Guidelines For Living Devotional

Keep Pushing Through When Things Are Tough

One of the strange things about trials is that when they knock at our door or sneak through the back door of our lives, we never quite expect them. Yes, we know that other people face them, but not us. When we do go into combat with them, we also feel that nobody else has ever faced the same intensity of testing nor do they understand.

Walking Through The Trials Of Life

There is a common perception in the world today that faith in Jesus Christ will exempt us from the trials and hardships of life, especially those associated with our health, our happiness, and our prosperity. Then when people buy into this concept and discover all together too soon that their prayers will not always turn back the hostility of a world who thinks Christians are bigoted and strange, they become disappointed and feel disillusioned.

What Does it Mean To Suffer For Christ

On a warm summer day, July 19, 64 AD, fire broke out in the poor quarters of Rome near the coliseum. In those days the streets of the city were narrow and were used primarily for foot traffic. Many buildings in that area had been built of wood, and in the dry heat of summer they burned quickly. In only hours, there was a conflagration unlike anything Rome had ever seen. The Temple of Luna was consumed along with the Shrine of Vesta...hundreds, then thousands, of people were homeless.

Should I Tell God Everything?

The issue never really goes away: How much should you confess to your husband or wife about your past life? Or even your present life? Following a series dealing with the consequences of infidelity, we were bombarded with several variations of the same question. One person wrote, "I have confessed my sins to the Lord and truly experienced the joy of His forgiveness as I claimed His blessings, but I always thought I did not need to confess to my husband or to anyone. Am I wrong to believe that I'm completely forgiven of my sins even without having to confess this to my husband?"

Learn More About The Holy City

A fifteenth century map of the world which is housed in the Vatican shows Jerusalem as the center of the world, and from this place radiate lines to the various continents and major cities of the world. When I first saw that map, I smiled, but as I grew in understanding of how significant Jerusalem is to our world, no longer do my lips crease in amusement. The ancient cartographer who drew that map also knew something of the theological importance of Jerusalem.

Why Don’t Your Read Your Bible?

I was standing in an ancient Chinese temple, now a temple of the people, in Canton, China. As we listened to our guide tell how the Chinese people had been liberated from old religious beliefs, a young man who was studying English at the university approached a tourist to try out his English. He spoke pleasantly for a few minutes in broad generalities, and then asked, "Do you have a Bible?"

Is God Ignoring You?

David, the shepherd who became the King of Israel, once wrote, "I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread" (Psalm 37:25). Was David ever tempted to give up on the Lord? For seven long years he lived in exile, fearing that Saul or one of his zealous soldiers would take his life. He lived as a fugitive, often in desolation, uncertain that he would live to see the light of another day. Once he feigned mental illness, escaping his captor as a madman. On another occasion, the enemy raided David's home, taking the wives and children of those who fought with him.

Find The Melody In Your Soul

A pastor, thinking that he was being humorous, once introduced me, saying, "I've heard him eat and I've heard him sing, and I'd rather hear him eat than sing." It's no wonder we have become intimidated when it comes to anything much but singing in the shower where no one can hear.

Start Singing Your Praise To God

The Psalmist wrote that when Israel went into captivity in Babylon, "There on the poplars we hung our harps" (Psalm 137:2). In other words, the music stopped and the song was ended, but when they returned to their land, the harps came down and the music started again.

Can You Put Your Trust In God?

The lovely Galilee in Israel is approximately fifteen miles in length and averages some five to seven miles across. The entire Jordan valley is cradled in what was once a geographic or seismic rift that runs from the slopes of Mt. Hermon in the north to the Dead Sea some 1300 feet below sea level in the south. Galilee, however, is located about in the middle of that fault--about 700 feet below sea level.