Good Words for Today
If you go to church long enough, you stand in great danger of believing you are better than you really are. You start to believe your own PR, and you go to church, hear a sermon, and say, “I wish so-and-so could hear this,” when in fact you need it more than they do. May God give us grace to hear the truth even when it hurts!
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. And when Christ answers, go and tell others what he has done for you.
It's one thing to believe in Jesus. It's another thing to stand up for him. Palm Sunday is a call to courage. We all have to choose where we stand in the moment of crisis. Make your choice so clear that no one can doubt whose side you are on.
When Jesus knocks on the door of your heart, run quickly to let him in. Do not think that he is obliged to come back again and again.
Give God time, and the ravens will come to supply what you need. (See 1 Kings 17:5.)
We are not saved by holding on to Christ. We are saved because Christ is holding on to us.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, that we don’t have to be perfect to come to you. If we had to be perfect, who among us would qualify? Help those who feel uneasy to yield to the gentle wooing of the Spirit. May they not be ashamed to say, ‘I have sinned’ and come to you for forgiveness. We pray for those who are still in the Far Country. Open the eyes of their heart so that light from heaven can come flooding in. Give us faith to keep on praying and not to faint. Bring all your children safely home at last. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Choose wisely today. We make our choices, and then our choices turn around and make us.
Heavenly Father, grant that we might be great risk-takers for the kingdom of God. Deliver us from crippling fear. Help us to live so that if we die today, we’ll be glad to meet Jesus. Shake us free from the love of the world. May we enter into the freedom that comes from living on the edge with you. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Many people are open to Jesus as long as he keeps his distance. But when he comes too close, they get uncomfortable. They like the gentle Jesus of the picture books, but not the powerful Christ of the gospels. They like a marble Jesus they can touch for good luck, but they recoil from a Christ who demands their total allegiance.
If people knew us better than they do, they would condemn us even more than they do. They don’t know the half of it.
When we do our worst, God does his best. When Christ died, his blood covered all our sins, including the ones that embarrass us the most.
When we are tempted to despair about our loved ones who today are far from the Lord, remember that the Lord always has a fattened calf ready for the big celebration. Never give up! Never stop praying! May God help us to stay faithful until the day when our prodigals come home at last.
You can't live on hand-me-down faith borrowed from your parents. Borrowed faith may get you through the good times, but it will never last. When hard times come, you need a faith carved from the rock of God's Word, tattooed on your soul so that it will stand the test of time.
Don't brag. Your work speaks for itself. If you have to tell me how great you are, how great could you possibly be? "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips" (Proverbs 27:2).
The call of Christ never comes at a convenient time. Jesus calls us when we are busy with our own plans. That should not surprise us because there is never a convenient time to go to the cross.
Go and tell. That’s what Jesus said to do. Anyone can do that. Don’t let anyone tell you can’t do that. You don’t have to learn a lot of verses or memorize a complicated outline. You don’t have to be a good speaker or a winsome personality. You don’t have to get permission from anyone to tell your story. You don’t have to write a book or a sermon. You don’t need a big audience. You can start with one person. Go and tell what Jesus has done for you!
It's hard to throw stones when you're busy washing feet.
"Faith makes all things possible. Love makes them easy.” D. L. Moody
When God forgives our sin, he chooses to remember them no more. Our Father will never hold against us any sins covered by the blood of Christ. When God forgives, he forgets!
It's easy to get angry at people who sin differently than we do. But truth be told, we are all sinners in desperate need of the grace of God. If God could save us, he can save those whose sin angers us. A good dose of honesty about our own sin might make us less judgmental about others and more willing to pray fervently for their salvation.
When the devil comes and knocks at your door—and, my friends, he comes again and again and again—when he comes, send Jesus to answer in your place. The devil will flee, for he cannot enter where Jesus has already moved in.
The road to heaven always goes by way of the cross. If you skip the cross, you’ll end up missing heaven too. A. B. Bruce pointed out that “if crosses would leave us alone, we would leave them alone, too.” But the cross of Christ will never leave us alone. It stands at the center of our faith. Take the cross out of Christianity and you’ve taken Jesus out as well. We are called to follow Jesus, and that means denying ourselves, taking up our cross daily, and following him wherever he leads.
A guilty conscience is a great blessing if it leads you to repentance.
Lord of the cloud and fire, I am a pilgrim marching through the wilderness on my way to the Promised Land. When I am discouraged and want to go back to Egypt, keep my feet marching toward Canaan. Amen.
“One word of truth outweighs the world.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
May my heart be cheerful, my smile be genuine, and my words be kind today.
What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and yet loses his own family? I’ve never heard a man on his deathbed say, “I wish I had spent more time in the office.” But many men say, “I wish I had spent more time with my family.” God help us to learn this while there is still time to make a difference.
Father, I bless You that I am not what I used to be, nor everything I want to be, and by your grace I am not yet all that I am going to be. Amen.
We live in an argumentative age. Social media tempts us to tangle with others over the slightest difference of opinion. You can win the argument and lose a friend. Is it worth it to you?
Forgiveness is not an optional part of the Christian life. It is a necessary part of what it means to be a Christian. If we are going to follow Jesus, we must forgive. We have no other choice. And we must forgive as God has forgiven us—freely, completely, graciously, totally. The miracle we have received is a miracle we pass on to others.
Defeat teaches you far more than you will ever learn from victory.
The proof of wisdom is our willingness to receive correction.
How we work is as crucial as how we pray. There is no greater testimony than the Christian mechanic at the bench, the Christian teacher in the classroom, the Christian secretary at the desk, the Christian nurse at the hospital, or the Christian accountant keeping the books. Our problem is that we don’t see our daily work as a way to worship God. But it is. What you do on Monday is as sacred as what you do on Sunday.
The Bible is God's Word. Read it! Believe it! Teach it!
When you pray for patience, part of the answer is waiting for the answer to come.
Every time you open your mouth, either life or death comes out (Proverbs 18:21). May the words of my mouth speak life and not death today!
