May 11, 2026

I Samuel 31: 11-13 (NIV)

When the people of Jabesh Gilead heard of what the Philistines had done to Saul, all their valiant men journeyed through the night to Beth Shan. They took down the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall . . . and went to Jabesh, where they burned them. Then they took their bones and buried them under a tamarisk tree . . ., and they fasted seven days.

You can easily become obsessed with other people’s wrongs against you.*

We know we’re supposed to forgive people when they have done us wrong so we work at it. Lots of prayer and attitude adjustments can get us there. But forgetting is another thing. The damage is done; the consequences may last a lifetime; there is always something there to remind you . . . Why is it, though, that we can recall a person’s bad behavior in such vivid detail that it completely obliterates any good they may have done?

The people of Jabesh Gilead weren’t clueless. They knew the kind of man that Saul had become. But they also remembered and honored the good that he had done for them in his first military action as king* (see I Samuel 11). Because Saul had come to their rescue many years earlier, these brave men of Jabesh Gilead risked their lives to provide Saul and his sons with a proper burial. 

Are you working through the stages of forgiving and forgetting? Perhaps you could accelerate the process if you worked on forgiving and remembering. Ask God to help you find forgiveness in your heart and to help you remember something good about your offender. Replace that painful memory with a positive thought. Does he love his family? Is he generous to others? Is she nice to other people – even if she wasn’t to you? Maybe you used to be friends. Do you have any happy memories of that time? Is this person really all bad? 

Would you like to be remembered for the time you were rude to the cashier at Publix? Do you want to go down in history for making someone cry – even if it was unintentional? Do the mean and hateful things you say define you more than the good and loving ones? Remember the good that other people do and perhaps they will do the same for you.

What if God limited his forgiveness of us based on our forgiveness of others?*

May 10, 2026

Leviticus 19: 9 (NIV)

“When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the Lord your God.”

Jesus . . . taught that care for the poor is an integral part of one’s relationship with God.*

A friend – a single guy – arrived in Florida with a few dollars in his wallet and no home to go to. By the time I met him, he had a good job and a place to live, and was actively involved in church. Because of his past circumstances, he had a heart for the down-and-out, so one day, in the course of his job delivering electronic equipment, he encountered a man displaying the ubiquitous will work for food sign. My friend stopped and told the man he would pay him if he would help him unload the truck. The man said, “Couldn’t you just give me the money?”

Providing for the poor is the duty of the people who aren’t poor. God does not distinguish between the deserving poor and the deadbeat poor. There was bound to be abusers of the system described here but God put it in place for the benefit of those who could not help themselves. Should we allow a person to go hungry just because someone else is a scam artist? And if a man is hungry because of his own bad choices, is he not still hungry?  Is there any record of Jesus saying, “I’ll help you but you have to promise not to sell the food to buy cigarettes”? Jesus’ charity came with no strings attached.

Read the verse again. Note that God didn’t impose a law that prevented the farmer from making a profit from his crop. As a matter of fact, what God required was no hardship at all. The farmer was not going to miss the grain or the grapes that got left behind in the initial harvest, but it could make all the difference to a single mom and her kids or an old drunk down on his luck. And take note of that final, ominous pronouncement: I am the Lord your God. Are you going to argue with him?

Who do we think we are, showing no grace to those who need it most?*

May 9, 2026

Leviticus 14: 2-7 (NIV)

“These are the regulations for the diseased person at the time of his ceremonial cleansing . . . If the person has been healed of his . . . disease, the priest shall order that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop be brought for the one to be cleansed. Then the priest shall order that one of the birds be killed over fresh water in a clay pot. He is then to take the live bird and dip it, together with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, into the blood of the bird that was killed . . . Seven times he shall sprinkle the one to be cleansed of the infectious disease and pronounce him clean. Then he is to release the live bird in the open fields.”

Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple*

When I was a little girl, my grandmother, who had grown up in the rough world of coal-mining camps in Kentucky and who was somewhat superstitious, came down with a case of shingles. I remember hearing her talk about a “treatment” for her ailment that included the blood of a black rooster. I don’t recall if she tried it or not but the ritual described here for the cleansing of those healed of skin diseases is even more bizarre.

Is there any medical value to the procedure described in this passage? What is the symbolic meaning? Did anyone ever know? Hundreds of years later, these are the same instructions Jesus gave to the man he healed of leprosy (Matthew 8: 4). What if the point was merely to teach us about obedience and trust? God is not obligated to explain anything to us. More often than not the whys are never revealed to us. Perhaps the sometimes mysterious requirements of the Christian life are in place merely to allow us to practice walking by faith.

This elaborate ceremony that was to be performed for cleansing after a person was healed contrasts vividly with the simplicity and symbolism of the washing away of our sins in baptism. While killing a bird over fresh water in a clay pot was just one of the many steps in the cleansing ritual, baptism is a two-step procedure: go down into the water; come up out of the water. How complicated is that?

You know how an attorney says, ‘In a courtroom, never ask a question you do not know the answer to.’ I think it’s a great exercise of faith to ask the question you don’t know the answer to, and rest in the knowledge that you may not have an answer today, tomorrow, or ever in this life.*

May 8, 2026

Exodus 4: 2 (NIV)

Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff," he replied.

