Guidelines For Living Devotional

The 2 Things You Need to be Grateful

Somerset Maugham liked Maxim’s restaurant in Paris so well that he used that restaurant to stage one of the 20thcentury’s most popular novels The Razor’s Edge; but it was not Maugham that first put Maxim’s on the map. It was an aspiring Hungarian musician who was very much down on his luck when he and his bride ate at a then obscure restaurant in Paris known as—yes, Café Maxim. When it was time for Franz Lehar to pay the bill for the meal, he reached for his money in his wallet and felt nothing. Frantically he searched his pockets again. He thought, “It had to be there!” But, no, it was missing. He had been the victim of a pickpocket and not only was his money missing, but his return train tickets back home to Vienna.

How to Be Genuinely Grateful

There is a difference between expressing thanks for something and being genuinely grateful for it.  For example let’s suppose you are a craftsman and you contract to do a certain amount of work for so much money, and you fulfill your obligation. The work is done within the prescribed period of time and you do it well.  When you fulfill your contract you are paid.  Common courtesy demands that you respond, saying, “Thank you!” as you pick up the check in the brown manila envelope and take your tools home.

What Ingratitude Says About Us

Frank Mihalic tells of a man with a deeply infected tropical ulcer who, hobbling on crutches, came to the local clinic asking for help. A nursing sister looked at the open wound, infected and enlarged with redness that reflected poison that could take his leg, or possibly his life. What should she do? Medicines were sparse but she also knew that his condition was serious.

Give Your Money a Job to Do

The woman died all alone at the age of 71. Because she had not seen a physician recently, the coroner was called to determine the cause of her death. “Malnutrition,” was the verdict. The little lady’s weight was only 50 pounds. Neighbors said that she had begged food from them, sometimes going door to door. The local outlet of the Salvation Army knew her. That’s where she had bought her clothes—all second-hand, of course.

Why Should I Give?

“Why should we be concerned about poverty in Africa or the plight of the homeless?  We didn’t cause the problems that confront people there, so why should we give?” challenged one person who seemed to feel that what happens somewhere else in the world should be left to someone else to solve. 

This is What You Need From Church

Have you ever had the experience of feeling that you are the “odd person out?”  You have to attend a professional meeting or something you feel you should attend but would prefer to skip it. But you can’t. You have to attend. Others stand around talking, laughing, and conversing, but you stand in the back of the room alone and intimidated, looking for the exit, thinking only about getting out. What you really want to do is escape, and as fast as possible.

How to Conquer the Biggest Problems in Your Life

When you are only five feet three, and someone who is six feet five towers over you, you quickly learn what intimidation is, especially when the giant leans over you and threatens to make mincemeat out of you. We’d much prefer enemies about our own size, giving us an equal chance; but of course, life isn’t always fair.

Why Your Giant Problems Are a Good Thing

A Sunday school teacher, trying to impress the boys in her class, told the story of David and Goliath. In the class was one boy with an attitude. He thought he was pretty tough himself, so the teacher stressed how big Goliath was, picturing him as so big and tall that he would have dwarfed Yao Ming, the seven-foot five giant of a basketball player—China’s import to the Houston Rockets at the time.

The First Five Gifts Seniors Have to Give

A senior citizen, eyeing a parking spot that had just been vacated at a mall, was slowly backing up his aging luxury car, to get room to maneuver into the spot when a teenager in a small, red sportscar came from the other direction and zipped into the spot.  Jumping over the side of his little car, the youth called out, “That’s ‘cause I’m young and fast.”  The old man revved up his engine and plowed ahead—straight into the little sportscar folding it up like an accordion.  Then, turning to the horror-stricken youth, he said, “That’s ‘cause I’m old and rich.”

How to Know Who You Really Are

John Hagee worked at a children’s home and noticed that on the days that visitors were allowed, one boy invariably would come and stand by the gate.  But John also noticed that no one ever came to visit the boy.  One day John asked him why he always waited when no one ever came.  “I’m waiting for my father,” replied the lad.  “Yes, but your dad never comes so why wait?”