Daily Devotion - July 8, 2025

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
(Eph. 6:10-11)

When my daughter was five, she decided to play soccer with her older siblings and cousins at a family gathering. Very quickly in the game, she was accidentally tripped and trampled by the larger kids. 

She ran off in tears, determined never again to enter the family fray. But, once I scooped her up in my arms, hugged her to my chest, and re-entered the game, she begged to play more. 

She shrieked with laughter, as we ran together. And with confidence in her security restored, she became our most zealous team member – held in my arms for the rest of the game.

Similarly, we gain strength and zeal for life’s spiritual battles, when we know we are securely held in the Lord’s arms. Our strength is in his might.

Knowledge that we are secure in the grasp of the One who is Lord over all gives us the will to fight for him – and even to re-enter the fray after taking a fall, because we are in the embrace of great grace.

Prayer: Lord, I know that life is full of spiritual battles. May the power of your might enable me to stand firm and fight for you, knowing I’m secure in your sovereign care.

Daily Devotion - July 7, 2025

“I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name forever! (Psalm 34:1b-3) 

Have you ever tried praising God when you are in a trial? It’s not the natural thing to do. It’s also not a fake spirituality that denies real pain. Yet, praise helps us measure and meet trials by reminding us how God sovereignly uses them to help us treasure him. 

When God’s greatness and goodness fill our thoughts, fears drain from our hearts. As others have said, “When our God is small, our troubles are large; but when our God is large, our troubles are small.” 

Praise focuses our minds on the greatness of God, so we sense afresh how wise, powerful, and loving he is – more than a match for any trial. Such praise does not require that we believe our troubles are small, only that we remember our God is greater. 

Praise doesn’t erase trials but equips us for them. Praise does not dry all tears but helps us see beyond them. Praise renews the resources we need to endure. There will be nothing lacking that we need to stand for God when we utter the praises that make him present and powerful in our hearts (Psalm 22:3).

The testing of our faith, when it stirs us to praise God for his greatness and goodness, produces steadfastness in us because we become focused on the One who is steadfast (James 1:2-4). Since he will never fail, our trials cannot prevail. 

Prayer: Father, I don’t enjoy the temporary trials and painful difficulties in my life, but I praise you that they help me to become more steadfast for the One who is always steadfast. Let my praise focus my heart on your greatness.

Daily Devotion - July 4, 2025

Let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe. (Heb. 12:28)

Press Secretary Tony Snow was fifty-three when he died. Snow, a Christian, had terminal cancer while in office under President George W. Bush. Despite his affliction, Snow was eloquent about how God works in a fallen world. 

He wrote, “We want our lives to be a simple, smooth trail as far as the eye can see, but God likes to venture off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns, and he places predicaments in our lives that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension. Yet, we do not deny him.”1

Why not? According to Snow, it’s not because God makes life easy. A life of belief teems with thrills, dangers, shocks, reversals, and triumphs. The reason we endure is not that God promises us endless earthly tomorrows; rather, he promises an eternity filled with love and life beyond anything we can comprehend. 

Our God will do (or allow) whatever shaking is needed in our lives on earth for us to clasp the hand that will hold us securely for his eternal kingdom that cannot be shaken.

Prayer: Jesus, when I encounter difficulties and hardships that shake me, help me to cling to the hand that will hold me securely for the unshakable kingdom you promise.

1 Tony Snow, “Cancer’s Unexpected Blessings”, Christianity Today, July 20, 2007, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/july25.30html?paging=off.

2 Andrew Branch, “Winning while losing”, World Magazine, February 7, 2015, https://world.wng.org/2015/01/winning_while_losing

Daily Devotion - July 3, 2025

The Lord of hosts has sworn:
“As I have planned,so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.” (Isaiah 14:24)

The nightly news can discourage us with accounts of violent crime, social injustice, natural calamity, viral disease, global terrorism, and human foolishness.

Evil is real, but it never thwarts God’s ultimate purpose. Despite earthly wrongs, our God reigns. Time and again in Scripture, evil appears to prevail from a human perspective, but God is not dismayed. He is never surprised. He never says, “Oops.”

