Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
-1 Corinthians 13:4-7 & 13
Photo: Howard Knudsen
Well then, what shall I do? I will pray in the spirit, and I will also pray in words I understand. I will sing in the spirit, and I will also sing in words I understand. For if you praise God only in the spirit, how can those who don’t understand you praise God along with you? How can they join you in giving thanks when they don’t understand what you are saying? You will be giving thanks very well, but it won’t strengthen the people who hear you.
-1 Corinthians 14:15-17 NLT
Photo: K. Cieszkiewicz
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I saw an advertisement in a computer magazine with a photo of a guy shaving. It asked the question “Is it an alarm or a calling that gets you out of bed in the morning?” That is a very good question. What do you live for? What makes you tick? What do you get up for in the morning?
All of us have something or someone we live for. Some passion, ideal, that drives us on, giving our lives purpose, some sense of meaning, raising it above the level of mere existence. We don’t want our lives on this earth to be some temporary “blip on the screen.”
Paul’s passion was Jesus. The apostle wrote, in Philippians 1:21, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Paul of course used to be known as the notorious Christian killer, Saul of Tarsus. But Saul met the risen Lord on the Damascus road and had his life forever changed. Now he would serve Jesus with as much passion as he once served Satan. Can you imagine what a different world we’d live in if more Christians served the Lord with the same level of commitment that they used to serve the devil with?
There are two questions every believer should ask. Saul asked two questions on the day of his conversion. “Who are you, Lord?” and “What will you have me to do?” Those would be great questions for you to personally ask Jesus today. Let that calling to serve Him get you up in the morning instead of an alarm clock. He has a plan and purpose for you today!
– Greg Laurie
I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve. After that, he was seen by more than 500 of his followers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he was seen by James and later by all the apostles.
-1 Corinthians 15:3-7 NLT
Photo: Alan Bird
Does anyone keep their promises today? With marriages imploding and children left parentless, does anyone stand by their word for the long haul? Are commitments ever for keeps? What’s the key to perseverance? For followers of Jesus, the answer is clear. I will not falter: God is watching.
If you’re walking in God’s strength by faith and embracing His promises, you’re not going to falter. Isaiah 43:1 is one of the most treasured promises to God’s children in all of His Word: “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’”
In order to make this promise our own, it is helpful to understand the setting. God’s people were being judged (Isaiah 42). They were wayward and rebellious, and God was done with their attitude. He was putting some heavy consequences on them.
Look at all of Isaiah 42 and you will see their failure and the resulting fallout (vv. 18, 22, 24-25). God admitted, through Isaiah, I piled all this on you and you’re still not getting it. Judgment is the background to the comfort that begins in the first verse of Isaiah 43. Knowing Israel’s situation and their desperation helps us recognize the priceless value of God’s promise. That same promise can keep us from faltering.
How? Consider this: Redemption is one of the greatest doctrines in the Bible. We see its most glorious application on the cross of Jesus Christ. Before God interrupted your life, you were a slave to sin and had no way out. You owed a debt you could not pay—not even partially or over time. You were bankrupt: morally, ethically, and spiritually broke. But Christ showed up and redeemed you. He settled your debt. He paid the price so you could be set free.
So, don’t be afraid, God says. You had the worst possible problem, which required the greatest imaginable sacrifice, and I took care of it. You think it’s all over because you’ve got some problems? I redeemed you just as surely as I redeemed Israel. I know you by name. You are mine. What will I not do for you now? Fear not!
Small problems seem big to us, but we’re not God. He is completely aware of all you face and every situation in which you find yourself. God allows you to go through a trial to change you and to bring glory to Himself. It’s not going to go on forever. It’s not going to get too deep. It’s not going to get too hot. So you need not falter. God is watching—and that is an exceedingly great and precious promise!
– James MacDonald
Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong. And do everything with love.
-1 Corinthians 16:13-14 NLT
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It’s the great company at the party in Titanic that brings such happy tears. It’s the boys making it safely home in Apollo 13. It’s Maximus reunited with his family. So the fellowship finds Gandalf alive—no longer Gandalf the Grey, fallen beyond recovery in the mines of Moria, but Gandalf the White, whom death can never touch again. So Frodo and Sam are rescued from the slopes of Mount Doom, and when they wake, it is to a bright new morn. This is our future.
After he laid down his life for us, Jesus was laid in a tomb. He was buried just like any other dead person. Family and friends mourned. Enemies rejoiced. And most of the world went on with business as usual, clueless to the Epic around them. Then, after three days, also at dawn, his story took a sudden and dramatic turn.
Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?” But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples . . . ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.'” (Mark 16:2-7)
Jesus came back. He showed up again. He was restored to them. He walked into the house where they had gathered to comfort one another in their grief and asked if they had anything to eat. It was the most stunning, unbelievable, happiest ending to a story you could possibly imagine. And it is also ours.
– John Eldredge, Epic
Photo: Diane Rollins
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: beauty, Bible, books, Christ, Christian, earth, enviroment, faith, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, life, literature, love, mountains, nature, personal, photography, photos, rainbow, Ransomed Heart, salvation, survival, utah
As surely as God is faithful, our word to you does not waver between “Yes” and “No.” For Jesus Christ, the Son of God, does not waver between “Yes” and “No.” He is the one whom Silas, Timothy, and I preached to you, and as God’s ultimate “Yes,” he always does what he says. For all of God’s promises have been fulfilled in Christ with a resounding “Yes!” And through Christ, our “Amen” (which means “Yes”) ascends to God for his glory.
-2 Corinthians 1:18-20 NLT
Photo: BLM
Time has come for us to forgive our fathers. Paul warns us that unforgiveness and bitterness can wreck our lives and the lives of others (Eph. 4:31; Heb. 12:15). I am sorry to think of all the years my wife endured the anger and bitterness that I redirected at her from my father. As someone has said, forgiveness is setting a prisoner free and then discovering the prisoner was you. I found some help in Bly’s experience of forgiving his own father, when he said, “I began to think of him not as someone who had deprived me of love or attention or companionship, but as someone who himself had been deprived, by his father and his mother and by the culture.” My father had his own wound that no one ever offered to heal. His father was an alcoholic, too, for a time, and there were some hard years for my dad as a young man just as there were for me.
Now you must understand: Forgiveness is a choice. It is not a feeling, but an act of the will. As Neil Anderson has written, “Don’t wait to forgive until you feel like forgiving; you will never get there. Feelings take time to heal after the choice to forgive is made.” We allow God to bring the hurt up from our past, for “if your forgiveness doesn’t visit the emotional core of your life, it will be incomplete.” We acknowledge that it hurt, that it mattered, and we choose to extend forgiveness to our father. This is not saying, “It didn’t really matter”; it is not saying, “I probably deserved part of it anyway.” Forgiveness says, “It was wrong, it mattered, and I release you.”
And then we ask God to father us, and to tell us our true name.
– John Eldredge, Wild at Heart
Photo: Neil
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: beauty, books, Christ, faith, Father, forgiveness, God, John Eldredge, life, literature, love
But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this?
-2 Corinthians 2:14-16 NLT
Photo: Andrew Ackerman
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: Alaska, beauty, Bible, Christ, earth, faith, Gates of the Artic, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, life, love, mountains, National Park, nature, personal, photography, photos, salvation, survival
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