Good Words for Today
Our hope is in the Lord, not in medicine or technology or politics. It’s quite possible things will get worse before they get better. Let’s get ready for Jesus’ return, and then let’s make sure our friends and loved ones are ready too. There are many things we know and many things we don’t know about the future. This much is certain: Jesus is coming again, and his coming may happen sooner than we think.
All things are moving according to God's divine plan. There are no mistakes with the Lord. You may say, "All things are against me," but it is not so. All things are for you, but you may not yet see it. When faith becomes sight, we will look back on our earthly journey and say, "Jesus led me all the way."
A businessman was on a long flight home when the airplane hit turbulence. Thunder cracked, and high winds blew the plane up and down, like a cork bobbing on the water. Lightning flashed across the sky. The other passengers were terrified. But then he noticed a young girl who seemed unconcerned. She tucked her feet under her seat and calmly read a book. When the plane finally landed, the businessman asked her why she wasn’t frightened. “My father is the pilot,” she replied, “and he’s taking me home.” That’s the faith we need in these uncertain days. Our Father is the pilot, and he will make sure we get home safely.
"We make a mistake in trying always to clear ourselves. We should be wiser to go straight on, humbly doing the next thing, and leaving God to vindicate us. There may come hours in our lives when we shall be misunderstood, slandered, falsely accused. At such times it is very difficult not to act on the policy of the men around us in the world. They at once appeal to law and force and public opinion. But the believer takes his case into a higher court and lays it before his God." F. B. Meyer
Choosing to believe God is good does not exempt you from sorrow and suffering, nor will it guarantee you an easy road to follow. But it will put a firm foundation under your feet as you journey from earth to heaven.
Our Father, when we have been mistreated, help us to remember that we are sinners too. May we never forget that Christ died for us while we were his enemies. And may that truth humble us and make us patient and kind toward others. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Be careful about quoting the Bible. The devil can quote Scripture too.
God specializes in impossible situations, and he loves to prove that hopeless cases aren’t hopeless after all.
Sometimes the surest proof of Christlike character is what you don't do and what you don't say.
God is much better at revenge than we are. We're too hard, too soft, too early, too late. We cause too much collateral damage. There's a reason vengeance belongs to the Lord. He's better at it than we are. Get out of the way and let God do his work.
If we wait until all the circumstances are in our favor, we'll probably wait forever. David didn't wait for Goliath to go blind: he trusted God and walked down into the valley to face the giant. If we wait for our doubts to disappear, we'll have to wait a long time. Someone said faith is "belief plus unbelief and acting on the belief part." Sooner or later, we all have to "act on the belief part." Abraham did. Moses did. Samuel did. All the heroes of the Bible "acted on the belief part." You can too.
Your prayers are part of heaven's plan to reach out to the prodigals in your life and bring them back to God. If you are heavily burdened for a loved one, you may be sure that that burden does not come simply from yourself. The burden is a gift from God, a token of his mercy toward the prodigal who at this moment cares nothing for the Lord.
God knows your name, and he knows your address. He knows what you need today, and he knows what you will need tomorrow. It's all written on his heart because he watches over you even when you think he has forgotten you. God knows what you need, he knows when you need it, and he will make sure you have it in time.
Give me, O Lord, a large supply of your grace so that I may submit to you in every trial and trust you even when walking in the darkness. Amen.
As you look at the course of life, you may think that God is going to use some rich uncle or a wealthy friend to help you out. But experience shows how unlikely that is. He is much more likely to meet your needs through the ravens that fly to your need when you least expect them.
Pray that your children and your grandchildren learn to make wise choices under pressure. Most of us can make wise choices if we have two days to think about it. But life usually doesn’t work that way, especially for the young. They make split-second decisions every day about what they will wear, where they will go, who they will go with, what jokes they will tell, what music they will listen to, what movies they will watch, and whether or not they will stand up for their faith. Young people today are on the firing line all the time. Pray for your children that they will have wisdom from God to choose what is best when they don’t have much time to make up their minds.
The church stands today with an utterly unique message that is given to us and to no one else. In a world of hurting people, to those who are angry and to those who are in despair, to those who have lost their way, to every man and woman, to every boy and girl, the church of Jesus Christ says to everyone who will listen, “Go to the cross and the cross will lead you home.”
All hail the pow’r of Jesus’ Name! Let angels prostrate fall; Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown Him Lord of all!
If you want wisdom, you can have it. It’s free, but it will cost you all you have.
