Daily Devotions

What could be a greater, higher honour than to be a chosen instrument for the most important renewal project in the universe—redemption? Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always,to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:16-20) Christ’s commission to the disciples is his commission to the church and is his plan for the life of every single believer. No one has been chosen to be just a recipient of the redemptive work of his kingdom. No, everyone who has been chosen to be a recipient has also been commissioned to be an instrument of the work of that kingdom as well. The work of evan...

Fish were designed to swim, the sun to shine, and you to worship God. Grace welcomes you back to what you were designed for—worship. Read Deuteronomy 10:12-22 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+10%3A12-22&version=NIV If someone were to ask you what the ultimate, final goal of God’s grace is, what would you answer? What is God’s grace working to accomplish? God’s grace can make you more financially wise. God’s grace can make you a better citizen and neighbour. God’s grace can help you to make better decisions in life. God’s grace can assist you to communicate in a way that is less selfish and more loving toward others. God's grace can help you to think more about the future and rescue you from living just for the here and now. God's grace can make you more thankful and a better steward of what you have been given. God’s grace can cause you to be a wiser and more patient parent. God’s grace can help you to forge a healthier marriage. God’s grace can enab...

Grace frees you from faking what you don’t have and boasting about what you didn’t earn. Read Matthew 6:1-4 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206%3A1-4&version=NIV Faking is a big part of the culture of fallen humanity. Maybe you fake it when you tell a story in such a way that it makes you way more of a hero than when the incident actually happened. Perhaps you fake it when you make your job seem more important than it really is. Maybe you fake it when you finagle your way into buying a house that is way pricier than you can responsibly afford. Maybe you fake it when you try to work your way into friendships with people who are far more affluent and positioned than you'll ever be. Perhaps your fakery is best seen when you act as if you have much more theological understanding than you really have or are much more committed to ministry than you really are. Perhaps you fake it when you present your marriage as being far more mature and peaceful than it’s ever ...

Since by grace God forgives, it makes no sense to hide, excuse, or shift the blame when you are faced with your sin. Read Philippians 3:1-11 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+3%3A1-11&version=NIV Here's the bottom line when it comes to moral candour— denial is not just a river in Egypt! Denial is rooted in fear and confession is rooted in hope. You cannot embrace the radical hope of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ and make sense out of our drive to present ourselves as less than needy. But that instinct is alive and well in many of us. When faced with our sin, we immediately excuse ourselves or shift the blame. When our consciences bother us, we hide the wrong that we have done like Adam and Eve hiding from God in the garden, or we try to convince ourselves that what we did was not so bad after all. Now, because God’s world is so big, there will always be places to hide, and because you live in a world that doesn’t operate as God intended, th...

Why would you be afraid when in Christ you have been completely accepted, eternally forgiven, and richly supplied? Read Philippians 4:10-20 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+4%3A10-20&version=NIV What are the three questions that everyone has asked and is in some way haunted by? 1. Will I be loved? 2. Will people tolerate me once they really get to know me? 3. Will I have what I need to live? In some way, everyone fears rejection, judgment, and poverty. In some way, every person who has ever lived is on a hunt for love and scared to death that he won't find it. That’s why a good love story is always so popular. In some way, everyone fears judgment. She fears the hammer will come down on her because she has failed to measure up and she will spend her life paying for her crimes. That’s why mercy and forgiveness stories quickly get our attention and hit us so deeply. In some way, everyone is afraid of being poor. We're all afraid of not having the provis...

Don’t be discouraged today. No matter how alone you feel, you've been blessed with the Father's love. Read Hebrews 5:1-5 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews+5%3A1-5&version=NIV Do you feel alone today? Are there ways in which you feel alienated and unloved? Do you feel misrepresented or misunderstood? Do you feel passed by and taken for granted? Do you feel broken and in need of repair? Do you struggle to find reasons to continue? Do you wonder if it’s worth it? Does it seem that there’s no one to share your heart with? Do you sometimes wonder whether anyone cares? When the waves of loneliness and discouragement roll over you, where do you run, where do you hide? I love the depiction of God’s tender care in Isaiah 42:3: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.”  What a beautiful word picture! Imagine walking through the bush and coming across a young tree with a bent and almost broken limb hanging at a rather grotes...

