Good Words for Today
If you thought sin was fun, try some holiness for a while. It’s really fun! There’s no bad aftertaste, and there’s no guilty conscience, and there’s nothing left to be remorseful about. Sin satisfies for a little while. Holiness satisfies forever.
So many of us look at a difficult situation and pray, “Lord, change my situation.” That’s not usually God’s will. Much more often the difficult situation has come as a means of making us grow spiritually. God often brings difficulty into our lives to deepen our total dependence on him. When that happens, we ought to pray, “Lord, change me so that I can face this situation.” That’s a prayer God is pleased to answer.
Don't forget to tell people that you love them. They forget, so tell them again.
Are we living in the last days? Yes! In one sense, we've been living in the last days for 2000 years. In a deeper sense, we are rushing headlong toward the climax of history. Do not despair. Stand strong. Speak up. These are wonderful days to serve the Lord. Jesus is coming soon!
Lord Jesus, it is so easy to make excuses for the way we live. Forgive us for trying to make deals with you. Bring us to the place where we will say, “I am ready to do your will with no strings attached.” Amen.
Most of our plans don’t stand. They are like the leaves that blow away in the autumn wind. But when God determines to do something, it will happen. You can write it down and take it to the bank. You can make all the speeches you want and announce your long-range plans, your ten-year goals, and your personal objectives. But remember this. When you are finished, God always gets the last word.
Today is my 73rd birthday. That in itself is not remarkable, but I remember what a Nigerian friend wrote on my birthday 16 years ago: "May God’s immeasurable blessings envelop you on this day. May you be taught of Him to number your days aright. May all the blessings of the Lord accrue to you bountifully. May your dreams materialize in this celebration. May God’s favor encompass you and drive you through your destiny. May your days be numbered like Methuselah!" Then he added this sentence: "May you by next celebration have more reasons for thanksgiving." That's my desire--more praise and more thanksgiving as the years roll on. PS: According to Genesis 5:27, Methuselah lived to be 969 years old. By those standards, I’m just getting started!
“Make love your plan. There’s less to write down that way.” Bob Goff
“There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Immanuel’s veins. And sinners plunged beneath that flood Lose all their guilty stain.” William Cowper, 1772
Where is Satan attacking today? He’s coming for our kids. He’s attacking marriage itself. He’s going after our families. That's why our best witness to the watching world is a man and a woman joined together in Christian marriage who raise their children to know and love the Lord. Unbelievers can attack our theology, but they have no answer for a loving Christian family.
No one is ever forgotten or overlooked by the Lord. Those who today stand strong in their faith will one day shine as the brightest stars in the firmament. God is not so unjust as to forget those who labor in obscurity for him.
“When we’ve been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun, We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise Than when we've first begun.”
Death is like planting the seed in the ground. If you never plant the seed, you never reap the harvest. Write it down in big letters. If you want to be raised from the dead, you have to die first. That’s why death has lost its sting, and the grave has been robbed of its victory. Through Jesus Christ, death now becomes the doorway to immortal glory.
Thank you, Lord, for our critics because you are using them to make us more like Jesus. Amen.
Loving Lord, we know that all things work together for good to those who love you. When we are tempted to sin, give us wisdom to choose the way of escape while we have the chance. May we not trifle with sin and so be brought down in shame and disgrace. Give us a strong desire to do the right thing no matter what it costs. Help us to see your fingerprints even in the hard experiences of life. May our trials make us more like Jesus day by day. Amen.
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.