Guidelines For Living Devotional

4 Questions For Disciplining Your Child

Divide and conquer is not only the modus operandi of warfare, but it is also the strategy of kids who know that if they can play parents against each other, or pit weariness against the single parent, they have won the battle. Our English word discipline comes from a Latin word, discere, which means to know, or, in the broader sense, to discern.

3 Helpful Tips When You Start To Worry

"Do you know the difference between a lawyer and God?" asks a comedian, and when someone says, "No, what?" he responds, "God knows he's not a lawyer." While most folks (excluding you, who are attorneys) may smile at that, a great many people today tend to play god. Struggling over the issue of control, we think that we have to make things happen, and when we can't, we worry. And when we can't change things that we dislike, we become afraid of losing control so we worry all the more and live as though there were no God in the universe, no one to whom we can turn when we have reached our human limits.

Learn To Let Go Of Bitterness And Move Towards Forgiveness

When Terry Anderson was taken captive by a guerilla group, little did he realize that he would be enduring what no one should ever be subjected to. Anderson, age 40
at the time, had been the chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press.   Soon after he was taken captive, he was given a Bible by his Shiite Muslim captors, and for the duration of his four-and-a-half-years of captivity, he drew strength and hope from the pages of this grand old book.

How To Deal With Anger

Everybody these days is subject to stress. Whether you live in Manila, Tokyo, or Los Angeles, you live at a faster pace than at any time in history. It's the traffic, the pressures and stress of life, along with family stress that can cause you to reach the boiling point, and when that happens, you explode. You can refine the expression and say that you are just "letting off steam," but any way you look at it, anger has the best of you. When your temper gets out of hand, you are embarrassed and feel disappointed with yourself because you know you have hurt others. Looking at it from a selfish viewpoint, you not only hurt others, but you hurt yourself and your future as well.

God Hears Your Cries and Prayers

There are times when I wish everybody would get it together and do the same thing everywhere--like pass an international law that all the water faucets in all the world would be standardized--hot water on the left, cold on the right. Red for hot and blue for cold, and that all of them would turn on and off the same way. Do any color combination the United Nations wants! Just do the same thing everywhere.

Is Your Life Spiritually Bound?

When Jesus was accused by the Pharisees of casting out demons by the power of the devil, He countered with a question: “If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then,” he asked, “can his kingdom stand?” (Matthew 12:26). As He often did, Jesus had asked a rhetorical question which forced a decision. He followed with another hard-to-answer question, “how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can rob his house” (Matthew 12:29). “Bind the strong man,” is another translation.

Be Steadfast and Unmovable

The difference between an oak and a bonsai--apart from their size--is the root system. Whereas the bonsai may be interesting, perhaps even curiously captivating, it is the oak that has strength which endures the test of time and is there after the fire, the drought, and the storm.

Begin Resting In God Today

The Dead Sea is five times saltier than ocean water; and consequently, it’s almost impossible for someone to drown in it.  A certain visitor to the area, not knowing this, fell off a pier into the water and wildly began to flail his arms and legs because he couldn’t swim. 

What Does Consecration Mean?

There's a bit of doggerel which says, "Three moves are as good as a fire," and anyone who has packed his possessions more than twice in a given year mumbles to himself, saying things such as, "What in the world am I keeping this for?" Nonetheless, you keep that old stuff--just in case you might need it some day.

What Does It Mean To Commit Your Life To Jesus Christ?

William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was once asked. “What’s your secret?” Booth thought pensively for a moment and said, “God has had all there was of me!” Few can really say that. But some can, with all honesty and candor. One of my spiritual heroes, Dwight L. Moody, could have said the same thing. He was known for the declaration, “The world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to Him. I will strive to be that man.”