April 23, 2026

I Samuel 3: 19 (NIV)

The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground.

The king’s herald is to deliver the king’s message as clearly as possible without altering it.*

“Don’t waste your breath,” they say when your words are about to be ignored. If I could take all those wasted breaths and tag them on at the end of my life, I could increase my lifespan by several more years. There are few things that I dislike more than talking to the air.

When the Bible says that God let none of Samuel’s words fall to the ground, it probably doesn’t mean that everyone listened to everything he said. As a matter of fact, we know that even his own sons didn’t pay much attention to what he said. In First Samuel 8: 3, is reported the sad news that they “turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.” But God spoke through Samuel, whether anyone listened or not. He gave him words of power and truth.

We should seek this same blessing for our own words. Ask God to speak through you. Ask to speak the truth boldly. As a writer and a group leader, I often pray that my words will be God’s words and that they will change lives. And even though we may never know if what we say makes any difference in the world, we should desire that God bless us as he did Samuel and allow none of our words to fall to the ground.

Our responsibility is not to convert the world. Our responsibility is simply to hold out the message of the kingdom.*

April 22, 2026

Mark 10: 17-22 (NIV)

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. . . . “You know the commandments . . .” “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.” Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go sell everything you have and give to the poor . . . then come follow me.” At this, the man’s face fell. He went away sad because he had great wealth.

If you’re trying to prove your heart is in the right place, it isn’t.*

We aren’t given much information about this man who has waylaid Jesus. Besides not providing us with his name, Mark doesn’t even tell us he was young; we learn that from Matthew and Luke. But besides his personal data, there are other things I would like to know about him:

• Did he believe that Jesus was who he said he was? 
• What did he really want from Jesus? Was he truly seeking answers or did he just want a pat on the back for his years of being a law-abiding citizen?

This story has always left me wondering, too: if he had kept all the commandments, wouldn’t he already qualify for eternal life? Why was he even asking?

What we do learn from Mark is that Jesus looked at the man and loved him. He knew him, he knew his motives, and he knew if he was really as good as he said he was. With this in mind, we can make some fairly safe assumptions about him. First: If he kept the commandments but wasn’t willing to do what Jesus asked, his obedience was like that of the Pharisees. His heart wasn’t engaged. Second: His focus was on what he should do. He thought eternal life was something he could earn or deserve.* When Jesus’ answer didn’t meet his expectations, Mark says that the man went away sad; and as someone else has observed: “Jesus didn’t chase him down and hound him; he let him go.”*

We can find plenty of personal applications in this story, some of which are: 

1. Jesus looks at us and loves us even though he also knows us – and our true motives; 
2. we can’t earn our salvation; 
3. when Jesus offers us salvation, it is up to us to accept it – he won’t force himself on us.

Don’t walk away from Jesus. He might not ask you to give up your wealth but he will ask you to give up something. If you aren’t willing to surrender the things that keep you from him, you will walk away sad and he will let you go.

Since we are rebels, God makes one offer of peace. . . We can take it or leave it, but we can never change it.*

“All religions of the world except Christianity use the works of men to secure salvation.”*

April 21, 2026

Matthew 12: 30 (NIV)

“He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.”

When the crowd got too large, [Jesus] would inevitably sharpen the blade of his teaching.*

Sometimes Jesus spoke in parables to weed out the merely curious from the seekers. At other times, he cleared the room by issuing challenging statements such as this one. There was no allowance for wafflers. Indifference was not an option.

It was true then and it is true now: You can’t be just “not with” Jesus. If you aren’t with him, you are against him, actively or passively. If you are not working for the kingdom, you are working against the kingdom, even while doing nothing overtly to affect it adversely. Not to choose is to fall back to the default position: against Jesus, for Satan. There is no such thing as a neutral party.

If you think that being a good person is enough, you are wrong. Jesus calls us to be more than good enough; he calls us to be like him. On our own, we can never be that good but when we choose him, his grace becomes the sign that we are on the winning side.

He saves us not because we are good enough, but because Christ was.*

April 20, 2026

Isaiah 20: 2 (NIV)

At that time the Lord spoke through Isaiah . . . He said to him, “Take off the sackcloth from your body and sandals from your feet.” And he did so, going around stripped and barefoot.

