Daily Devotion - January 8, 2025

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. (John 13:14-15)

Many years ago, my wife, Kathy, and I were given a small wooden plaque that has become one of our most treasured possessions. Not because it’s made of anything fancy but because of the message it bears: “Home is where each lives for the other and all live for God.”

The plaque has survived multiple moves, an occasional bump, and even a few repairs, but remains on daily display. You see, after all these years, Kathy and I have discovered that our happiness has never been found in using one another. It’s found in using the resources and privileges God has given us to serve one another as Jesus served his disciples – and us! 

When we exercise the sacrificial love of Christ, we deepen our understanding of God’s care for us. And, as we discover and re-discover our own value to him, we are made more able and willing to share his love! True happiness comes from giving ourselves to each other, as Christ modeled his care.

Prayer: Jesus, I’m amazed that you, the Lord of heaven, would stoop to wash earth from the feet of others. Help me today to find the joy of serving others with such care, and in doing so discover and re-discover the depth of your care for me.

Daily Devotion - January 7, 2025

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16)

God’s Word is perfectly inspired by the Holy Spirit to reveal his eternal truth and our daily purposes. But we can read the words and still miss the intentions of God’s heart. For that reason, whenever we read a passage of Scripture, we need to put on our “gospel glasses!” 

We will read God’s true intention by reading every biblical text through lenses formed by two key questions:

The first is, “What does this passage tell me about the nature of God who provides redemption?”  And the second is, “What does this passage tell me about the nature of humanity that requires redemption?”

Or, more simply: “What does this text tell me about God?” And, “What does it tell me about myself?”  The answers to those questions will ultimately reveal a gap between us and God that only the grace of God can span to cover our sin and enable us to serve him.

Anyone can read the words of the Bible, but to see God’s heart, you have to put on your gospel glasses!

Prayer: Lord, as I read the Bible, make the truths inspired by your Holy Spirit be more than mere words on a page. Enable me to see the dimensions of your heart by helping me consistently put on the gospel glasses that reveal the grace you provide and I require.

Daily Devotion - January 6, 2025

I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (Ezek. 36:26)

For most of my friend’s adult life, he had tried to reach his harsh-talking and hard-hearted aunt with the message of Christ’s love. Still, the older woman’s heart seemed untouched. 

After she passed away, her family gathered to divide her belongings. The family surprisingly found a few religious books and decided they should go to my “religious” friend.  Yet, because the books reeked of tobacco and a stuffy house, he deposited them in his attic without looking inside.

Years later, he stumbled across the books, and found in one a handwritten letter from his aunt. In her own hand, she confessed her sins and claimed Jesus as her Savior. My friend was shocked. 

Though he would have said, “God can reach anyone,” he really didn’t expect that to happen with his aunt. Her letter convinced him anew that no matter how hard the heart, God’s grace is greater. He can take a stony heart and make it soft for Jesus. 

Real change is possible, and to be prayed for, because grace is real and powerful. Consider someone in your life whose heart you think is too hard for God. Pray for God to soften their hearts. He can. After all, he softened yours! 

Prayer: Lord, help me not to give up on sharing the gospel with those whose hearts seem hard, knowing that your Spirit can make a heart of stone soften and beat for Jesus.

Daily Devotion - January 3, 2025

Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Rom. 6:13-14)

Many of us struggle to reconcile our desire to please God with the fact that we still sin. We ask the question, “God, will I ever be able to please you?”

The Apostle Paul makes it clear in Romans 6 that we are no longer under the control of sin. The grace of God has brought new life that should no longer engage in sinful pursuits or passions. But with the should is also a can – a promise of new ability. 

Sin no longer has dominion over us; we are no longer slaves to sin. Yes, we all stumble and fall sometimes. But we do not have to remain defeated. We do not have to grovel in the dirt of our discouragement or surrender to repetitive failure. 

God has granted us new life that is not powerless to resist sin. We have been freed from the guilt and power of sin. So, instead of groveling, we focus on believing; instead of surrendering, we start anew.

We believe the Bible’s promise of power for a new life, rejecting Satan’s lie that there is no hope or help for us. Then, by believing we can, we start to live again in the power that is ours by Christ’s grace.  

Prayer: Lord, thank you for delivering me from slavery to sin. Help me really to believe in that deliverance so that I start this day presenting myself to you as one who has been brought from death to life in Christ.

Daily Devotion - January 2, 2025

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. (2 Cor. 1:3-4)

Every year the calendar starts over at January 1st. But just because the calendar changes doesn’t mean our circumstances do. Maybe you’re facing the affliction of a health scare or a financial hardship. Maybe you’re in a rocky relationship or have problems at work.

Whatever affliction you’re facing right now, do not think that it or its lessons are worthless. The comfort God provides in earthly difficulty becomes more real to those God intends us to reach because we have really known it. 

My wife tells of being unable to hear the thoughts of a famous speaker, until that woman sat in a chair and unknowingly revealed a shoe with a hole in the sole. Suddenly all the women listening knew that the woman speaking of God’s comfort through deprivation really knew what she was speaking about.

None of us should want affliction – or waste it. When we know more of God’s eternal comforts through our earthly afflictions, we are best able to share the truths of eternity with those needing God. 

Prayer: Father, you know the difficulties I’m experiencing and will provide as you know best for my eternity. May confidence in this grace give me comfort in affliction that you have prepared me to share with others in need!

Daily Devotion - January 1, 2025

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself. (Luke 10:27)

Love for God produces more love. That is why Jesus says love for God is the greatest commandment. When loving him is our highest priority and greatest desire, then we also love what and whom he loves. As a result, our love for God becomes the basis for living for him and caring for others.

The grace of God that stimulates such love for God will not allow us to settle into a cozy sweater of self-absorbed satisfaction that ignores a hurting world. A heart captivated by grace beats with God’s love and concern for his world.

That’s why Jesus commands us to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves. If we love God deeply, we will love our neighbors too, reflecting his love for us in the way that we love others. Because we love Jesus, we love all those he loves.

Prayer: Father, I know that we live in a hurting world. Please help me to sense deeply your grace toward me, so that as my heart responds in love for you, I will love all that you love.