2025-06-14
Colossians 1:10 NLT
To grow, you must dedicate yourself to the process. Whether it’s in your career, your marriage, your ministry, or your walk with God, once you dedicate yourself to growth and development and a lifestyle of planned improvement, it becomes normal to you. And you realize when you’re not making progress. Something is missing!
It’s been reputed that the Polish American classical pianist Arthur Rubinstein refused to listen to recordings of his playing. Even only a few months afterward, he was unhappy with what he heard. Why? Because he had changed and improved – but his recordings had not.
Stop and think about the non-negotiables in your life. What are you willing to live and die for? Write down what you want to hold on to at any cost, and fully explain why. After you have done that, everything else should be open to change.
Here is how Paul prayed for the Christians in the Colossian church: “We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and… spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honour and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better. We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light” (vv. 9-12 NLT).
Soul food: Hosea 6-10; Mark 14:43-52; Ps 139:7-12; Prov 13:24
2025-06-13
Psalm 139:23 NKJV
Change must happen inside you before it can happen around you. In an old Peanuts comic strip, Lucy tells Charlie Brown she would like to change the world. So, Charlie asks her, “Where would you start?” In typical Lucy fashion, she replies, “I would start with you.” Think about it: When we have marital problems, we sometimes pray, “Lord, help my spouse to change!” But maybe things will improve when you’re willing to pray, “Lord, help me to change!” Changing the atmosphere and dynamics in your home usually starts with changing your own actions and reactions.
The Bible says, “Be tender-hearted… keep a humble attitude… Don’t retaliate… pay them back with a blessing… [and] God… will bless you for it” (1 Peter 3:8-9 NLT). When we don’t like something, we want everybody – except us – to change! The truth is, we’re resistant to change.
In The Secret Garden, Novelist Frances Hodgson Burnett puts it like this: “At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, and then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done – then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”
To change your world, you must first change yourself. The psalmist prayed, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties… see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24 NKJV). As you begin to change for the better, others will notice and react to you accordingly. So, make this your prayer today: “Lord, let the change I seek begin in me!”
Soul food: Hosea 1-5; Mark 14:27-42; Ps 139:1-6; Prov 13:21-23
2025-06-12
Philippians 3:8 NLT
You must be willing to pay the price for change. Dramatist and screenwriter Sidney Howard remarked, “One-half of knowing what you want is knowing what you must give up before you get it.” Change always costs you, if not in money, then in time, creativity, and energy. In fact, if it doesn’t cost you anything, chances are it’s not real change!
As you consider how to make the changes needed in your life in order to improve and grow, it’s important to count the cost of changing compared to the cost of remaining the same. That means you must do your homework. Change brings growth. But it can also bring grief, especially when it means letting some things go in order to embrace others. What will the changes you desire really cost?
Paul wrote: “Everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him… I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me” (vv. 8-12 NLT).
The question is: How badly do you want to change – and are you willing to pay the price?
Soul food: 2 Ki 24-25; Mark 14:12-26; Ps 73:17-28; Prov 13:20
2025-06-11
1 Timothy 4:15 NKJV
Recognize that without change, there can be no progress. Now, we’re not advocating change for its own sake. That can be a characteristic of restlessness and a symptom of inner conflict. Change can represent great opportunities as well as potential losses. Although all progress produces change, not all change produces progress. But as leadership expert Max DePree observed, “We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” If you want to grow, you must be willing to change.
General Douglas MacArthur, hero of the Pacific War, said, “Life is a lively process of becoming. If you haven’t added to your interests within the past year, if you are thinking the same old thoughts, relating the same personal experiences, having the same predictable reactions, rigor mortis of the personality has set in.” Did you get that last sentence? Rigor mortis is the physical rigidity that sets in after death. And it can happen to you relationally, careerwise, and spiritually.
In 1 Timothy 4, Paul is mentoring his spiritual son Timothy to take over leadership in the church when Paul is no longer around. And he was letting Timothy know he couldn’t inherit the mantle of leadership simply because Paul loved him; rather, he would have to work for it. And that meant working on himself! “Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all.”
Opportunities in life come to all of us, but they’re only recognized and grasped by those who are prepared. And that means being willing to grow, adapt, and change.
Soul food: 2 Ki 21-23; Mark 14:1-11; Ps 73:1-16; Prov 13:17-19
2025-06-10
Acts 6:2 NIV
The New Testament church grew so fast that the apostles became overwhelmed with the challenge of administering it. What did they do? “So, the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, ‘It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word'” (vv. 2-4 NIV). And the result? “The word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly” (v. 7 NIV).
You can improve the quality of your life by learning to delegate. Here is how you do it:
(1) Start with a task you currently perform that could be handed off to another.
(2) Identify a person with the capability (not just the willingness) to do it.
(3) Take time to write the steps and to go over them with the person.
(4) Describe why the task is essential and its importance in the whole scheme of things.
(5) If the task is time sensitive, then set definite dates.
(6) State your expectations.
(7) Evaluate the person’s progress on a recurring basis until you’re assured they can handle the job without your involvement. Assist them for a while and check in with them to make sure they’re doing the job right. The saying is true: You don’t get what you expect; you get what you inspect.
Soul food: 2 Ki 18:17-20:21; Mark 13:24-37; Ps 80:12-19; Prov 13:13-16
2025-06-09
2 Corinthians 10:5 NIV
When we read the verse, “Take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ,” we tend to think it’s about capturing sinful thoughts and getting them out of our minds. And it is. But it’s also about capturing creative thoughts and keeping them in our minds. This Scripture also means stewarding every word, every thought, every impression, and every revelation inspired by God’s Spirit.
A pastor writes: “The Aramaic word for ‘prayer’ means ‘to set a trap.’ We often think of prayer as nothing more than words spoken to God, but maybe it’s more than that. Prayer is also when God speaks to us through dreams and desires and promptings and impressions and ideas. Prayer is the mechanism whereby God ideas are conceived and captured. And it’s our capacity for prayer that will ultimately determine our creative potential. One way to set prayer traps is by keeping a prayer journal… Journaling is one of the most overlooked and underappreciated spiritual disciplines in our multitasking culture.”
Your journal captures your journey. It shows you how far you have come and how far you still have to go. It reminds you of God’s grace when you stumbled and His faithfulness that brought you back to the right road after you had taken the wrong one. When you set a prayer trap, you capture each experience and wring the wisdom out of it to be better and stronger. You need to “write down the revelation” (Habakkuk 2:2 NIV). Some of us do this digitally, and others with pen and paper. What matters is that you are recording what God is doing in your head, in your heart, and in your life.
Soul food: 2 Ki 16:1-18:16; Mark 13:12-23; Ps 80:1-11; Prov 13:11-12