God will call you to do what you cannot do, but will provide everything you need to doit. Read Nehemiah 6 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Nehemiah+6&version=NIV Noah didn’t have the power to get all those animals into that ark, but the Lord provided what was necessary for it to happen. Joseph didn’t have the ability to preserve his life and put himself in a position of power in Egypt, but the Lord made it happen. Moses didn’t have what it takes to free the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt, but the Lord empowered him to lead them to the Promised Land. The Israelites didn’t have the means to get across the Red Sea, but the Lord parted the waters for them. The pilgrims in the wilderness had no means of feeding and sustaining themselves, but the Lord provided everything they needed. The children of Israel had no means of defeating the walled city of Jericho, but the Lord gave them victory. David had no personal power to overcome Goliath, but the Lord gave him cou...

Corporate worship is designed to move the meditation of your heart from self-centred complaint to God-glorifying praise. Read Philippians 4:4-9 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians+4%3A4-9&version=NIV Every day of your life you will find reasons to complain and every day of your life you will have reasons to be thankful. These two themes, complaint and gratitude, pull at the heart of each of us. They form fundamentally different ways of viewing the world because they are rooted in fundamentally different ways of viewing yourself. What is your default langauge? Do you find it easier to complain than to give thanks? Is grumbling the ambient noise of your existence? Are you easily irritated and quickly impatient? Do mundane things get under your skin? Would the people who live nearest to you characterise you as a thankful person or a complaining person? Do you look at your world and find yourself blown away at the many reasons you have every day to give thanks?...

Grace doesn’t help you just to do different things but to become a totally different person by changing you at the level of your heart. I want to refer you right now to one of the Bible’s best-known prayers of confession. The problem is that it’s so familiar to most of us that we've quit giving it the examination that it requires in order for us to receive from it the rescue that it offers. The confession is David's in Psalm 51:1-12: 1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. 5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. 6 Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me...

Sin causes me to be all too convinced of my righteousness and too focused on your sin. Read Revelation 2-3 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+2-3&version=NIV It’s a searing rebuke, hard words that capture the scary self-righteousness of sin: And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: “The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation. “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, Iam rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realising that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be z...

Justification is the only foundation for personal transformation. Personal transformation never results in justification. Read Ephesians 1:3-14 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+1%3A3-14&version=NIV “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself up for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works” (Titus 2:11-14). You could not find a more confronting, humbling, and encouraging passage. First, it confronts us with this reality—there is no way we can win acceptance with God by means of self-reformation and acts of righteousness. Our relationship with God is always the result of his initiative and not ours. He g...

You were hardwired to depend on God, so your dreams of self-reliance and self-sufficiency will prove to be more nightmares than dreams. Read James 3:13-16 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+3%3A13-16&version=NIV Why is it so hard for so many of us to ask for help? Why is it so difficult for us to admit that we don’t know things? Why do we attempt to do things that we’ve never done before without seeking instruction? Why is it so hard for us to admit that we can’t make it on our own? Why do we struggle to own our weakness and our ignorance? Why do children resist the instruction of their parent? Why do workers hate to be told what to do by their bosses? Why do we not like to ask for directions? Why do we work so hard to present ourselves as more ready, knowledgeable, and capable than we really are? Why do we often push people away when they are offering assistance? Why do we tell people that we’re okay when we're not? Why do we act as if we can solve things that ...

Life in this fallen world is hard. That’s why you need a community of love. Read Romans 12 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+12&version=NIV One of the themes that courses through the New Testament and is a repeated theme of these devotions is that your walk with God is designed by God to be a community project. Anonymous, consumerist, isolated, independent, self-sufficient, “Jesus and me” Christianity is a distant and distorted facsimile of the faith of the New Testament. You and I simply were not created (“It is not good that the man should be alone”; Gen. 2:18) or re-created in Jesus Christ (“For the body does not consist of one member but of many”; 1 Cor. 12:14) to live all by ourselves. The biblical word pictures of temple (stones joined together to be a place where God dwells) and body (each member dependent on the function of the other) decimate any idea that healthy Christianity can live outside of essential community. Yet many, many believers live thei...

You once desired it, but now you're persuaded that you need it. Once you've named it a need, it has you. Read 1 Cor 10:1-13 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2010:1-13&version=NIV It may be the sloppiest, most all-inclusive word used in human language: need. We put far too many things into our “need” category. That’s why Jesus reminds us that we have a heavenly Father who knows exactly what we need (see Matthew 6). Embedded in that reminder are both a comfort and a confrontation. The comfort is that there is One who once created and now controls everything that is, and who has unleashed his awesome power so that you and I may receive from his hand every good thing that we need to be what we were designed to be and to do what we have been called to do. No need has been unmet by his gracious hands. But this statement also carries with it a humbling rebuke. We need a heavenly Father who knows what we need, because we don’t. We get want and need confu...

