Daily Hope Devotional

The whole world needs Jesus. Jesus said this very clearly over and over, but in Matthew 28:18-20 He gave us the Great Commission: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (NIV). What is our assignment? It is “Go.” This is not a suggestion! It’s not optional. If you are a child of God, God expects you to go. What’s the task? Go and make disciples. A disciple is someone who does the five things we were put on Earth to do: know and love God, grow to spiritual maturity, serve God with your shape through ministry, share the Good News, and worship God with all your heart. What’s our authority? It’s not some government or the CIA. It’s Jesus. What is our responsibility? Are we supposed to go and make disciples of some...

“I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.”  (Matthew 16:18b NLT, second edition) Only the Church will last forever. Nothing else is going to last. No business is going to last forever. No government is going to last forever. No nation is going to last forever. Only the Church is going to last forever. Jesus said in Matthew 16:18, “ I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it ” (NLT, second edition). The Church is the most magnificent idea God or any human being ever thought up. The entire universe was created for God’s family. What’s God’s family called? The Church. The Church is not a building. The Church is the family of God. God wanted a family, so He decided to create the entire universe just so He could create Earth just so He could create human beings just so we could have the free choice to choose or reject Him. He knew that some of us would choose to love Him back, and He’s going to take us to Heaven ...

It’s not about you. It’s not about profit or politics or anything else. It’s all about God. You may know that the first sentence of The Purpose Driven Life is “It’s not about you.” What you may not remember is that the title of the first chapter is “It’s All About God.” Those two go together. The reason it’s not about you is because it’s all about God. Until you understand that, life is never going to make sense. Until you understand that, I am not going to make sense to you. The goal of my life is not pleasure, it’s not possessions, it’s not prestige, it’s not politics, it’s not power, and it’s not popularity. It’s not anything that the world values. The goal of my life is the glory of God. Romans 11:36 says, “ For everything comes from God alone. Everything lives by His power, and everything is for His glory ” (TLB). Everything on the planet and in the universe was created for God’s glory. What’s the implication of that? If it’s all about God and it’s not all about you o...

God will never, ever, ever, ever stop loving you. You will always be loved. Nothing can destroy your relationship with God. If you grasp this fact, it will change your life. Romans 8:38-39 says, “ I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from His love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, or where we are — high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean — nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us ” (TLB). When you put your hand in God’s, He grasps it, and He’s never letting go. There may be times you might like to let go. But He never will. You are eternally secure. Once you are born into a family, you can’t be unborn out of it. Once you’re born again, you can’t be unborn out of the family of God. Once your name is written in the eternal book of life, it can’t be erased. It’s in...

“For His Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are His children, we are His heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory.”   (Romans 8:16-17 NLT, second edition) If you were the son or the daughter of Bill Gates, it would probably stand to reason that you were going to receive a large inheritance. But you have a father that is wealthier than Bill Gates. Your heavenly Father has prepared an inheritance for you as one of his children. The Bible says in Romans 8:16-17, “For His Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. And since we are His children, we are His heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory” (NLT, second edition). That is one of the most amazing verses in the entire Bible. Everything that God has given to His Son Jesus Christ He’s given to you also. You’re going to share in His glory. That is limitless! In Heaven, you will have unlimited access to the un...

As believers, we have hope because we are going to live forever. Death is not the end. There is more to the story! One day your heart will stop beating, and that will be the end of your body. But it’s not going to be the end of you. You were made in God’s image. You were made to last forever. This is not all there is. Why do we have hope? Because no matter how bad it seems on Earth, it’s just for a while. We’re going to spend trillions of years on the other side of eternity with no more sorrow, no more sadness, no more sickness, no more suffering. The Bible says in Romans 8:11, “The Spirit of God, Who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, He will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you” (NLT, second edition). As a pastor, I’ve stood at the graveside of hundreds of families, and I know the difference between people with hope and those without. You can see it in their eyes. I’ve seen the terror ...

You can give by reason or by revelation. If you’re going to become a person of faith, you have to learn to give by revelation. When you give by reason, you say, “This is what I can reasonably give.” It doesn’t require any faith to give by reason. Giving by revelation is when you say, “God, what do you want to give through me? How much do you want me to trust you for in this particular instance?” My wife Kay and I have been tested many times on giving when we didn’t have it. One of the most dramatic examples was when we raised money to build Saddleback Church’s building back in 1993. We were meeting in a tent and decided that we would have an offering to build a building. People would make commitments to give over a three-year period. So Kay and I prayed about what we would give, and we came up with an amount that certainly wasn’t reasonable. In fact, it was more than we could afford. But we trusted God for that amount. Then one day I was reading in 1 Chronicles 29 about how th...

