Guidelines For Living Devotional

Guidelines for Straight Thinking

Do you remember when your friend made a bad choice, a wrong decision like walking out of a marriage, or quitting a job over a petty disagreement, or allowing a disagreement to break a long-time friendship?  And you said, "That person isn't thinking straight!" 
Straight thinking cuts to the core of the issue and puts the whole in perspective.  It gives you a grasp of the possible consequences, something we rarely have when our decisions are cluttered with anger and bias.

How to Get Out of a Mess

Have you ever had the experience of waking up in the morning and asking yourself, "How have I gotten to this place?  What has happened to me?  Where did I go wrong?"  The realization that you were in the wrong place under the wrong set of circumstances hit you like a ton of bricks.  You suddenly realized that you had missed the right turn a few miles back down the road of life.  Now you are asking, "How do I get out of this mess?  Or is there a way out at all?"

Thinking It Through

It's a fact:  Only ten percent of all people really think.  Seventy-five percent think they think, and fifteen percent would rather die than think.  Do you believe that?  I often close a program with the phrase, "Think about it!"  Yet, quite often, we prefer not to think because when we really do think about something, we are confronted with the consequences of our actions which we prefer not to see.

Think!

The human brain is an amazing creation.  It has spawned the marvelous inventions of space and plummeted the depths of the biological kingdom.  It has given birth to the space program, the marvelous advancements of medicine, the libraries of the world, the advancements of civilization, the remarkable achievements in the fields of science, history, anthropology, literature, social studies and a jillion things that neither time nor space allow me to mention.  It has also produced the negative rationale behind two world wars and a host of lesser conflicts and the hideous reality of concentration camps, and has filled the prisons of the world because of man's failure to think through the consequences of his actions.

As You Think So Are You

Some 3000 years ago the wise man—perhaps Solomon himself—said it so well: “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.”   Simply put, you become what you think—negative or positive.   Your thinking shapes your attitude, and your attitude is like the wood carver’s tool that molds you into the image you become.

What is Love?

"How could God really love me if He let this happen to me?" If you have never said it, chances are you have thought it‑‑at least for a fleeting moment, and perhaps that thought took root in your mind and the logic has become a real problem. In coping with the problem of circumstances which run counter to your belief in a good God who loves you, you may well have to disengage yourself from the broken relationship which stands as a barrier between you and God’s love.

Questioning God's Goodness

Afflictions come to us in all sizes and shapes. I am thinking of two individuals in particular‑‑one of whom sustained brain damage in a sports injury and then faced a life‑long physical impairment, and another who has grown bitter over the loss of a baby girl found dead in her crib.  Both of them talk of God's love. The first speaks of it as a comfort and a strength; the other as an obstacle‑‑"How could God really love us and allow this to happen?" In one case the injury drove him to God; in the other, it drove her away from God.

When You Doubt God's Love

Have you ever doubted God's love?  Have you ever faced circumstances that caused you to say, "How could God love me when He has allowed circumstances as these?"  It may have been the death of your child, or a mate who deeply disappointed you, or something about which you prayed, and your prayer went unanswered—or so you thought.  Possibly you did not verbalize it at all, but way down in your heart you just allowed those thoughts of, “How could this happen if God really loved me?” to reverberate in your soul.
 

The Voices Which Distract

Have you discovered that when someone says, "God told me to do something," we think that either we are confronted with a deeply spiritual individual or someone who needs a psychiatrist?
Yet some who think they are constantly hearing the voice of God are not in need of mental health care, but they do need help--they confuse the voice of God with the voice of religion and the voice of our culture and our world.

How Do I Hear the Voice of God?

Have you ever had the experience of being somewhere away from the noise of a big city? Perhaps on a mountain somewhere, on a desert, and as you set and looked up at a starry sky, you were absolutely amazed at the silence. It was quiet, right?
Not exactly. It wasn't quiet, it was simply that you couldn't hear the sounds. Strange but true is the fact that the atmosphere around us is filled with a thousand voices, but you're not tuned to them. You don't pick them up. If somebody should ask, "What kind of a device are you listening to?", perhaps you would say, "Well, it's a radio," or  "I'm listening online, over the internet." There are voices, sound waves, cellular and digital signals all around us.