Never was this more clear than at Christ’s crucifixion. Had you or I stood at the foot of the cross, we would have cried, “God stop this. It is wrong!” It was evil, but it was not wrong. It was God’s intention to offer his Son in sacrifice for our sin (Is. 53:10). 

Evil required the work of Jesus but did not negate it – not even for a moment. Though evil persists, this is still our Father’s world. “Although the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler, yet.” 

He weans us from the temporal with the consequences of evil, even as he woos us to the eternal with the assurances of Jesus. We would desire no rescue without the world’s evil; we would have no rescue without Jesus.

God’s purposes are never derailed. The proof is the cross. Trust the wisdom, power, and love of the heart that gave Jesus there for us, according to plan.

Prayer: Father, help me to have trust in your sovereign plan as I live through a fallen world. When the evil threatens to overwhelm my soul, show me Jesus. When I am losing hope, show me Jesus. Every day and for every trial, show me Jesus. 

Daily Devotion - July 2, 2025

We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Rom. 5:3-5)

When we’re facing a challenge, our tendency is to wonder if God has abandoned us. Why doesn’t God make our lives easy? One reason is that adversity prepares us for spiritual battles that lie ahead. 

The Apostle Paul explains that one reason God allows suffering is to prepare us for future work. He exercises our faith muscles to prepare us for spiritual battles that would otherwise overwhelm.

After a very difficult year in my early ministry, I overheard a godly woman in our church say, “I wonder what the Lord is preparing Bryan to do that requires him to go through so much testing?” 

I wondered, too. But, since that time, I have often considered how strengthened I was by the godly woman’s words. She helped me realize present trials were not purposeless. So, when greater trials came, I believed that God had prepared me. I was strengthened in the immediate trial for the later work.

Our sufferings produce the endurance we need, the character our situations require, the confident hope that our trials will end, and the spiritual dependence that keeps our love strong enough to see it all through for Christ’s sake.

Prayer: Lord, when I’m facing life’s challenges, help me to realize that they help me to grow stronger in Christ and prepare me for greater fruitfulness.

Daily Devotion - July 1, 2025

When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. (Dan. 6:10)

How would you define courage?  According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, courage is “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.”  

Right next to that definition of courage, you might expect to see a picture of Daniel, the prophet who was taken into captivity as a young man, was made to serve pagan kings and, in his old age, was thrown into the lion’s den! 

Despite fearsome struggles, Daniel was the epitome of courage, persevering in his faith through prayer, obedience, and integrity. But there came a time when his visions of the future frightened him to fainting (Dan. 8 & 10). Then, he did not deny his fears but faithfully confessed his and his people’s sin to affirm God’s provision for the battles to come. 

Daniel’s faithfulness to God was rooted in God’s faithfulness to him. Confidence in God’s persevering grace was the fuel for persevering courage – and, even when that grew faint, Daniel humbly prayed and turned to his ever gracious God for more fuel.

Daniel’s story is not so much about how we muster human courage, as about how God’s persevering grace fuels it. May we, like Daniel, grasp the daily power of an ever faithful and forgiving God as we seek courage for our modern-day trials.

Prayer: Father, before I would dare to be a Daniel, take my heart to the gracious God in whom he trusted. Instill confidence in your grace to enable me to persevere in my trials.

Daily Devotion - June 30, 2025

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Rom. 8:31-32)

One of my pastorates was in a rugged coal mining region. There I was taught much of how faith could survive and thrive through the difficulties of life. 

The story was told of an old man made an invalid by a mining injury early in life. A lifetime of struggle did not steal his faith, and a younger man came to ask, “Why?” 

The old man smiled at the question and responded. “Yes, sometimes Satan comes to my bedside. He points out my window to friends with fine homes, growing families, and healthy bodies. Then, he taunts me by asking, “Does God love you?”

The younger man gasped at the honesty of the invalid, and asked, “What do you say to Satan, when he asks you that?” 