Whatever You have called me to do, You will enable me to do it.*

After this bit of dialogue between God and Moses, God proceeds to paint a word picture by turning the rod into a snake and back into a rod; by afflicting Moses with leprosy and then healing him from it; and by telling Moses to pour some Nile River water on the ground and watch it turn to blood. All of this was for the purpose of proving Moses’ credentials as God’s spokesman to the Egyptians.

And then God revealed what he required of Moses. He didn’t ask him to pick up that staff with which he was so comfortable and adept. Moses’ hard-earned shepherding skills were a plus in the job God is calling him to, and his staff comes in handy later, but for now God wants Moses to step out of his comfort zone and become a public speaker. Moses begged him to send someone else, which made God angry, but he relented and agreed to use Moses’ more articulate brother, Aaron, to speak for him. God promised to work with Moses and Aaron, teaching them what to say and do, but Aaron would be the principal mouth-piece. Finally, God told Moses to pick up the staff so that he could perform miraculous signs with it. 

Let’s look at three life-lessons we can harvest from this passage. 

1. Most of the time, God uses us where he has already gifted us, but when he calls us to be used in ways that exceed our natural capabilities, it requires submission on our part, and it results in glory for the Lord. God used Moses mightily but what more could have been accomplished if Moses had trusted God with his weakness? 
2. If we refuse the job offer, God will find someone else to fulfill his purpose. 
3. The tools in our hands can be repurposed when we surrender them to God. A shepherd’s staff can become a magic wand! 

We all need reminders that we become useful to the Kingdom when we give back to God what he has given us.

Some of the most effective Christians I have known are people without dramatic talents and special abilities, or even exciting personalities; yet God has used them in a marvelous way. Why? Because they are becoming more and more like Jesus Christ. They have the kind of character and conduct that God can trust with blessing. They are fruitful because they are faithful; they are effective because they are growing in their Christian experience.*

May 7, 2026

Ezekiel 33: 11 (NIV)

“Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?’”

He chose to be with sinners because he wanted them to have hope.*

Don’t we love it when the bad guy gets what’s coming to him? It’s only a movie but we cheer when the villain bites the dust, don’t we? In real life, it seems that the good guys are always the losers and that doesn’t seem right, does it?

God told Ezekiel to inform the Israelites that he did not find pleasure in the death of the wicked. Their death ends their chances to repent. John tells us in chapter 3, verse 17, that God sent his Son to save the world, not to condemn it. As unnatural as it might seem, we should be cheering for the bad guys to get what we got – not what we deserve but what Jesus freely gives us.

So it’s only a movie and we know the difference between fantasy and reality but let’s not become desensitized to the horror of dying without the hope of heaven. Pray for those bad guys in your life. Share the gospel with those villains. Let’s face it: without the cross, we’re all bad guys.

He came “to seek and to save the lost” – not to “search out and destroy” them*

May 6, 2026

I Peter 4: 13 (NIV)

But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.

My faith is founded on a sufferer.*

Remember when Jesus “began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things” (Matthew 16: 21)? Remember what Peter said? “Never, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” Could this possibly be the same Peter who tells us now to rejoice in the sufferings of Christ?

What happened to change Peter’s outlook? 

Have you ever taken a bite of something you were sure you wouldn’t like – only to find out you did? When my daughter-in-law tried a new dessert recipe, I was certain I wouldn’t like it but I tried it because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.  Since then, I have asked her never to prepare that dish again when I am around because I couldn’t stop eating it. No willpower whatsoever!

I think something similar happened to Peter. The “sufferings of Christ” sounded like something distasteful – even dreadful – until he tried it. Like Peter, if you participate in Christ’s suffering, you will discover that there is joy to be experienced when his glory is revealed.

So go ahead. Take a little taste. Step out in faith and rejoice in how delicious it is to suffer with Christ.

The way in which suffering is faced, namely as something to be rejoiced in, determines whether Christians will rejoice at the last day and share in the glory of Christ.*

May 5, 2026

Luke 2: 28-30 (NIV)

Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace.”

We’re ready for death, but we don’t mind waiting.*

Simeon is described as a righteous and devout man who had been waiting for the Messiah – or as Luke expresses it, “the consolation of Israel.” The Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would not die before he had seen the “Lord’s Christ.” Can you not feel his joy when he held the baby Jesus in his arms and realized who he was? Now I can die in peace.

What things are you waiting for before you can die in peace? Do you need to reconcile with a family member? Is there a loved one who needs to return to the Lord? Do you hope to live long enough to see your grandchildren grow up? Or are you hoping to find a spouse or the perfect career before you go?

There are plenty of things on this earth to keep us interested in living longer, but the truth is, once we have met the Savior, we can die in peace at any time. The longer we live for him and the better we get to know him, the less our longings center on the temporal and the more we long for the eternal. Every day, I look forward to heaven just a little more. Every day, I feel more sorrow for those who don’t have that hope.

But we can’t die in peace just because we are tired of living. We still have work to do. We still have those family members to reconcile with; the loved one to lead to the Lord; those grandchildren who will need our faithful example to follow. Prepare to die in peace only after you have fulfilled the Lord’s purpose for your life.

We don’t get to wait to offer our lives until we have our act together.*