Daily Hope Devotional

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 for. You’r

“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 started

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

“The promise is not only for those people that live under the law of Moses. It is for anyone who lives with faith like Abraham.”   (Romans 4:16 ICB) No matter who you are and no matter what you’ve done, God loves you, and He wants you to come home to Him. He wants to shower His grace on you. He wants to throw a party for you when you return. The Bible says in Romans 4:16, “The promise is not only for those people that live under the law of Moses. It is for anyone who lives with faith like Abraham” (ICB). Who are the people who “live under the law of Moses”? The Jewish people, the nation of Israel, lived under the Law of Moses in the Old Testament. This verse is saying that God’s grace is available not just to Jews who live under the Law of Moses. It is available to everybody with faith. That’s good news! God’s grace is not just for Jewish people. It’s for all of us. All of us can come to God in the same way: through faith in the grace of God through His Son, Jesus Chris

It takes more than willpower to stop worrying. You already know that, because you’ve already tried it. You’ve thought, “I shouldn’t worry about this,” and yet you just keep on worrying about it. It’s going to take more than your willpower to stop worrying. It takes four things: 1. Get to know God.  Jesus says in Matthew 6:32, “People who don’t know God and the way He works fuss over these things” (MSG). If you don’t have a relationship with God, you have every reason to worry. You’ve got to get to know God! As a believer, you have a heavenly Father Who has promised to take care of you. You are God’s child, and children get special privileges. When you worry, God says, “You’re My child. Why are you acting like an orphan?” 2. Put God first in every area of your life.  Matthew 6:31-33 says, “Don’t worry at all about having enough food and clothing …. Your heavenly Father already knows perfectly well that you need them, and He will give them to you if you give Him first place in

“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” (Matthew 6:25 NIV) Worry is essentially a control issue. It’s trying to control the uncontrollable. We can’t control the economy, so we worry about the economy. We can’t control our children, so we worry about our children. We can’t control the future, so we worry about the future. But worry never solves anything! It’s stewing without doing. Jesus actually gives four reasons you don’t need to worry in his Sermon on the Mount. 1. Worry is unreasonable.  Matthew 6:25 says,  “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?”  (NIV) Jesus is saying, if it’s not going to last, don’t worry about it. To worry about something you can change is stupid. To worry about something you can’t change is useless. Either way, it’

“Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires …. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.” (Romans 6:12-13 NLT, second edition) Every day you are controlled by something. You may be controlled by your own ego or by the expectations of other people. You may be controlled by fear or guilt or resentment or bitterness. You may be controlled by a substance or a habit. But you are controlled by something every day. Freedom comes when you choose what’s going to control you. When you choose Jesus Christ to be in control of your life, when you are mastered by the Master, you can master everything else. If God is not number one in your life, something else is, and it’ll control you to a negative degree. When Christ is in control of your life, He always moves you in the right direction. Romans 6:12-13 says,  “Do not let sin contr

God wants you to wait patiently for Him to answer your prayer, but He also wants you to wait expectantly. Have faith. Trust God to hear and to answer. When you wait expectantly, you show God that you believe His promises. You believe He’s going to keep His Word. Daniel Boone, the famous frontiersman, was once asked, “Have you ever gotten lost in the wilderness?” He said, “No, I’ve never been lost. I’ve been bewildered for weeks at a time, but I’ve never been lost.” Some of you may feel bewildered right now. You’re bewildered about your marriage: “I’m praying for it to get better, but it’s not getting any better.” You’re bewildered about your career: “Do I go up, down, change jobs?” You’re bewildered about relationships. You may feel powerless and hopeless and like you can’t do anything to change your situation on your own. You’re bewildered. Don’t be discouraged! Don’t give up! Look up. Turn to prayer. I have had many, many requests in my life that I’ve prayed to God that have

What does God want you to do while you’re waiting on an answer to your prayer? Psalm 37:7 says,  “Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for Him to act”  (NLT, second edition). God wants you to wait patiently for Him to answer your prayer. Have you noticed that we don’t mind waiting as long as we can grumble while we wait? We don’t mind waiting in the DMV line as long as we can gripe and complain about how lousy and unorganized the government is. But God says, “Be still.” Like little 2-year-olds, we get the spiritual wiggles while we’re waiting for God to answer a prayer. We get nervous and restless. We want to jump up and do something. But God says, “Wait patiently. Be still. Watch Me act. Don’t get restless, don’t get nervous, and don’t try to take matters into your own hands.” And, don’t ever make Abraham’s mistake in the Old Testament of trying to be the answer to your own prayer. It will cause all kinds of problems! One day God told Abraham that he wa