Posts from August 2025 (Page 3)
Daily Devotions
By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.” vs. 3 Hebrews 11:1-3 Most ancient peoples have wild and convoluted stories about the creation of the world. In these tales’ gods and goddesses engaged in mythic struggles for power and position and in the process all things now seen came into existence. By contrast the Hebrew creation stories seem tame and orderly.…
Daily Devotions
Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.” vs. 22 Psalm 33:17-22 There is a lot of talk about love among people of faith. After all Jesus commanded his disciples to love both God and neighbor, and from the beginning his followers have done their best to do just that. And even John Lennon jumped on the bandwagon with his hit single, “All We Need Is Love.” There’s probably not a sermon that…
Daily Devotions
Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.” vs. 12 Psalm 33:12-17 The psalmist believed that the children of Israel were God’s chosen people. This sentiment appears regularly in the Hebrew scriptures and has continued to be the foundation of Judaism. Even today the nation of Israel sees itself as having that special relationship to the Lord, and there is a credible scriptural basis for that belief. Of course, those…
Daily Devotions
And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.” vs. 6 Genesis 15:1-6 It’s just a single verse from one of the ancestral stories in Genesis, yet these few words have had an outsized importance as believers have put together their story of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness. Paul used them as the linchpin of his letter to the Romans in his attempt to show that our salvation doesn’t depend on our obedience to works…
Daily Devotions
I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you.’” vss. 19-20a Luke 12:16-21 If any of the people in the crowd around Jesus were familiar with the book of Ecclesiastes, they would have realized that the truths contained in his parable on greed were found in its pages. While some of…
Daily Devotions
And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’” vs. 15 Luke 12:13-15 Jesus had narrowly avoided getting involved in a family dispute about an inheritance, an issue that’s been around ever since children began to wonder how their parents’ possessions would be distributed after their deaths. Of course, there are a myriad of laws to cover such occasions and thoughtful estate…
Daily Devotions
Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.” vss. 9-10 Colossians 3:9-11 It’s true, lying is not one of the Ten Commandments, yet there’s probably nothing more destructive to human relationships! And it comes so naturally to us. It’s one of the first things children learn how to do–and…