You always approach life with a mindset of some kind. Scripture says there are only two possibilities: “on earth” or “above.” Read Acts 17 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+17&version=NIV You think. You never stop thinking. You think much more than you are aware of. Your thinking influences you more than you know. The moment you stop thinking, you're dead. But here’s what we all need to understand—our thinking is never neutral. All our thinking has deeply religious roots. All our thinking is shaped by the way we are answering the major questions of life. Everyone thinks about these questions and everyone answers them in some way. One time, after telling someone what I do, they responded: “I don’t believe in the Bible and I’m surprised that people still do. In fact, I don’t think there is any such thing as truth that you can lay on someone else.” I said, “But you just did—you just very confidently laid a truth on me.” From there, we launched into a conversation t...

As God's child, you don't sit and wait for hope. No, grace makes it possible for you to get up and live in hope. Read Ephesians 2:11-22 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+2%3A11-22&version=NIV Gospel hope is a mouthful. It includes so many wonderful provisions that it’s hard to get it all in one bite. Yes, biblical hope gives you a lot of spiritual nutrients to chew on. Yet many believers seem to live hope-deprived lives. Perhaps one of the dirty secrets of the church is how much we do out of fear and not faith. We permit ourselves to feel small, unable, alone, unprepared, and bereft of resources. We tell ourselves that what we’re facing is too big and requires too much of us. We stand at the bottom of mountains of trouble and give up before we've taken the first step of the climb. We wait for hope to come in some noticeable, seeable way, but it never seems to arrive. We pray, but it doesn’t seem to do any good. We want to believe that God is there a...

The grace you've been given is not just the grace of forgiveness and acceptance - it’s also the grace of empowerment. So get up and follow. Read Exodus 6:1-9 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+6%3A1-9&version=NIV In the life of the believer, fear of weakness amounts to God-forgetfulness. Timidity is a failure to remember the promises of the gospel. Allowing yourself to be overwhelmed in the face of the call of God is forgetting the right here, right now grace of Jesus Christ. Giving way to temptation is overlooking the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit. You not only have been forgiven by the grace of the gospel and guaranteed a place in eternity with your Saviour, but you also have been granted by that very same grace all that you need to be what God has called you to be and to do the things God has called you to do in the place where he has put you. So here’s how this works. God has promised to supply and empower - your job is to follow him by faith where...

Weakness is the window to strength. Confessing your inability produces hunger for the power that is only ever found in Jesus. Read Exodus 15:1-18 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+15%3A1-18&version=NIV I have said it many, many times and I will say it more than once in this devotional—our problem is not our weakness; God’s grace is up to the task. Our problem is our delusions of strength that keep us from seeking the grace that strengthens us in our weakness. We just don’t like to be weak. We don't like to think of ourselves that way, and we don’t want others to see us that way. So we act as if we know things that we don’t know, and we don’t ask the questions we need to ask. We act as if we can handle things that we can’t handle, and we don’t seek the help that’s available. We act as if we’ve conquered things that we have not conquered, and we don’t reach out for help for the battle. It is all a failed quest for the self-congratulatory glory of independence. B...

Corporate worship is designed to turn your heart from the shadow glories of creation to the one glory that will satisfyit. Read Deuteronomy 9 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+9&version=NIV It was a warning to the children of Israel, but it is one we all need to hear and heed: And when the Lorn your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you—for the Lorp your God in your midst is a jealous ...

If the righteousness of Christ allows me to stand before a holy God utterly unafraid, why should I be haunted by what you think of me? Read Psalm 121 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+121&version=NIV So many people live with a great big gap right smack dab in the middle of their gospel, and they don’t know it. I did for years. Most Christians have a basic understanding of salvation past, that is, the grace of forgiveness that they have received because of the broken body and shed blood of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ. And most Christians tend to look forward with anticipation toward salvation future, that is, the grace of an endless eternity of complete peace and harmony lived in the presence of the forever glory and grace of the triune God. But, sadly, many, many Christians have little understanding of salvation present, that is, the benefits of the work of Jesus Christ right here, right now. It is vitally important that we understand the nowism of the gosp...