Said the old man in the bed, “I take Satan by the hand to a hill called Calvary. There, I point to the thorns on Jesus’ brow and to the nails in hands and feet, and I say to Satan, “Doesn’t God love me!”

If we try to prove God’s love by pointing to our circumstances in a fallen world, we will fail. But, if we point to his character revealed at the Cross, then we need never doubt his eternal love. When God did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, he proved for all time and circumstances his love for us.

Prayer: Father, help me not to look to my circumstances but to your character for the assurance of your love that I need every day until Jesus returns to this fallen world for me. 

Daily Devotion - June 27, 2025

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. (Col. 3:18-19)

Scripture never justifies dictatorial rule by one spouse, nor does it require the abandonment of personal dignity by another. Despite the controversies of our age over Scripture’s instruction, the Bible’s marital instructions are rooted in its core message – we are to embrace Christ’s grace and extend it to others. 

Hearts open to that core message will recognize that God neither commends nor commands selfishness. When the prince of heaven gave his life to rescue us from our sin, he taught the glory of selfless sacrifice. 

Wives who submit their personal gifts to the support their husbands, and husbands who sacrifice personal gain for the benefit of their wives are living the grace that Jesus died to reveal. 

The Bible never defines love as using another for personal benefit, but as using one’s blessings to bless another despite their undeserving or past offense. 

When we discover the grace that the God of all power and authority sacrificially extended to his loved ones, then we begin to discern our mission to reflect that same heart to our loved ones.

Prayer: Father, thank you for your gracious care through your Son, Jesus Christ. Help me today to turn away from selfishness, or from holding onto past offense, in order to display Jesus to my loved ones. Help me love as he loves me.

Daily Devotion - June 26, 2025

You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. (Micah 7:18-19)

Minister and church leader, Alexander Whyte, told the story of an older saint who was nearly destroyed by guilt and shame. 

After a church meeting, the older man had lingered in idle conversation. Then, in what was meant to sound like a jest, the man said, “Now, Dr. Whyte, what word of comfort do you have for an old sinner like me?”

Beneath the pasted-on smile, Dr. Whyte perceived the man’s deep agony and later wrote how the question took his breath away. This dear saint was old in the faith, but he did not have the peace of knowing God’s forgiveness.  

Dr. Whyte said that he was unsure what to say, but crossed the room to where the man was seated, took his hand, and quoted from the prophet Micah: “Our God will delight to show mercy.”

Not much more was said between the two, but the next day a note came from the older man to Dr. Whyte. It said, “Those words you quoted were comfort to my soul. I will never doubt my God again. When Satan comes to convince me that I am unworthy of the mercy of God, I will say, ‘You are right, and you know not the half of it, but I have to deal with the One who will delight to show mercy.’”

So do you!

Prayer: Father, thank you for hurling all my sins into the depth of the sea! I do not claim my worthiness; only that I have to deal with the One who delights to show mercy.

Daily Devotion - June 25, 2025

My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. (Prov. 3:1-2)

When we love God, pleasing him, pleases us. Loving God and loving ourselves are not competing motivations. When we please the One we love the most, we find our own greatest pleasure. Satisfying the One we most love satisfies us most fully.

So, we do not need to see pleasing God as an onerous burden that we assume simply to make him happy. As a loving Father, he teaches us to follow paths that are good and safe, thereby adding to the length and peace of our days that extend into eternity. 

Those who find true happiness in the Christian life do not see their service to God as begrudging duty to an arbitrary master. We come to understand obedience as a means of pleasing a loving Father who is guiding us to the best of this life’s blessing every day. Service to him both satisfies our souls and blesses our lives. 

In a fallen world, trials and tragedy will come into every life, but there is no better, safer, or more satisfying path for God’s eternal blessings and earthly joys than one he prepares for us and walks with us. 

When love for God is our highest priority, then honoring him is our greatest joy! Such joy is not denied by trials but is often discovered through them. Serving God through our challenges becomes the ultimate expression of his honor and our satisfaction. 

By honoring him most, we love ourselves best!

Prayer: Father, help me to long to please you in everything I do today, knowing that by honoring you out of love for you I will also find my greatest fulfillment.

