Written by Chuck Swindoll, these encouraging devotional thoughts are published seven days per week.
Read 2 Samuel 1:25–27
How the mighty have fallen in battle! Jonathan lies slain on your heights. I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother; you were very dear to me. Your love for me was wonderful, more wonderful than that of women. How the mighty have fallen! The weapons of war have perished! (2 Samuel 1:25–27)
Read Genesis 6
The longer we walk with the Lord, the more we realize that we really don’t know what each new day may bring. A phone call can come in the middle of the night shattering our joy. Suddenly everything changes. It’s amazing what a knock at the door can bring or what the opening of a letter can do.
I don’t say these things to conjure up fear in our hearts, but simply to remind us that God alone knows our future. And there’s no safer, no better, no more rewarding place to be than in the nucleus of His will, regardless of where that may be.
Read Romans 7
Some years ago, I was given a book of Puritan prayers called The Valley of Vision. I have worn out one copy and had to purchase another. I recommend this volume to you. Read the following prayer from the Puritan’s pen slowly (preferably aloud).
Read Psalm 40:1–2
God’s Word is filled with examples of those who believed God and “commenced prayer.” David certainly did. “I waited patiently for the LORD; And He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay; And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm” (Psalm 40:1–2).
Read Luke 10:30–37
A commitment to excellence is neither popular nor easy. But it is essential. Excellence in integrity and morality as well as ethics and scholarship. Excellence in physical fitness and spiritual fervour just as much as excellence in relationships and craftsmanship.
This negative mindset leads to incredible feelings of anxiety. Surround most people with enough negatives and I can guarantee the result: fear, resentment, and anger. Negative information plus hostile thinking equals anxiety.
Let's take a brief look at greed. Practically speaking, greed is an inordinate desire for more, an excessive, unsatisfied hunger to possess. Like an untamed beast, greed grasps, claws, reaches, clutches, and clings—stubbornly refusing to surrender.
The essential question isn't difficult to state: How can I, a person who has absorbed so many years of mediocre thinking, change? How can I, like a caterpillar, move from squirming in the dirt to enjoying the sweet nectar in God's creation?
The world in which one person lives is too limited and restricted. When rubbing shoulders with another, we gain a panoramic view, which allows us to see the whole picture. "As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects man" (Proverbs 27:19).
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