Guidelines For Living Devotional

How Do You Deal With Emotional Distress?

It's a well-established fact: how you get along with your mate can either keep you healthy or kill you, and I'm not suggesting that your mate kill you.  It's how you get along with each other that can drive your blood pressure over the top, producing hypertension, and, yes, eventually a heart attack.  A three-year study done by the University of Toronto Medical School tracked 103 couples, each one of whom had one party who had hypertension.  And what did they find at the end of the study?  They divided couples into the "happily married" group or the "not-so-happily-married" group who argued and fought a lot.  At the end of the three-year study, those who were happily married were spending more time with each other and were healthier, while those who were not so blessed had seen their blood pressure go up by an average of six points and were spending less time together. 

Can God Change the Human Heart

He was highly educated, one of the most prestigious and powerful of his society, and he used that power ruthlessly. By today’s standards, we might call him a right-wing Nazi extremist.  He hated a certain group of people so much that he made it his purpose in life to go around dragging them from their houses and throwing them in prison. It was said he uttered threats with every breath and wanted to kill.

What Your Heart and God Have to Do With Each Other

When you have heart pains, you should go to a cardiologist.  The word comes from two Greek words cardiaand logia.  The first word is translated, "heart"; the second means the study of something.  Hence, a cardiologist is one who has studied the heart, a heart-doctor.
 

How to Fix a Broken Heart

When the renowned German surgeon, Dr. Werner Forssmann (1904-1979) was in medical school, he had an idea.  He believed that if a small tube were inserted into an artery and run into the heart, then the diseased heart was x-rayed, it would be possible to diagnose the problem and thus save many lives.  His professors, however, were horrified and forbade him to do the experiment.

The Part of You That You Can't Live Without

An anonymous observer wrote that it "doesn't complain about the condition of the weather, seeks no 'social security' and never asks for a vacation.  It will work best when treated well, but will do its utmost to give good service when working conditions are unduly taxing its strength."  No, it isn't your dog--man's best friend--who sits by the gate and awaits your arrival with wagging tail.  It is your heart, located six inches below your collarbone slightly off-center on the left side of your body.

How to Build Up Your Marriage

Show an optimist a glass of water which is only partly filled and he would describe it as half-full, but show the pessimist the same glass and he would call it half-empty.  What is the difference?  It is how we see life.  It is whether we put the accent on the negative or the positive, and when it comes to home and relationships, the principle is just as true. 
 

How to Use Time Wisely

Time does not come to you in hours or days--not even in minutes.  It is dribbled out to you by God, one second at a time.  Like fine sand through our fingers, seconds that are wasted slip away and eventually pile up into minutes and hours.  Years ago, the Apostle Paul provided guidelines for living when he said that we are to walk "not as unwise" but we are to “…make the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil" (Ephesians 5:16).  If we are to translate Paul's words into our lives, we are going to have to do several things.  Here are some guidelines in using your time wisely:
 

Take Advantage of Today!

If you had a bank that credited your account each morning with $86,400, and your bank carried over no balance from day to day, but allowed you to keep whatever cash you could spend, and each evening canceled out whatever amount you had failed to use during the day, what would you do? Naturally, you would draw out every last dollar. Of course!  Actually, you do have such a bank and its name is "time."  Every morning it credits your account with 86,400 seconds. Every night it rules as lost whatever of this you have failed to invest.
 

How to Become a Christian

In response to the question, "According to your understanding, who is Jesus Christ?" two‑thirds of some 10,000 college students interviewed said they believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. Yet when these same students were asked how they could become Christians, 90% said they did not know. What those students expressed is quite true of all men.  It is not a question of facts; it is a matter of acting on those facts. What counts is not knowledge, but action!
 

Answering the Problem of Evil

There's a curse on the world today–denied by many, trivialized by others, and ignored by the vast majority of people.  It is there, nonetheless.  The curse of evil in our world is a horrible, hideous reality.