Faith is not believing God can do something. Faith is not hoping he will do something. Faith is thanking God in advance. Jesus said, “ When you pray and you ask for something, believe that you have received it and you will be given what you asked for ” (Mark 11:24 TEV). You say, “Wait a minute! I’ve got to thank God in advance before I get it in order to get it?” Yes. If you thank God after you’ve got it, that’s gratitude. When you thank Him in advance, that’s called faith. If I handed you a check right now for a thousand dollars, would you wait until you cashed it to thank me? No! You’d thank me right now. But it really wouldn’t be yours until you actually cashed it, because that check is really a promise. When I give you that check, you go, “Thank you, Rick,” believing that I was credible and that I had enough money in the bank to cover that check for a thousand dollars. Faith is thanking God in advance. What I’m saying is this: If God tells you to go after Moby Dick in a ...

There is enormous power in your words. If you’re going to become a woman or man of faith, you have to change the way you talk. You have to announce it in order to experience it. Sometimes speaking in faith appears totally foolish, arrogant, and totally out of touch with reality to people who don’t understand faith. Abraham knew about this. God came to Abram one day and said, “Abram, I’m going to change your name from Abram to Abraham.” Abraham means “the father of a great nation.” There was only one problem: Abraham was 99 years old, and he had no kids. He was probably ruthlessly ridiculed for his name. But God says that we don’t live in the world of human reality. We live in the world of spiritual reality, and we see it not as it is but as it can be, as it should be, as God wants it to be. Romans 4:17 says that God “ speaks of future events with as much certainty as though they were already past ” (TLB). That’s called speaking in faith — you announce it in order to experience...

“It was faith that made Moses leave Egypt without being afraid of the king’s anger. As though he saw the invisible God, he refused to turn back.”  (Hebrews 11:27 TEV) Sometimes I don’t feel like being nice to my wife and kids. I don’t feel like doing the unselfish thing. I want to just lie on the couch and watch TV. I don’t want to do one more thing today. I don’t want to handle another problem. But just because I don’t feel like it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do it. This will really shock you: Sometimes I don’t feel like praying or reading my Bible. But I do it. I’ve found that if the only time I pray is when I feel like it, the devil makes sure I never feel like it. If the only time I read my Bible is when I feel like it, the devil makes sure I never feel like it. Maturity is when you live your life by your commitments, not by your feelings. The difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people are willing to do what unsuccessful peo...

“It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, Who warned him about things that had never happened before.”  (Hebrews 11:7a NLT, second edition) Faith is obedience when you don’t understand it. In just the New Testament alone, there are 1,050 commands, and they’re all there for your benefit. God says things like, “Love your enemies” and “Forgive the people who hurt you.” That’s not easy! There are a lot of commands in the Bible that seem difficult, unreasonable, unrealistic, unachievable, and even impossible. But when God says things like, “You should save sex for marriage,” He’s not being mean. He says it because He knows best and what will make you happy more than you do. Every time God tells you to do something, it’s a test of your faith. The question is this: Do you trust God, or do you trust your gut? Do you trust the Word, or do you trust the world? Will you obey? As a kid, did your parents ever ask you to do som...

Faith is visualizing the future. It’s believing it before you see it. Hebrews 11:1 says, “ Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see ” (NLT, second edition). A lot of people say, “I’ll believe it when I see it!” God says the exact opposite is true: “You will see it when you first believe it.” There are many things in life that have to be believed before they can be seen. In the 1960s, the Russians sent the first cosmonaut into outer space. He circled the earth, and when he came back down, he did a press conference and said, “I searched the heavens, and I looked for God, and I did not see Him anywhere. Therefore, there is no God.” The Communists, which was an atheistic regime, said, “We now have scientific proof that there is no God.” About six months later, John Glenn went into space, circled the earth three times on Gemini, came back down, and held a press conference. He said, “I saw God everywhere! I sa...

“Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”   (2 Corinthians 9:6-8 NIV) When it comes to your giving, there are two principles you need to remember, and they’re based on 2 Corinthians 9:6-8: “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work” (NIV). This is the principle of harvest: What you sow, you’re going to re...

“‘Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test Me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.’”   (Malachi 3:10 NIV) The Bible says there’s only one way you can prove God: through giving, specifically through tithing. Malachi 3:9-10 says, “‘You are under a curse — your whole nation — because you are robbing Me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test Me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it’” (NIV). I’ll never forget the first time I let God test my faith about giving. I was 19 years old, in college, and in debt. I owed my school $500 that was due at the end of the month. I owed 10 bucks to a friend. And all I had was $50 in the bank...

