Devotional

Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens! Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness! Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! Psalm 150:1-6 Elesha Coffman is the professor of American Religious and Intellectual History at Baylor University. She wrote an article for Christian History that was titled “Singing the Old, Old Story.” The article was published on August 27, 2016 and began…

In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days. Luke 1:75 At Kenneth Copeland Ministries’ annual Southwest Believers’ Convention in Fort Worth,  held in August of this year, the 87-year-old televangelist regaled attendees with stories about his passion for Breitling watches, of which he owns 36 coveted timepieces. While speaking on “How to Walk by Faith and Not By Sight,” Copeland delighted in showing off the diamond-encrusted Breitling adorning his left wrist, as he asked the audience “Do you think this one’s pretty? It’s a Breitling. It has diamonds around the edge. Someone gave me this one.” Copeland went on to…

Enjoy what you have rather than desiring what you don’t have. Just dreaming about nice things is meaningless – like chasing the wind. Ecclesiastes 6:9 I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. John 10:10 Amy Low, a single mother two, is the managing director Emerson Collective. Emerson Collective is a nonprofit organization focused on education, immigration reform, the environment, media, journalism, and health. It was founded by billionaire philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs the founder of Apple. When Low was 48-years-old, she was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer. As she travelled this dark…

Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another. Zechariah 7:9-10 Edward Bleier from 1986 to 2000 was president of a Warner Bros. division that developed basic cable networks such as Nickelodeon, MTV and The Movie Channel. He was credited with achieving record-breaking sales of vintage movies and older television series, shown in reruns, annually surpassing the income those productions had earned when first released. He was an innovator who foresaw…

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!” Isaiah 6:8 Donnalyn Quintana of Weather, Texas, read a newspaper story about a South Dakota boy who had to quit competitive roping to battle cancer. Later that year she learned the boy had died. She realized that during his struggles she could have called rodeo star Roy Cooper to visit the boy and cheer him up. Having been raised in a family of rodeo professional, she knew all the stars and could have…

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went away quickly from the tomb, fearful yet overjoyed, and ran to announce the news to his disciples. And behold, Jesus met them on their way and greeted them. They approached, embraced his feet, and did him homage. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.” Matthew 28:8-10 DEVOTION In March of this year, five major world religions celebrated their most sacred events. This is because of the placement of the moon after the spring equinox. I remember being…

Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. Joel 1:3 STORY In February 2019, the Unicode Consortium, a nonprofit organization that provides standards for text on the internet and oversees emojis, approved 59 new emojis. The new symbols include an otter, a sloth, and a waffle. Though, most significant was that year’s emphasis on inclusiveness. Recent additions also include a hearing aid, a prosthetic limb, sign language, a cane, a wheelchair, a guide dog, and couples holding hands with each having a different skin tone. The dating app Tinder said the…

Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; persevere in prayer. Romans 12:12 STORY Standing on stage before an assembly of student at Fairmount Junior High School in Cleveland, Ohio, was the athlete hailed by sports writes as “the fastest man alive.” Charlie Paddock, a 1920 Olympic Gold Medalist, came to declare that the youth could obtain their goals. Paddock thundered, “Do you know who you are? Well, I’m here to tell you. You are Americans and you have it in you to become what you want, that is, if you will form a goal, if you believe in that goal…

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.  When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless…

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Surely, we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by all, and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets that are human heart. II Corinthians 3:1-3 STORY William Blackaby was born in British Columbia in 1935. After graduating from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, he began serving a church…