god

Worth Every Nail

Scripture Focus: 1 Peter 1:18–19: “Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” (NKJV) Have you ever heard of the IKEA Effect? It’s the…
Eyes That Search for You

Scripture Focus: “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him…” — 2 Chronicles 16:9 (KJV) Walk into a café and you might notice something rather peculiar. Above the napkin dispenser hangs a simple picture…
Made for Home

Scripture Focus: “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” — Philippians 3:20 (NKJV) Scientists still marvel at the monarch butterfly. Every spring and fall, these delicate creatures migrate as far as 3,000 miles. They travel over mountains, rivers, forests, and open fields without…
Divine Detours

Scripture Focus: Numbers 22:20–30 Balaam’s journey in Numbers 22 begins simply enough. He saddles his donkey and sets out with the princes of Moab, apparently convinced that he is moving in the right direction. What he cannot see is that the angel of the Lord is standing directly in the road with a drawn sword.…
Not Mine To Carry

Scripture Focus: Hebrews 12:1–2 “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our…
God’s Shining Face

Some passages in Scripture become so familiar that we recognize the words without fully hearing what they say. Aaron’s blessing is one of them. “The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee…
Until Hearts Are Ready

Isaiah 30:18 “And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you: for the Lord is a God of judgment: blessed are all they that wait for him.” For years, I assumed this verse was primarily about my waiting…
When the Heart Gets Stirred

Scripture Focus: “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” — Proverbs 16:32 Have you ever noticed that two people can experience the exact same situation and respond completely differently? One shrugs it off. The other carries it around for…
The Escort No One Saw

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes Scripture Focus: Acts 20:17–23:35 Paul stood on the shoreline at Miletus looking into faces he loved. The men gathered around him were not strangers. They had prayed together, wept together, watched churches planted together, and seen God do things none of them could’ve imagined when they first began the journey.…
The Light We Were Made For

I’ve tried to imagine the brightness of heaven, but somewhere along the way my imagination simply runs out of road. John writes, “The city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof” (Revelation 21:23).…