You make a living by what you get. You leave a legacy by what you give. Jesus said in Acts 20:35, “There is more happiness in giving than in receiving” (TEV). I’ve always loved that verse because it’s so honest. Does Jesus say there’s no happiness in receiving? No. There is happiness in receiving. But Jesus says there’s more happiness in giving. That’s the exact opposite of the way the world thinks. Most of the world thinks there’s more happiness in getting. But Jesus does not think like the world. He knows that you are most like Him when you aren't giving, and that produces joy. When people visit Saddleback Church, they notice that it’s a joyful church. Do you know why? Because it’s a generous church. People love to give! And when we’re generous, it results in joy. It feels good to give. Do you want your family to be more joyful? Then be more generous as a family. Do you want to be a more joyful person? Then be more generous as a person. Talk It Over When was a ...

“Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full — pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.”   (Luke 6:38 NLT, second edition) Generosity determines the blessings in your life. Proverbs 22:9 says, “Blessed are those who are generous” (NLT, second edition). I’ve seen that time after time in my own life and in the lives of others. Tom Holladay, a pastor at Saddleback Church, says that the time he and his wife saw most in their married life how God blesses them through generosity was when they lost it all. Years ago a levy near their house broke, and nine feet of water flooded their house. Everything was lost. All they had left was the car they were driving and the clothes on their backs. Tom says: “We had more than tithed all of our lives. I’m a pastor. I wasn’t going to challenge other people to follow Jesus in a way that I wasn’t going to ...

The Bible says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21 NIV). So where is your heart today? It’s simple, really. It’s wherever you put your money. Some of you, your heart is in your home, because that’s where you put your money. Maybe your heart’s in your boat. Or your cabin. Or that car you love. Wherever you put your money, that’s where your heart is going to go. Do you want to get interested in the Coca-Cola Company? Buy some stock. The moment you buy some stock, you’re going to be very interested in the stock price of Coca-Cola. If your treasure is not there, you couldn’t care less about Coca-Cola stock. Where you put your money and your time reveals your priorities. You can say you love Jesus, but if you don’t spend any time with Him, then you don’t love Him as much as you think you do. You say you love your kids, but do you spend time with your kids? No? Then you don’t really love them the way you think you do. You can say you love to be in ...

It took me a while, but I finally figured out that this marriage thing is about communication. I discovered that on the days that I had deep, soul-communication with my wife Kay — not “Hi. How are you? I love you. See you later” — that’s when our relationship would grow. And on those days when we have little or no communication, our relationship decays. A relationship is never standing still. It’s either growing or decaying. The same is true with God. On the days when you have deep, significant talks with God, your relationship grows. On the days when you have little or no conversation with God, your relationship decays. It’s that simple. When you really love somebody, you don’t just want to spend time with Him. You want to talk with Him. Remember when you first fell in love as a teenager and your parents got upset because you were always on the phone? You talked and talked and talked because you were getting to know that person. Communication is how you get to know others. Wh...

You’ve probably noticed that music and love go together, because music comes from the heart. It’s not something you do intellectually. It’s something that comes out of your soul, your emotions. There are many love songs in the world. In fact there are radio stations that are dedicated entirely to the love song format. But did you know that more songs have been written about Jesus Christ than any other topic in the world? Christianity is a singing faith. Why? Because it’s not about religion. It’s about a love affair. It’s about a relationship with God, Who loves you so much that He sent His Son to die for you and Who wants you to love Him back. Psalm 147:7 says, “ Sing out your thanks to Him; sing praises to our God ” (TLB). Nothing will make you more aware of God’s love and presence in your life than singing and praise. You may be thinking, “But you don’t understand. I can’t sing.” The Bible says to make a joyful noise. I know you can do that because probably when you go to a ...

This principle of “use it or lose it” is universal. If you don’t exercise, your muscles get smaller. If you don’t invest your money, you’re going to lose it. If you don’t learn to use your mind, it will get duller and duller as you get older. If you have a talent and you refuse to practice, you’ll lose that talent. The opposite is also true. If you do use it, you get even more of it. So if you use your muscles, they get bigger. If you take a little bit of money and invest it, it gets bigger. It multiplies! Hebrews 13:21 says, “May the God of peace … equip you with all you need for doing His will” (TLB). What do you need more of in your life? How about more energy? How about time? How about money? How about talent? Here’s the secret: Whatever you need more of, take the little you’ve got and start using it to serve other people unselfishly, and God will multiply it. You say, “I don’t have time to serve other people. I don’t have time to minister. I already don’t have time to g...