Daily Devotion - June 24, 2025

You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs — heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ…. (Rom. 8:15-17)

Here the apostle Paul puts us into the middle of a court hearing in which he asks two important questions: Who are the heirs of God’s inheritance, and how can they prove they are heirs?

Before we dismiss the inquiries as irrelevant to us, Paul explains that we are the heirs in question, and that our status is established by the testimony of two witnesses – the standard for a Jewish court. 

We are heirs of the promises of God based on 1) the testimony of our spirit (as we love the Father) and 2) the testimony of the Holy Spirit (as he confirms the Father’s love for us in Scripture and in our hearts). 

Without the Holy Spirit’s in us, we could not love God as our Abba (Daddy). Our hearts would be hostile to him, and we would be convinced of his opposition to us. So, our love of the Father along with the Spirit’s testimony of his love for us combine to witness that we are God’s children. 

So, if we ever doubt God’s love for us, we need honestly to answer one simple question: “Do you love God?” If you really love him, that is the testimony of the Holy Spirit that you are God’s child and a co-heir of heaven with Jesus.

Prayer: Lord, thank you that I can love you as my Abba, and for assuring me that such love can only be generated by the Holy Spirit. By this love in my heart, I know you are assuring me that I am your child. Thank you for such grace.  

Daily Devotion - June 23, 2025

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)

You may remember Brit Hume as a national news anchor, but not know that he became a committed Christian during one of the hardest times in his life. Challenges drive some people away from faith; others see the necessity of Jesus through them and are drawn closer to him.

For Hume, his greatest challenge came from the suicide of his son, Sandy. Despite having been a nominal Christian most of his life, Hume said that the one thing he recognized almost immediately after the tragedy was that he truly believed God could help. 

The death was not something anyone expected, but somewhere in the middle of all his grief, questioning, and searching for peace, Hume said that he felt closer to Christ than ever before.

These are not easy truths but are lifelines to God’s care when we are clinging to faith from the ragged edges of life. When all else is stripped away, we can still find meaning, and hope, and reason to carry on in the comfort of a God whose love continues beyond our regrets and earth’s boundaries. 

We do not rejoice for earthly trials but find joy in a sovereign God whose eternal love and unending care provide the steadfastness that is needed for this life’s inevitable storms. 

Prayer: Father, when I experience life’s inevitable tragedies, help me to draw comfort and strength from assurances of your abiding presence and eternal care.

Daily Devotion - June 20, 2025

By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. (1 John 3:19-20)

If our hearts continue to condemn us after genuine confession, this is not of God. Holding onto guilt denies the sufficiency and power of Jesus’ pardon.

A friend told me that he and his wife had gone for marriage counseling. The counselor asked each to write down concerns about the other. My friend said his wife began to write furiously, making a long list of offenses. He knew he was in trouble. 

When their lists were complete, the counselor first asked the husband what was on his list. He said, “I have no right to say anything. I have been a burden to my wife and she has been a saint to stay with me.”

Then, the counselor asked the wife for her list. She paused, then said, “I don’t have anything either.” Had the husband begun to argue with her about that, it would have dishonored her mercy. 

The account reminded me that receiving another’s forgiveness honors them. If we refuse to receive God’s forgiveness – substituting gloom for grace – that is not holiness; it is rejection of God’s provision. 

God sent his Son to die for our sin, not to keep our guilt alive. Only Satan wants you to try to serve God with a burden of guilt on your back. Receive and rest in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, when the adversary tries to burden me with guilt, help me not to trample on Jesus’ blood by denying its power and substituting gloom for grace. Enable me to receive grace as an act of worship that honors you. 

Daily Devotion - June 19, 2025

Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. (Gal. 6:14-15)

We can acknowledge the truth of God’s free grace without applying it to how we approach God for forgiveness. 

We say that we are forgiven on the basis of grace alone and not through any merit of ours. But, then, we act as though God grants forgiveness only if we qualify for it by being sad enough for sin long enough to make God happy. We turn repentance into a merit badge that earns God’s grace by the depth of our grief or sincerity. 

