Daily Devotions by Steve Holm (Page 118)
Daily Devotions: July 13, 2020
July 13, 2020 Isaiah 44:6-8 … “Do not fear, or be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? You are my witnesses! Is there any god besides me? There is no other rock; I know not one.” vs. 8 The Prophet had what we might call a ‘confident faith’. Not only did he believe in God, he had a name for God—the one God was none other than the God of Israel, the God who…
Daily Devotions: July 12, 2020
July 12, 2020 Matthew 13:18-23 … “As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing.” vs. 22 The interpretation of the Parable of the Sower in Matthew’s Gospel shifts the attention from the seed, and it becomes the parable of the differing soils. As such, it is an amazingly precise description of the four ways in…
Daily Devotions: July 11, 2020
July 11, 2020 Matthew 13:1-9 … “Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” vs. 8 Some of the more practical minded folks among us might wonder why the sower didn’t throw all the seed on good ground. That way all the seed would produce and the crop would be multiplied. That makes sense, but misses the point. The parable isn’t about agricultural practices, it’s about the way God operates in…
Daily Devotions: July 10, 2020
July10, 2020 Romans 8:7-11 … “But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” vs. 10 For Paul it was obvious: If we are in Christ Jesus, then Christ is also in us. And this is our hope and our joy. Even though, because of the worldwide sin pandemic, we cannot even be close to perfect, our inner Christ brings resurrection and life. As Jesus put it so…
Daily Devotions: July 9, 2020
July 9, 2020 Romans 8:1-6 … “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” vss. 1-2 Paul’s argument—as he lays out the Gospel to the Romans, can seem convoluted and cumbersome; it certainly isn’t as simple as we might like it. But he’s very clear about the essence of the Good News…
Daily Devotions: July 8, 2020
July 8, 2020 Psalm 65:13-15 … “the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain, they shout and sing together for joy.” vs. 13 The Psalmist imagines all of creation living in a perpetual harmony, with each part recognizing the goodness of the other. In this vision of the peaceable kingdom, the meadows provide food for the flocks and the valleys joyfully bring grain, while humans work as stewards and caretakers. When all the parts work together,…
Daily Devotions: July 7, 2020
July 7, 2020 Psalm 65:9-10 … “You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; you provide the people with grain, for so you have prepared it.” vs. 9 For much of our existence, humans lived close to nature and were familiar with the rhythms of the seasons. They saw God connections clearly and recognized the presence of the Lord in the tilling of crops and the watering of the…
Daily Devotions: July 6, 2020
July 6, 2020 Isaiah 55:10-13 … “For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” vs. 12 When the Prophet brought the word of the Lord to the returned exiles, they had a hard time believing that the nation could ever be restored to its former glory. And to think that the nation of…
Daily Devotions: July 5, 2020
July 5, 2020 Matthew 11:25-30 … “At that time Jesus said, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants;’” vs. 30 These words from Jesus remind us that not everyone was excited about his ministry to the least and the lost. It seems that those cities most closely tied to the Jewish traditions and the teaching of the elders had a…
Daily Devotions: July 4, 2020
July 4, 2020 Matthew 11:16-19 … “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’” vss. 16-17 Jesus marveled at the fickleness of the crowds that he encountered. They were never satisfied and always critical in their assessments of those God had sent to them. They called John demonic and…
Daily Devotions: July 3, 2020
July 3, 2020 Romans 7:15-25a … “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” vs. 24-25a Paul had gotten caught up in what we might call ‘dualistic thinking’ and it was driving him crazy. He describes himself as being caught between the law of God, which was what he wanted to do, and the law of sin, which dictated his actions. When he wanted to…
Daily Devotions: July 2, 2020
July 2, 2020 Psalm 145:11-14 … “The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down.” vs. 14 Through the centuries we’ve had varying attitudes about God and some very different definitions of God’s being. Those ideas even change within the course of a lifetime, as most all of us can testify. When we were children we probably tended to attach human attributes to God, making God a kind of a ‘superman in the sky.’…