What keeps you from developing your full potential? Fear. What keeps you from becoming all God wants you to be? Fear. What keeps you from building a legacy that will last into eternity? Fear. There are three kinds of fear that will keep you from developing your talents and accomplishing your purpose. 1. Self-doubt.  It keeps people locked in a prison and unable to develop their potential. This is actually the fear of failure. But failure is not fatal! In fact, the fear of failure is far worse than failure itself. Failure is actually a good thing. Failure is how you learn what doesn’t work. And it’s how you grow into a better parent, partner, and professional. Don’t let self-doubt keep you down. I’d rather attempt to do something great and fail than attempt to do nothing and succeed. 2. Self-consciousness.  If you worry about what other people think, nothing will ever get done in your life. You just have to do what God tells you to do. That’s all you’re accountable f...

“Be very careful how you live. Do not live like those who are not wise. Live wisely. I mean that you should use every chance you have for doing good, because these are evil times. So do not be foolish with your lives. But learn what the Lord wants you to do.” (Ephesians 5:15-17 ICB) If you want to make an impact with your life, you’ve got to do one thing: You’ve got to get control of your time. Your time is your life. If you don’t learn to manage your time, you won’t go very far in life. Ephesians 5:15-17 says, “Be very careful how you live. Do not live like those who are not wise. Live wisely. I mean that you should use every chance you have for doing good, because these are evil times. So do not be foolish with your lives. But learn what the Lord wants you to do” (ICB). We all have the same amount of time every week: 168 hours. It’s what you do with it that counts! You only have a certain number of days you’ve been allotted in this world, and if you blow them, you’ve blow...

One of the biggest mistakes we make in life is forgetting how much our actions influence the people around us. Every day you are tempted to make decisions that may be the best thing for you but could have a devastating effect on the people around you. If you want to make wise decisions, you need to ask, “Will my choice harm other people?” That’s the opposite of our culture. Our culture teaches us to think only of ourselves. But God expects you to think more of others than you do yourself. In fact, the Bible says that one day you’re going to be judged by God on how your decisions affected other people. Romans 14:12-13 says, “Each of us will give an account of himself to God. Try to live in such a way that you will never make your brother stumble by letting him see you doing something that he thinks is wrong” (TLB). You may not like hearing this, but whether you like it or not, you are being watched — all the time. If you’re a parent, you should be especially aware that little...

“‘I have the right to do anything,’ you say — but not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything’ — but not everything is constructive.”   (1 Corinthians 10:23 NIV) Some things are not necessarily wrong; they’re just not necessary. Most of the choices you make in life are not really a matter between good and bad. It’s more a matter of what’s best for you. The Bible talks about this in 1 Corinthians 10:23: “‘I have the right to do anything,’ you say — but not everything is beneficial. ‘I have the right to do anything’ — but not everything is constructive” (NIV). A lot of things are morally neutral. To make a good decision, you need to go to a higher standard and ask, “Will what I’m about to do make me a better person?” That’s called the improvement test. I remember many years ago when Kay was nursing our baby, who always got hungry about noon, and so she would sit down to feed the baby and turn on the TV. What’s on TV at midday? Soap operas. So she star...

The Bible says in Proverbs 10:9, “Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but whoever takes crooked paths will be found out” (NIV). You will be found out! So when making decisions, you have to have the integrity test. The test of integrity is that your public life and your private life match — what’s in your heart and what’s in your life are the same thing. You ask yourself the question, “Would I want everyone to know about this decision that I’m making?” The truth is, when it comes to integrity, even if you can fool everyone else, you can’t fool yourself. And if you violate your own conscience, you have to pay for that. Sometimes we know we’re about to do the wrong thing. We know we shouldn’t do it, but this thought comes to our mind: “I know I’m doing the wrong thing, but I’m going to go ahead and do it because I know God is a forgiving God.” What kind of fool do you think God is? Do you think you can do something that He says is wrong and you won’t have consequences in y...

When you need to make a decision, the first and ideal test is this: “Is my decision in harmony with God’s Word?” You have to decide what’s going to be your ultimate authority in life. It really boils down to two choices: God’s Word or the world. Are you going to base your decisions on what God says or what other people say? If you base your life on popular opinion, you’re always going to be out of date, because it changes every day. What was “in” yesterday will not be “in” today and what’s “in” today will not be “in” tomorrow. If you base your life on popular culture, political correctness, or opinion polls, you do not have principles to live by. That’s called a shifting foundation! On the other hand, if you base your life on God’s Word, the truth never changes. Truth is always true. So if God says something was wrong 10,000 years ago, it was also wrong 500 years ago, it’s wrong today, and it will be wrong 1,000 years from today. I don’t care what opinion polls or political co...