Just because you are confused doesn’t mean God is confused. Faith chooses to trust even when life makes no sense.
When it comes to judging, be hard on yourself and easy on others. Most of us get that backwards.
No matter how good a friend is, they’re going to hurt you every once in a while. Be ready to forgive and forget. If that seems hard, remember that you will need their forgiveness sooner or later.
Christians are now under great pressure to compromise our convictions. Or if not to compromise, at least to keep quiet. We need not worry that the barbarians are at the gate. They have breached the wall and are streaming in on every hand. How shall we respond? We will carry on with tenacious, winsome courage, not changing our convictions about right and wrong. We say with the psalmist, “Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89).
You will rarely regret showing kindness, but you will always regret being cruel.
The Jews said, “Show us a sign.” Paul said, “I give you the sign of the cross.” The Greeks said, “Show us wisdom.” Paul said, “I will show you Jesus, the very wisdom of God.” What the world needs is not reformation but true and lasting deliverance from sin. Such a deliverance can be found only in the cross. Where sin is the problem, the cross is God’s answer—God’s only answer. Only the gospel itself meets the deep needs of the human heart. It is only the gospel of Jesus Christ—Christ and Him crucified—that gives life to sinners who are dead in their transgressions and sins.
The cross is God’s provision for your sin. If you go to the cross, you will find your way home to God. Many people are lost and confused and the cross of Christ beckons you to come, repent of your sin, and receive Christ. Come to the cross, and you will find your way home to God.
God is good all the time, even when all the evidence points in the other direction.
Always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.
God often gives us more than we can bear, but he never gives us more than he can bear.
Try loving your enemies today. Hating them never worked anyway.
Occasionally someone asks me if I get scared or nervous before I preach. The answer is yes, and it happens every single time. No matter how many times I’ve preached or how well prepared I am, there is always a sense of nervousness that comes just before I stand up. I hope I don’t ever lose that, because if I do, I need to get out of the pulpit. If speaking for Christ ever becomes routine, then something has gone wrong inside your heart. We need “holy nervousness” when we witness to others lest we fail the Lord or fail the person to whom we are speaking.
“The power that is in the Gospel does not lie in eloquence of the preacher, otherwise men would be the converters of souls, nor does it lie in the preacher’s learning, otherwise it would consist of the wisdom of men. We might preach until our tongues rotted, till we would exhaust our lungs and die, but never a soul would be converted unless the Holy Spirit be with the Word of God to give it the power to convert a soul.” Charles Spugeon
Take small steps if you want to make big changes. Many times we give up on changing our situation because we want to do it all, do it now, and get it over with quickly. But you can’t lose 40 pounds in a week and you can’t learn German in a month and you can’t learn the Bible by swallowing a magic capsule. But great progress is possible with God’s help if we are willing to take small steps in a new direction one day at a time.
Faith is a choice, not a feeling. As I get a little older and wiser, this truth seems ever more important. God never asks me to explain the unexplainable. He simply asks me to trust him. That’s where the choice comes in. Faith chooses to believe in God even when I don’t feel like it.
If your life is a mess, ask Jesus to deliver you. Admit you can’t change and then cry out for his mercy. Ask him to chase the demons out of your life. Ask him to take away the torment. Ask him to change you from the inside out. Come humbly to Jesus and ask him to be your Lord and Savior. Run to the cross. Lay your burdens, your cares, your worries, and your fears upon the Son of God. Lay your sins and faults and failures on his strong back. If you come to Christ, he will not turn you away. When Christ answers, and he always does, go and tell others what he has done for you.
When Jesus speaks, God speaks. While we see his fingerprints everywhere, the best way to hear from him is to spend time daily reading his Word. Christ speaks to us through the Word of God. Are we listening?
When faced with a major decision, we should ask ourselves, “What difference will this make in 10,000 years?” Most things we worry about won’t matter in 3 weeks, let alone 3 months or 3 years. We focus on the trivial and forget to pursue the eternal. But 10,000 times 10,000 years from now, you’ll still be glad you invested your life for Jesus Christ.
When you focus on God, he takes responsibility for the details of your life. Obsessive concern over questions like “Should I get married?” or “Should I take this new job?” or “Which home should we buy?” leads you down the wrong trail. Focus on God. Focus on being faithful to him and knowing him. Focus on doing what God wants you to do. He will take care of the details of your life. That's a promise you can take to the bank.