We need to be careful what we are trusting. Yes, we are to grieve for our sin, and we are to be sincere about our repentance. But repentance depends upon the sufficiency of grace, not the adequacy of our remorse. 

True repentance humbly receives God’s mercy, it does not strive to leverage grace from his heart by increasing the weight of our grief. Repentance is more a depending that a doing – more a leaning on him than a boasting in us. Sincere grief for sin delights God; manufactured grief denies grace.

If we would know the blessings of grace, we do not point to our tears, but to Christ’s blood; not to our spiritual discipline, but to Christ’s provision; and, not to the sufficiency of our sorrow, but to the sufficiency of our Savior.   

“Repentance” isn’t a good work to offer God to broker your pardon. It is sorrowfully confessing your sin and the inadequacy of your merits to satisfy God; then, turning entirely, humbly, and – ultimately – with joy to grace for the pardon and power to love and live for Jesus. 

Prayer: Father, may I never boast except in the cross of Christ! May I trust your mercy more than my merits, living in the joyous freedom and sweet devotion that comes from depending more on Christ’s sacrifice than my sorrow.

Daily Devotion - June 18, 2025

Those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit… To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God….You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit. (Rom. 8:5-9)

The Bible makes it clear that only by the grace of God can we become holy. And only by the blood of Jesus Christ, are we washed white as snow – freed of sin’s ugly stain and guilt. That is good news!

But there’s more. God’s Spirit then creates in us righteous desires, setting our minds on the things that please God and unsettling our hearts about anything that does not. 

We are not ultimately called to do what we do not desire, but to do what our Spirit-renewed affections actually desire. God does not merely tell us what to do, he changes our want to. We want to do as he desires. 

Once our minds were only hostile to God, but when they were captivated by the sacrificial love of Jesus for us, we began to love pleasing and honoring him. In fact, we now find our greatest fulfillment and peace in loving what and whom he loves.  

This change of affections is not complete when we are saved, but it is progressive as we more and more perceive the grace of Christ toward us that increases our love for him. 

Once I believed the job of the preacher was to get people to do what they don’t want to do – that’s a horrible job! I no longer believe that. I believe it is my job to help God’s people love Jesus more and more, so that his will is their desire. That’s a great job!

Prayer: Father, help me continue to yield my heart to your Holy Spirit so that my affections are transformed and pleasing you is what provides my greatest joy.

Daily Devotion - June 17, 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. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. (Ezek. 36:26-27)

We’ve all seen a newborn baby stretch and yawn as though life was no more challenging than a summer afternoon in the shade. But when a child nick-named “Baby John” was still in his mother’s womb, doctors discerned that his heart was defective, and without treatment he would soon die.

In an amazing operation, surgeons performed a heart repair before the child was even born. Where once death was certain, new life was made possible by skills and provision far beyond the child’s. 

As believers we can identify with this helpless child. Before we were born again, God discerned our hearts to be defective, damaged by sin, but he gave us new hearts to love him and to live for Jesus. Where once only spiritual death was possible, now there is new life in Christ.

Now God calls us to live the life that he desires with the power and desires of our new hearts that his power and love made possible. Live for him as the heart he gave you beats with love for Jesus.

Prayer: Father God, thank you for sending the Great Physician who, by the work of the Holy Spirit, gave me a new heart that beats with love for my Savior. Help me today to be strengthened by that heart for your service.

Daily Devotion - June 16, 2025

Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! (Matt. 7:9-11)

Isn’t it wonderful how God tells us to bring our requests to him — big or small? This truth hit home for me during a difficult season. From his prison cell, my newly believing, younger brother with mental limitations prayed that God would help my parents find his runaway dog.

I have to admit that I thought, “God has got bigger problems to deal with!” But my father, who still wanted to find ways to show love to his wayward son, went to the parking lot where ol’ Red had run away the week before. 

After he’d called out Red’s name several times with no response, my father said, “This is silly. What am I doing?” Then, as he turned to walk back to the car, there was ol’ Red, wagging his tail!