God wastes nothing.*

Isaiah was an educated man who was comfortable among the powerful and the elite of Judah. As an advisor to kings, he “helped set the course of his nation.”* Now God has issued a bizarre command to Isaiah: take off your clothes and your shoes. We assume that God did not intend for Isaiah to go about completely naked but that he was only required to remove the sackcloth which identified him as a prophet. And Isaiah did as he was told. For three years. 

God chose this method to present a “dramatic object lesson”* in protest of an alliance with Egypt and Cush. In our eyes, this appears to be a waste of Isaiah’s gifts and skills. Sometimes we, too, may be called to service that seems “beneath us” but when we, like Isaiah, say, “Here am I. Send me,” (Isaiah 6: 8) we’d better expect the unexpected! We can be certain, though, that whatever is required of us, it can’t compare to what our Savior endured on our behalf – and the reward far exceeds our sacrifices.

Based on my experience, I have concluded that if your response is not, ‘Oh no!’ it is probably not the call of God.*

April 19, 2026

Job 13: 19 (NIV)

“Can anyone bring charges against me? If so, I will be silent and die.”

He has never apportioned our punishment to our sins, nor has he regulated the exercise of his mercy by our merits.*

In the cop shows, lawyers are frequently portrayed as encouraging their clients to “take a plea” even though they insist that they are innocent. I used to think there was no way I would plead to a lesser charge when I knew I wasn’t guilty of any crime, but if real life is anything like TV, a person can’t always count on a fair trial to exonerate him. If the evidence against me was overwhelming, would I take my chances in court?

Job was falsely accused but he was confident of his innocence. And he was willing to take his chances in court. He was willing to die rather than admit to any wrongdoing. When we stand before God in his role as judge, how will we plead? We know we’re not innocent. Paul reminds us in Romans 3: 23 that we all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory. But in the next verse we find the good news: we are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”

As the redeemed of the Lord, we can face our judgment with Job’s confidence. “Can anyone bring charges against me?” 

The Cross ends the law's power of punishment.*

April 18, 2026

Deuteronomy 34: 1-4 (NIV)

Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land . . . Then the Lord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob . . . I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”

Don’t waste . . . [today] by whining over yesterday’s disappointments or pining for a perfect tomorrow.*

Poor Moses! One little temper tantrum and he is barred forever from crossing into the Promised Land. Surely the taste was bitter, after 40 years of trying to get there, as he looked but could not touch.

We face disappointments in life – big ones and little ones. We can imagine how we would feel if we were in Moses’ sandals and we even wonder how God could have been so harsh in his punishment for the little incident in Numbers chapter 20.  But in Matthew 17, Mark 9, and Luke 9, we find the happy ending arranged for Moses by a loving God. On a high mountain, Moses met and chatted with the Messiah – and finally stepped into the boundaries of the land that was forbidden to him in his lifetime.

Instead of bemoaning your life’s disappointments, remember that God’s plans for you are bigger and better than your dreams for yourself. Follow him and trust that you will see the Promised Land some day. And chat with the Messiah!

Our pain and suffering is often so intense it is impossible to see beyond our understanding to a greater plan and purpose.*

April 17, 2026

Luke 24: 55, 56 (NIV)

The women who had come with Jesus . . . followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.

The cross was not the end but the beginning of something amazing.*

It was the day before the Sabbath so these devout Jewish women had to be satisfied with a hurried burial for their beloved teacher, but they made plans to return after the Sabbath to complete the job.

The Sabbath - the day before Easter. The day between the worst day and the best day in history. I wish I knew all the details of that day. Did Jesus decide on the moment he would arise? Did he lay there in the grave until sometime that morning or did he get up as soon as the tomb was sealed? Did he walk around in there, lighting it up with his presence, or did he just transport through the rock? What was his first thought? Or did his consciousness never disconnect? Did he think, “I’m glad that’s finally over,”? He was God and man before; what was he afterwards? 

The day after the Sabbath – Resurrection Day! If only I could hear the stories from those first people who saw him alive. Best news ever! How special to be one of those people! If only we were as caught up in the excitement of the moment as they were. He is alive! Don’t you want to run and tell someone?

Easter is too often used as a testimony to the past and a promise of the future without emphasizing its meaning for the present.