Guidelines For Living Devotional

Is God a Christian

"Dear Dr. Sala," wrote an eight-year-old friend, "Is Jesus and God a Christian, or don't they have to be one because they're the God?"  Out of the mouths of babes come some of the most profound issues.  Were Jesus and God "Christians" or "don't they have to be one?"  Our eight-year-old friend is doing some serious thinking, and to be honest with you, that's a tough question to answer, but let me see what I can do.  Let's begin by identifying what “God" we are talking about.  Sometimes we use language and assume that everybody understands, when in reality they are talking about something entirely different. 

Seeing Life in Death

In 1975 Raymond Moody, a medical doctor, published a book entitled Life After Life.   It chronicled the experiences of 150 people who died, or were near-death and then came back.  Moody was the first to use the expression “near death experience” and he tells how these experiences forever changed the lives of the people who had them.  In some cases, as death approached, individuals had flashbacks, going back to childhood.  In some cases they saw Jesus standing in the shadows.  Some saw light—a brilliant, vivid light which they believed was God—at the end of a long, dark tunnel.  But no matter how the experiences differed, their lives changed.  They became "more altruistic, less materialistic, and more loving.”

Our Final Departures

When Jesus was crucified, one of the thieves put to death with Him cried out, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom!”  And Jesus responded, “Today you shall be with me in Paradise.”  But scores of people are not sure that they can apply that to their personal lives.  Are they to believe that when God’s child draws his last breath here on Earth, his next one is going to be drawn in heaven?

Seven Antidotes to Stress

Would you like some guidelines for handling stress?
            Guideline #1:  Get God's perspective.  God knew about what is stressing you out before you were even born.  G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown character said, “We are on the wrong side of the tapestry.”  Yes, we see the messy underside.  But God sees what He’s creating in our lives.  He’s in control and He promises in Isaiah 41:10 to help you and strengthen you with His mighty right hand!

God's View of Stress

Articles on stress and how to cope with it have proliferated like weeds in an unkept garden. And having read them, most people are about as satisfied as the farmer's son who has to pull the weeds out of the garden.  Like a mother's kiss on a child's skinned knee, they may help some, but often their uplift is temporary, more like a desensitizer than a real cure.

The Way You Look at Stress

If you have ever been tempted to think that Christians should not face stress, ponder the stress that some of the heroes of the Bible faced.  Consider Daniel in the lion's den. If God doesn't bring deliverance, he's on the menu for breakfast the next morning--which would have been “terminal stress.” Think of Esther, the young woman who risked her life going before King Xerxes. "If I perish, I perish!" she cried. Yes, she knew what stress is. Then there is Joseph, falsely convicted of sexual assault, unjustly thrown in prison and seemingly forgotten by God because of his moral uprightness.  Don't think that Joseph was a stranger to stress.

Your Body and Stress

Researchers are telling us today that stress is causing more emotional and physical damage than our grandparents could have imagined in their worst nightmares, from producing cancer to lowering IQ in our children. There is no question that it produces ulcers, hypertension, heart disease, and a whole lot of emotional hassle which doesn't make anyone very happy.

Stressed Out!

What’s easier to remember--the last time you had an afternoon off when nothing was really planned, or the last time you reached for the Tylenol because you had a horrible headache?  Chances are about 10 to 1, you remember reaching for the Tylenol.  The source of that tension‑headache which made you snarl at the kids and grouch at your spouse wasn't necessarily organic.  It doesn't mean you have a brain‑tumor or need to see a neurologist.  Your headache, however, was a red flag.  It signaled stress as your nervous system screamed, "Help!  I'm overloaded.  I just can't handle this." 

When God Writes the Story

Chawnga Pudaite, the son of a headhunter, met a Welshman by the name of Watkin Roberts. The year was 1910, and the five days that Roberts spent in the hills of the Hmar territory in India changed Chawnga's future. The quiet, soft-spoken Welshman told Pudaite of a living God who sent His Son into our world to bring life, and that week Chawnga Pudaite made a decision which cost him dearly.  When he decided to follow Jesus, he was driven from his home and family.  But when his son was born, he prayed that he might be able to read, write and take the Bible back to the hills of Hmar from which he had come.

Will God Forgive Anything?

"One must forgive one's enemies," said Sigmund Freud, "but not before they have been hanged."  Such graciousness!  One who adopts that attitude must hope never to have enemies himself, for the person who cannot forgive burns the bridge over which he himself must someday certainly pass.