How to Start a Devotional Habit
We want to encourage you to build up the habit of a daily devotional time. Maybe you have had a devotional habit in the past, or maybe it’s something new. Getting started well can make all the difference in continuing past the first day. Here are five of our favorite ways to start (and stick with) a daily devotional time.
The Ripple Effect
Read: Romans 12:3-21 Let love be genuine. (v. 9) One of our kids’ favorite summer activities was dropping rocks in the still waters of Prentiss Bay on Lake Huron’s north shore of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. We’d find large rocks, throw them straight into the water, and watch the ripples travel far beyond the initial drop. […]
How Then Shall We Live?
Read: Romans 12:1-2 Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. (v. 1) In Romans, chapters 1-11, Paul shows that God’s mercies in Christ to us are undeserved, unearned, and beyond description. All we can say is, “To him be glory forever” (Rom. 11:36). If this is true, how then shall […]
Mystery and Mercy
Read: Romans 11:25-36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. (v. 36) Romans 11 ends with a final gaze at the mystery of God’s glorious grace in Jesus, climaxing with Paul’s short doxology. Swiss theologian F. L. Godet says, “Like a traveller who has reached the summit of an Alpine […]
Crescendos of Grace
Read: Romans 11:11-24 So do not become proud, but stand in awe. (v. 20 NRSV) Lake Emma sits nestled in a small canyon at 12,000 feet in the shadow of Colorado’s Mount Democrat. Standing on one side, I yelled “Hello!” at the top of my lungs, counting four or five echoes before fading out. An […]
Not Alone
Read: Romans 11:1-10 I have kept for myself seven thousand . . . (v. 4) “It is very hard to be all alone in your faith.” A young Iranian shared those words behind tear-filled eyes as she recounted her testimony in a retreat held by Words of Hope. With church buildings closed inside Iran, this […]
Beautiful Feet
Read: Romans 10:5-21 And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? (v. 14) Two years ago I sat around a small fireplace high in the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh, India, among a few Monpa-language Christians. As I handed them SD cards with digital audio of gospel teaching and praise […]
When To-Do Lists Fail
Read: Romans 9:30-10:4 They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. (10:2) I love my daily to-do list. It keeps me focused on activities that will help accomplish my goals. I take pleasure in checking the boxes at the end of the day. And, if I do something that wasn’t on my […]
A Place to Belong
Read: Romans 9:19-29 Those who were not my people I will call “my people.” (v. 25) In today’s passage, Paul deals with a challenging question about God’s mercy: why are some saved and others are not? It’s a question that Paul argues is essentially unanswerable in human terms. It’s like a piece of clay asking […]