Guidelines For Living Devotional

God, Why Did You Let This Happen?

A disclaimer is the fine print you see in a contract, the documentation which protects a manufacturer from law suits, and basically lets the contracting party off the hook when something goes wrong.  So here’s the disclaimer today.  No, I haven’t had my wife walk out on me, or bury my children on foreign soil.  I haven’t been in an airplane that crashed or was hijacked by terrorists, and no, they haven’t pulled me from a wrecked car more dead than alive.  Frankly, God has been far better to me than I deserve—a thousand times so; yet I have a strong opinion based on working with people.  I’ve seen a trend so gradual and so pervasive in recent years that it seems to leave me standing in a small minority of people who tenaciously cling to some thoughts that are seldom voiced.

Why God Won’t Force You To Believe

The largest river in the world is the Amazon.  More water flows in its banks than flows in the Yangtze, the Mississippi, and the Nile rivers combined.  The mouth of the amazing Amazon is more than 90 miles across, and water from this great river creates currents as far as 200 miles at sea.

7 Assumptions About Love

Each of us make assumptions about love and relationships.  We may not even realize that we are operating out of a set of pre-conceived ideas, ideas that may have influenced our behavior since we discovered members of the opposite sex.  Yet, there are some big differences between what we think about love and sociological findings. Think about the following seven assumptions and rate them as true or false.

3 Reasons Marriages Disconnect

Cell phones are wonderful when they work, but when you are in an area where your signal is breaking up, it can be frustrating.  You hear the person's voice fading in and out, but you keep talking, hoping that he or she is hearing you.  Then, suddenly, you realize that you have disconnected.  The other person isn't there.  Although you've been talking, no one has heard you.  

Who Determines Right And Wrong?

I was in Liberia with a missionary friend when a young man began to verbally assault us for the injustices which had been perpetrated by the slave traders long ago.  After a few moments, I pointed to the missionary with my thumb and said, "Excuse me!  But I don't think you know why this man is here.  He's working at the ELWA radio station.  Nobody pays him.  He raised his own support to come here.  He and his doctor friends at the hospital are delivering your babies.  They are saving the lives of your people.  He's here to help you.  I'm here because I love people, and I'm responsible for myself, not for what my forebears did 200 years ago."

Discover What The Scientific World Observed About Creation

The scientific world was impressed with the findings of a satellite which explored the reaches of space.  The Cosmic Background Explorer satellite, which was put into orbit as part of the U.S. space program, confirmed that immediately following what scientists referred to as the "big bang" there were ripples of matter that seemed to form in patterns.  But what was observed was not a chaotic explosion such as follows when you put a firecracker under a tin can or in an ant hill, but a systematic pattern that reflects design.

How To Trade Revenge For Forgiveness

"I don't get mad--I get even!" reads the message on the bumper sticker.  The taste of vengeance is so sweet–or is it?  When the Japanese invaded China in World War 2, William's family was torn apart.  His father was imprisoned and died there in what prison officials described as an "accident."  His sister was also imprisoned.  Eventually, they came for William.  It seemed that one Japanese official had it in for the family which was active in the small church in their village.
 

Are You Living For Something Worth Dying For?

Mable Shaw was one of the first women missionaries sent by the London missionary Society to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).  In 1915 she reported that as she was about to leave a village of lepers and bicycle home, she was told that a lion was prowling about, and it wasn't safe for her to go alone.  As she prepared to leave, the headman, an aged but venerable man who himself was a victim of leprosy, came out of one of the little houses. 

The Bible Was Written For You

One of my favorite snapshots is that of my son kneeling down with both hands outstretched towards his eleven-month-old son who is just learning to walk.  Their eyes are locked.  Steve, my son, has a big smile on his face.  What the photo doesn't capture is his warm, inviting voice, as he says, "Come on, Christian, come on…."

How Do I Live A Life In Christ?

A dying man never says, "I wish I had spent more time at the office!"  A man's last words always come from his heart!  They are sometimes harsh, sometimes sentimental, and sometimes provocative.  But you never forget them.  What Jesus shared with the twelve as they sat together in the Upper Room for the Feast of the Passover represented His last words.  From there He went to the Mount of Olives, and from that time on, He never again had the informal opportunity to share His heart in quite the same manner.