Good relationships don’t happen by accident. They take cultivation, work, and a lot of time. That requires commitment! I cannot count the number of times that my wife and I have felt like walking out of our marriage, particularly in the early years. There were so many times we thought, “This is not worth it. We’re so different. This marriage could never work.” But we didn’t walk out. Why? Because we’d made a commitment. We took a vow — “Till death do us part” — not just to each other but also to God. So we said, “We’re going to keep this commitment even if it kills us.” And it nearly did! There have been times in our marriage that the only thing that kept us together was that commitment — not love or interest but simply the commitment we made to God. I am so glad that we did not give up. Today, my wife is my best friend, and I cannot imagine my life without her. The Bible says in Proverbs 18:24, “A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks clos...

We tend to think of gossip as one of those “little” sins. But when God talks about gossip, He puts it on the list with things like sexual immorality and murder. Why? Because it is so destructive to relationships. Gossip can tear apart friendships, families, and churches. Gossip is talking about a situation with somebody who is neither a part of the solution nor a part of the problem. If we’re honest with ourselves, what we’re doing is making ourselves feel a little more important at somebody else’s expense. We’re talking about their hurts and their problems to make us feel like we’re morally superior to them. That’s the danger and the hurt of gossip. Do you know what God did next? He invited Moses to pray for Miriam’s healing—the person who gossiped against him. Some of you have been deeply hurt by gossip and things that have been said around the office or a broken confidence between a friend or family member. Here’s what God has to say to you: “Pray for the person who gossip...

God wants us to use our words to build others up. Ephesians 4:29 says, “ Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen ” (NIV). Sometimes our words are like a sledgehammer. We swing away without thinking, and all of a sudden we look around, and all we’ve got is a pile of relational rubble. When you thoughtlessly sling your words around and tear people down, your relationships are going to suffer. One of the reasons we’re not constructive with our words is we don’t realize how powerful this tool is—our mouth and the words that God has given to us. We say things without thinking. And people remember them. Certain things people said to you in a careless way—even as far back as grade school or college or when you first started working—you still remember today. That’s how powerful words are. So when it comes to your mouth, you’ve got to think of it as a power tool...

There’s an old Chinese Proverb that says, “Seek to understand before seeking to be understood.” The Bible talks about this as well: “Look out for one another’s interests, not just for your own” (Philippians 2:4 TEV). That is such a counter-culture verse. Everything in our culture conditions us to think first of ourselves. We don’t think about other people naturally. That’s something we have to learn to do. We naturally think about our needs, our desires, our goals, and our ambitions. As a result we have millions of people disconnected because they’re only thinking of themselves and not anyone else’s needs. During about a two-hour period when I was recently watching TV, I saw three commercials with the same by-line: “You deserve it.” “Buy this shampoo! You deserve it.” “Buy this expensive car, because you deserve it!” We are taught that we are the supreme value in life. Let me teach you two very basic truths about life. First, the world does not revolve around you. You’re very...

If you want to connect with someone, you’ve got to be willing to take the first step. This often takes courage. Why? Because it’s fear that disconnects human beings. When we’re full of fear and anxiety, we don’t get close to each other. In fact, we back off. We’re afraid of being rejected, manipulated, vulnerable, hurt, used. All of these fears cause us to be disconnected in life. This fear is as old as mankind. When Adam and Eve sinned and God came looking for Adam, Adam said, “I was afraid, and I hid.” People have been doing that ever since. We’re afraid, so we hide. We hide our true selves. We don’t let people know what we’re really like, because if we do and they don’t like us, we face rejection. And so we pretend. Fear does three terrible things to relationships: 1) Fear makes us defensive. When people point out weaknesses, we retaliate and defend ourselves. 2) Fear keeps us distant. We don’t let people get close to us. We withdraw. We hide our emotions. 3) Fear makes...

The Bible says in Romans 6:23, “ The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord ” (NLT, second edition). You might say that grace is the gift that keeps on giving. When you get to know Jesus Christ and His grace and love, it gets better and better and better. It is available and extended throughout eternity. The best is yet to come! What’s Heaven going to be like? You’re going to be reunited with loved ones who know the Lord. You’re going to be rewarded for your faith. You’re going to be reassigned a position of work that you love to do. You’re going to be released from pain, depression, despair, shame, and guilt, and you’re going to rejoice and party for eternity. What a deal! But there’s a catch: You have to accept it. If you went home today and found a gift on your table, but you left it there for the next year, unopened, that would be pretty dumb. A gift is worthless unless you accept it. You must accept God’s grace throug...