Forever Flowers
As the Israelites faced continual trials, Isaiah comforted them with confidence in God’s enduring words (40:1).
As a toddler, my son Xavier enjoyed giving me flowers. I appreciated every freshly picked weed or store-bought blossom he purchased with his dad. I treasured each gift until it wilted and had to be thrown away.
One day, Xavier gave me a beautiful bouquet of artificial flowers. He grinned as he arranged the silk white calla lily, yellow sunflower, and purple hydrangea in a glass vase. “Look, Mommy,” he said. “They’ll last forever. That’s how much I love you.”
Since then, my boy has grown into a young man. Those silk petals have frayed. The colors have faded. Still, the Forever Flowers remind me of his adoration. And there is something else it brings to mind—one thing that truly stands forever—the limitless and lasting love of God, as revealed in His infallible and enduring Word (Isa. 40:8).
As the Israelites faced continual trials, Isaiah comforted them with confidence in God’s enduring words (40:1). He proclaimed that God paid the debt caused by the Israelites’ sin (v. 2), securing their hope in the coming Messiah (vv. 3–5). They trusted the prophet because his focus remained on God rather than their circumstances.
In a world filled with uncertainties and affliction, the opinions of man and even our own feelings are ever-shifting and as limited as our mortality (vv. 6–7). Still, we can trust God’s unchanging love and character as revealed through His constant and eternally true Word.
Source: Our Daily Bread
Written By: Xochitl Dixon
True Freedom
The believers in Jesus in the young church in Corinth saw their freedom in Christ as an opportunity to pursue personal interests. But Paul wrote that they should view it as an opportunity to benefit and build up others.
While reading on the train, Meiling was busy highlighting sentences and jotting down notes in the margins of her book. But a conversation between a mother and child seated nearby stopped her. The mom was correcting her child for doodling in her library book. Meiling quickly put her pen away, not wanting the toddler to ignore her mother’s words by following Meiling’s example. She knew that the child wouldn’t understand the difference between damaging a loaned book and making notes in one you owned.
Meiling’s actions reminded me of the apostle Paul’s inspired words in 1 Corinthians 10:23–24: “ ‘I have the right to do anything,’ you say—but not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything’—but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.”
The believers in Jesus in the young church in Corinth saw their freedom in Christ as an opportunity to pursue personal interests. But Paul wrote that they should view it as an opportunity to benefit and build up others. He taught them that true freedom isn’t the right to do as one pleases, but the liberty to do as they should for God.
We follow in Jesus’ footsteps when we use our freedom to choose building others up instead of serving ourselves.
Written By: Poh Fang Chia
Quiet Walk
When we are obedient to God, nothing can touch us that does not come from God Himself.
Exodus 14
The Lord parts the Red Sea for the children of Israel.
INSIGHT
When we are obedient to God, nothing can touch us that does not come from God Himself. The armies of Egypt, symbolic of the armies of Satan, are no match for a God jealous to care for His beloved people. Resting in God's full protection in spiritual warfare, we may put on His full armor and stand firm, knowing that we will triumph in Him.
· Offer this psalm of praise to our forgiving God:
The Lord is righteous in all His ways,
Gracious in all His works,
The Lord is near to all who call upon Him,
To all who call upon Him in truth.
He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him;
He also will hear their cry and save them.
My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord;
And all flesh shall bless His holy name
Forever and ever
(Psalms 145:17-19).
· Now pray this confession to the Lord to keep your life free from sin and in fellowship with Him:
Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord;
Lord, hear my voice!
Let Your ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplications.
If You, Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with You,
That You may be feared
(Psalms 130:1-4).
· Voice your affirmation of God's Word:
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart,
All you who hope in the Lord
(Psalms 31:24).
Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous;
And shout for joy, all you upright in heart!
(Psalms 32:11).
· As you make your requests known to the Lord, pray for:
· greater commitment to the Lord,
· the hungry around the world,
· your prayer list.
· Now offer this prayer of worship to the Lord:
The Lord will command His
lovingkindness in the daytime,
And in the night His song shall be with me-
A prayer to the God of my life
(Psalms 42:8).
Source: Crosswalk
Blessed Repentance
For the next thirty years, the man who didn’t think he’d live to see forty lived and served God as a changed believer in Jesus. His license plates changed too—from “BROKE” to “REPENT.”
“BROKE” was the street name Grady answered to and those five letters were proudly emblazoned on his license plates. Though not intended in a spiritual sense, the moniker fit the middle-aged gambler, adulterer, and deceiver. He was broken, bankrupt, and far from God. However, all that changed one evening when he was convicted by God’s Spirit in a hotel room. He told his wife, “I think I’m getting saved!” That evening he confessed sins he thought he’d take with him to the grave and came to Jesus for forgiveness. For the next thirty years, the man who didn’t think he’d live to see forty lived and served God as a changed believer in Jesus. His license plates changed too—from “BROKE” to “REPENT.”
Repent. That’s what Grady did and that’s what God called Israel to do in Hosea 14:1–2. “Return, Israel, to the Lord your God. . . . Take words with you and return to the Lord. Say to him: ‘Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously.’ ” Big or small, few or many, our sins separate us from God. But the gap can be closed by turning from sin to God and receiving the forgiveness He’s graciously provided through the death of Jesus. Whether you’re a struggling believer in Christ or one whose life looks like Grady’s did, your forgiveness is only a prayer away.
Written By: Arthur Jackson
Source: Our Daily Bread
The Resurrection of Jesus and Watergate
“In Watergate 12 of the most powerful men in the world couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks! (but) 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible!”
Christians claim the resurrection actually happened. While other religions are based on untestable spiritual claims independent of history, the claim to a historical resurrection opens Christianity up to scrutiny. “If this did not happen,” says Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, “the whole thing is false and we are pathetic… “(that’s my paraphrase).
The most likely alternative to the resurrection story is the disciples invented it, but that doesn’t make sense. If you’re making up a story like that, you’d make it a spiritual resurrection not a bodily one! And, it would’ve been easy to produce a body and end the whole charade.
And finally, as Chuck Colson learned from his Watergate experience, “12 men testified they’d seen Jesus raised from the dead, proclaimed that for 40 years, never once denying it,” despite beatings and torture. “In Watergate 12 of the most powerful men in the world couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks! (but) 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible!”
That’s because they were telling the truth.
Written By: John Stonestreet