, she quickly said, "Oh, not at all.  I got away from all of that."  She then told how she had gone to Sunday school as a girl, but then as a teenager she strayed far from the teaching of the little church she once attended.

This Is Why God Is Searching For You

"Like a shepherd he takes care of his flock," wrote Isaiah the prophet of Israel.  "He gathers the lambs in his arms.  He carries them in his arms.  He gently helps the sheep and their lambs" (Isaiah 40:11, GWV).  No wonder the soul of George Frederick Handel, the man who wrote Messiah, was stirred as he pondered those words.

Discover The True Source Of Joy

 "Joy," wrote G.K. Chesterton, "is the gigantic secret of the Christian."  Yet to many it appears to be such a well‑kept secret that they never fully discover what it all is.

How Do I Find God?

"The problem with you Christians," commented an atheist, "is that you have monopolized all the holidays.  You have Christmas, Easter, Good Friday, All Saints Day, and what have you.  What we atheists need is a holiday all of our own."  With a wry smile on his face, the friend countered, "How about April 1?"  Centuries ago, the Psalmist wrote, "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God'" (Psalm 14:1).  But it could well be translated, "There is no God for me!"  A lot of people who describe themselves as atheists have second thoughts when the going gets tough.

The Reason You Don‘t Have to Worry

Mark Twain, the American humorist, once wrote, "I am an old man and have known many troubles, but most of them never happened."  What Twain was saying is that most of the things we worry about never occur.  Paul Myers, founder of the old Haven of Rest Broadcast, used to say, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday."

Find A Better Way To Handle Anxiety

The National Institute of Mental Health did a study that required more than six years to complete.  It was the most extensive piece of psychological research that has ever been conducted by this prestigious organization, or, for that matter, by any such organization anywhere.  Their research confirmed what I have suspected for a long time: that the number one mental health disorder today is anxiety.

How Do I Know If God Really Exists?

"The real issue in the moral, ethical, and philosophical world today is the question of final reality," so wrote Francis Schaeffer, shortly before his death in 1984.  He continued, "The Christian believes final reality is the infinite, personal God of moral absolutes who truly is there.  The humanist believes it is impersonal material or energy which has existed in some form forever, and is shaped into its present form by pure chance.  On this basis, man makes himself the measure of all things."