2021-02-08
2 Timothy 4:7 NIV
In Mount Hope Cemetery, Hiawatha, Kansas, you’ll find several large gravestones erected by John Milburn Davis. Davis began his working life as a lowly hired hand and managed to amass a considerable fortune. In the process, he didn’t make many friends. Nor was he close to his wife’s family, since they thought she had married beneath herself. Embittered, he vowed not to leave them a penny.
When his wife died, Davis erected an elaborate statue depicting himself and her sitting at opposite ends of a love seat. He was so pleased with it that he planned a second monument, showing his wife kneeling to place a wreath at his future graveside. Then he had a sculptor place a set of wings on her back. One idea led to another, until he had spent a quarter-of-a-million dollars on tributes to his wife and himself.
When people asked him to contribute to the local hospital, or a swimming pool for children, etc., the old miser would say, “What’s this town ever done for me?” Davis spent his life’s fortune on statues and died at ninety-two as a lonely, grim-faced resident of the poorhouse. And what happened to his monuments? Each and every one of them is slowly sinking into the Kansas soil – victims of time, vandalism, and neglect; memorials to spite and self-centered living.
There’s a certain poetic justice in the fact that within a few years they’ll all be gone. Oh, by the way, only one person attended farmer Davis’s funeral – Horace England, the tombstone salesman! Don’t let that happen to you; make your life count for God!
Soul food: Rom 3:21-6:23; Matt 13:10-23; Ps 125; Prov 4:3-4
2021-02-07
2 Corinthians 11:3 NIV
Paul writes, “I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray.”
Temptation always begins in your mind, and in order to protect it, you need to dwell on God’s Word. It was Satan who planted the idea in Eve’s mind to eat the forbidden fruit. Eve wasn’t standing around trying to figure out how to disobey God. So remember when you’re tempted, it’s not God speaking to you. The new nature you have from God doesn’t think that way. The Devil studies you in the same way an experienced coach studies the game videos of the opposing team. And because he does, he knows your weak spots and which temptations have the best chance of success. How many times have you said, “I promised myself I would never do that again?” Yet you did it. That’s because Satan knows what works on you.
But you don’t have to go around feeling defenseless and discouraged. The Bible says: “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV).
Satan waits until your defenses are down before he strikes, but God always provides “a way out.” For every temptation you’ll ever face, God has an escape hatch. That means while you’ll never be exempt from temptation, you can be victorious over it. And once Satan discovers his tactics no longer work, he goes looking elsewhere.
Soul food: 1 Kings 3:4-28; James 1:2-8
2021-02-06
Luke 19:8 NIV
If you’ve defrauded someone, God expects you to make restitution. Don’t sweep it under the rug and try to save face. Zacchaeus was a first-century con artist who worked for the Romans collecting taxes from his own people, the Jews. He fleeced everything that walked. The Bible says he was rich (v. 2 NKJV). Filthy rich! But after spending a night with Jesus, he was radically changed. How do we know this? Because he said: “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus taught, “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8 NIV).
But sometimes it’s not possible to make amends to the person you’ve hurt. What if they’re dead? What if you had an affair with someone else’s spouse? Should you go back and tell their husband or wife about it so you can feel less guilty? No, you’d break their heart and maybe destroy their home. So what should you do? Pray and receive God’s forgiveness (See 1 John 1:7-9). And if you still feel troubled about it, talk to your pastor, or a Christian counselor, or a mature friend who can handle it. James writes, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed” (James 5:16 NIV).
The point is, you must be willing to make amends when it’s possible, and willing to incur the cost to make things right. If you do that, God will bless you and you can live with a clear conscience concerning it.
Soul food: Rom 1:1-3:20; Matt 13:1-9; Ps 67; Prov 4:1-2
2021-02-05
Matthew 18:33 NLT
Jesus said: “The Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold – along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned – to pay the debt. But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ Then his master was filled with pity for him, and…forgave his debt.
But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. His fellow servant…begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full…the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt. That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart” (vv. 23-35 NLT).
If you are harboring resentment and refusing to forgive someone, read this story again. It’s the word for you today!
Soul food: Isa 63-66; Matt 12:38-50; Ps 120; Prov 3:33-35
2021-02-04
2 Corinthians 9:8 NKJV
God doesn’t just love; He lavishes us with love (See 1 John 3:1 NIV). He doesn’t dole out wisdom; He “gives generously to all without finding fault” (James 1:5 NIV). The Prodigal Son got the fattest calf, the guests at the wedding in Cana got the best wine, and Peter caught so many fish that his boat started to sink.
Paul tells us God “supplies seed to the sower” (2 Corinthians 9:10 NKJV), and the Greek word for “supplies” comes from two roots. The first means “to dance,” and the second means “to lead.” It literally means “to lead a dance.” So when God gives to you, He dances for joy. He strikes up the band and leads the giving parade. He loves to give!
One day Peter said to Jesus, “We have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have?” (Matthew 19:27 NKJV). Seems like a good opportunity for Jesus to chastise Peter’s “what’s in it for me?” mentality. But He didn’t. Instead, He assured Peter that we shall receive a hundredfold in this life and inherit eternal life too (See Matthew 19:29). Jesus promises a gain of 10,000 percent! If someone gave you ten thousand dollars today for every hundred dollars you gave them yesterday, you might call that person “God-generous.”
God dispenses His goodness not with an eyedropper, but with a fire hydrant; not with a teacup, but with the Mediterranean Sea. You simply can’t contain it. So let it bubble over. Spill out. Pour forth. “Freely you have received; freely give” (Matthew 10:8 NIV).
Soul food: Isa 58-62; Matt 12:22-37; Ps 108; Prov 3:31-32
2021-02-03
2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV
There are two kinds of grace: (1) Saving grace. The moment you place your trust in Christ, God expunges the entire record of your sin. (2) Sustaining grace. Paul writes: “I was given a thorn in my flesh…Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness'” (vv. 7-9 NIV).
Such vivid imagery! A thorn pierces the soft skin and lodges beneath the surface. Every step is a reminder of it: The child in the rehab center. The red ink on the ledger. The felony on the record. The craving for alcohol in the middle of the day. The tears in the middle of the night. “Lord, take it away?” But what you hear is this: “My grace is sufficient for you.” Sustaining grace promises us not the absence of struggle, but the strengthening presence of God.
John Newton, the Anglican clergyman who wrote “Amazing Grace,” found that God’s grace was sufficient. On the day his beloved wife, Mary, died, he found the strength to preach a Sunday sermon. The next day he visited church members, and later on officiated at her funeral. Looking back he wrote: “The Bank of England is too poor to compensate for such a loss as mine. But the Lord, all-sufficient God, speaks, and it is done. Let those who know Him, and trust Him, be of good courage. He can give them strength according to their day. He can increase their strength as their trials increase…And what He can do, He has promised He will do.”
Soul food: Isa 53-57; Matt 12:15-21; Ps 111; Prov 3:29-30
