Enjoying the Journey
Posts Tagged ‘devotional’
3 Lists You Should Make Today
We live by lists! Grocery lists, to do lists, lists to keep up with our lists. At this particular time in our world people are more reflective. God has providentially allowed us to have time to meditate and ponder what is truly important. The question is: will we remember what we are learning? Someone said that a short pencil is better than a long memory. It is so easy to forget what God is impressing on our minds. I learned as a student in college that if I intended to take action on something or share it with others then first I had to write it down. After our Lord’s miracle of feeding the five thousand He had the disciples…
Read MoreA Fresh Start For Your Bible Reading
Just this week as I was reading God’s Word I noticed a reference that Jesus made to the reading of Scripture. In Luke 6:3 Christ spoke to religious people when He said, “Have ye not read so much as this…? Those who knew so much about God had failed to read some of the most basic portions of His Word! If they had read it, they had forgotten it. Or misunderstood it. Or failed to obey it. The point is: they needed to read it again! And so do we. All this week on our “Enjoying the Journey” podcast I am dealing with simple principles that will help us return to daily Bible reading. I do hope you will listen…
Read MoreA Devotional Truth for the Morning
I am in another time zone this morning. Next week I will be in a time zone ten and a half hours different from home! It is easy for mornings and evenings to get mixed up at times. God makes a definite distinction between evening and morning in His Word. This is true from the very beginning in Genesis 1. Mornings are the first moments of a new day. When we give the first things to God He always makes the rest more blessed. Recently I was reading Charles Spurgeon’s message on “Morning and Evening Songs.” What a rich spiritual meal! Permit me to give you a little taste: Every morning is a sort of resurrection…Let us give the Lord…
Read MoreA Simple Practice to Add to Your Morning Routine
What is your morning routine? We all have one. Typically, mine begins with a trip to the coffee maker! While there are simple variations to my morning routine I try to follow the same pattern each morning regardless of where I am. The course of the day is charted in the first moments of the morning. While there is no perfect formula for everyone, there are key ingredients. The Word of God Coffee Prayer Coffee Some conversation with those you love Coffee Physical exercise Coffee Adequate time to get ready Coffee A good breakfast …you get the idea. My wife has a dish towel in our kitchen that says, “This house runs on love, laughter, and strong coffee.” She is…
Read MoreA Simple Idea for Families
Families are busier than they have ever been. One of the most challenging things to do as a spouse or parent is consistently read the Bible with your family. I must confess that I feel I have failed in this area more often than I have succeeded. We have done better at certain seasons than at others, but I want to be more diligent in putting the Word of God into our hearts and home. Pastor Sexton instructed us that a Christian home has more to do with what you put into it than what you take out of it. In one of the classic passages on the family the Heavenly Father reminds us that a key element in home…
Read MoreA New Resource Available this Month!
Each month this year we are offering a free resource to help encourage Christians and churches. These tools are designed to encourage prayer, Bible reading, witnessing, and personal ministry to others. I hope you will use them and pass them along! This month’s resource is a little different. It is not downloadable, but will be available at no cost to you. Several months ago I wrote in my private journal a simple prayer concerning the Word of God. With the help of some precious friends we have taken those thoughts and created a beautiful devotional bookmark. On the back of the bookmark you will find 7 simple suggestions on how to read the Word of God more effectively. It can…
Read MoreMaking the Most of the Evening Hours
Through the years I have written a number of things about making the most of the mornings. (You may read several articles about how to begin your mornings here.) In Genesis 1 we repeatedly find the phrase, “the evening and the morning.” Evening hours and morning hours serve as bookends on each day. It is vital that we learn how to both begin and end with God. Interestingly enough, the Jewish people viewed the beginning of a new day in the evening. The Jewish day began at 6 pm. It was not just the ending of one day, it was the beginning of another. Evenings should be a time to reflect on God’s faithfulness that day and prepare your heart for the…
Read MoreSeven Tips for This Year’s Bible Reading
Like many of you, we are beginning a new Bible reading plan in our home for 2017. I heard a wonderful message just last night on the subject of reading the Word of God. The Scriptures are so wonderful! We may grow stale, but the Lord is perennially fresh! We are instructed in 1 Timothy 4:13 to “give attendance to reading.” Reading the Bible is not the end of what we should do with the Word of God, but it is a good beginning. The simple discipline of reading the Scriptures will do wonders for your heart and home. It will give God the opportunity to speak to you in a personal way. There are a variety of different Bible…
Read MoreA Deepening Conviction
Every conviction in our hearts should grow out of God’s Word. With the passage of time those convictions that are founded in eternal truth only deepen. The Holy Ghost confirms again and again that Bible convictions are true in every circumstance. Like God, His truth does not change. At this stage of life and ministry one of my Bible convictions that has grown stronger is my conviction about the Bible itself. As I watch the power of the gospel at work…As I witness the mysterious moving of God’s Word in the hearts of people in every place…As I see the transformative work of one verse of Scripture in my own soul…I am more convinced than ever – the Bible is…
Read More3 Books to Use In Your Devotional Time
Books are wonderful tools. When it comes to the daily quiet time there are a number of wonderful books that may be used with great benefit. Occasionally I enjoy reading after an author whose sole purpose in writing is devotional in nature. Oswald Chambers is a wonderful example of this. His highly recommended My Utmost For His Highest is thought-provoking. E.M Bounds books on prayer are another good example. They stir the heart to seek the Lord more fervently and purposefully in prayer. Recently I ran across a rather new book that has been a great help to me in this way. Though I know little about the writer, Bob Sorge’s Secrets of the Secret Place has served to enhance my daily…
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