Jesus promised, “Your Father who is in heaven [will] give good things to those who ask him.” There is not a qualification on the importance of the gift – or of the requester. God will simply provide what is best to provide his eternal care, even to wayward children who ask. So, make your requests known to God. He cares. He’s listening.

Prayer: Father, as I come to you in prayer today, help me to realize that you delight in giving good gifts to your children. Help me not to put limits on what you can do or how much you care because of my wayward heart. 

Daily Devotion - June 13, 2025

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. (Eph. 5:22)

Today, from palaces to campuses, and from churches to our own homes, the question of how a wife is supposed to love, honor, and obey her husband is debated more than ever. Pat explanations that do not consider the challenges of our times, the dignity of each person, and the authority of God will not do.

So, how is a Christian wife to live? The plain answer in Ephesians is clear: a wife is to submit. But simply repeating the word does not explain its meaning. The word submit in the Bible combines the Greek terms for “arrange” and “under.” Those who submit in this context arrange their gifts and resources under purposes that are best for another. 

Christ submitted his glory and power to the needs of salvation we had. A wife who submits biblically does not throw away her brain or her talents but arranges them in support of her husband.

Husbands are commanded to love sacrificially, as Christ loved the church! Wives are commanded to love submissively as the church honors Christ. No such honor occurs if the church dispenses with its gifts, but only as it arranges them with excellence devoted to Christ’s purposes. 

So, also wives truly honor husbands not by suppressing gifts but expressing them fully and selflessly for the good of a loved one.

Prayer: Lord, please help me to follow the instruction and the example of Jesus as I honor him and my spouse. It can be against our human reflexes to live for another, but with the power of Christ we will find the beauty of loving as he did.

Daily Devotion - June 12, 2025

We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.  We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. (2 Cor. 4:7-10)

Some years ago, a college friend, spoke of a beloved daughter born with Goldenhar Syndrome – a condition that causes some children to be born without facial bones. 

The daughter was born with no facial bones on her left side. In the early years of loving and raising his precious girl, the father said that he and his family were often buffeted by waves of worry that required them to cling to a rock with two sides.

One side of the rock was the testimony of Scripture that our God is very great. The other side of the rock was the proof of the cross that God is very good. The girl’s father said, “In our time of trial, we needed to hold firmly to both sides of that rock named Jesus.” 

In every life there come the waves that will require us to cling to the Rock with two sides. When our trials and disappointments seem more than we can bear, we must hold to the One who holds us because he is very great and he is very good. Hold to the Rock with two sides through your waves today.

Prayer: Father, this fallen world is full of pain and suffering – some afflict me and my loved ones. When the waves roar, still help me to cling to the Rock with two sides. When I am desperately in need, keep me trusting in the One who is very great and very good until his work in me is done. 

Daily Devotion - June 11, 2025

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. (Prov. 22:6)

The apostles and prophets tell us that God is our Father, encouraging us to use his divine parenting as the model for our own. 

Sadly, in light of that perfect model, Christian parents may struggle to deal with their shortcomings. We may read parenting proverbs (wise words to guide wise people) as promises (divine guarantees for perfect lives) they were never intended to be. 

Proverbs give us Fatherly wisdom for what tends to be helpful in a fallen world – and wise people take them to heart, but a proverb is not promise. Families don’t function like math equations. 

No one can bear the pressure of proverbs mistaken as promises, or meet the standard of perfection such a reading requires. As a result, the misreading of Scripture’s proverbs about rearing children creates anxious, insecure parents who either give up on God, or on their children.

God’s intention in his proverbs is to give us the counsel that our imperfect parenting requires, and also to remind us that he doesn’t give up on us because of our failures. His enduring and encouraging counsel frees us to parent our children wisely – not to give up on them or forget the grace we, too, need!

The relationship with God that he secures, gives us the security to love and discipline our children as God intends – reflecting his wisdom and remembering his grace!

Prayer: Father, thank you for parenting me with love that disciplines for my good, and does not walk away when I need more grace. Please help me to be so secure in your parental care that I can reflect it wisely with my own children.