Daily Hope Devotional

Are you tired? Some of you are running on steam. You’re tired a lot. At the end of the day, you’re worn out and you’re running out of energy, and the reason why is real simple: You’re a human being. Your strength is limited. God’s strength is unlimited. Your strength is finite. God’s strength is infinite. Your strength is exhaustible — that’s why you get exhausted! But God’s strength is inexhaustible. God never runs out of energy. God never gets tired. Psalm 84:5 says, “You bless all who depend on You for their strength” (CEV). Do you want God’s blessing in your life? Then you need to depend on God for your strength. One of the most famous Christians of the 19th century was a guy named Hudson Taylor. He was a missionary to China, and he was a spiritual giant and a brilliant man. In his old age, he lost his health and became very weak. He wrote a letter to a friend that said this: “I am so weak I can no longer work. I am so weak I can no longer study. I am so weak I can no long

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take. Don’t be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the LORD and turn away from evil.” (Proverbs 3:5-7 NLT, second edition) Have you ever had a feeling that something was so very, very right, and then when you did it, it ended up being so very, very wrong? Feelings lie. They lie to you all the time! There’s an old country song that says, “How can it be wrong when it feels so right?” Are you kidding me? There are a lot of things that are wrong that feel so right at the moment. After six months in a relationship, you wonder, “What was I thinking?” Just a few months into a job, you think, “How in the world did I get messed up in this?” A quick decision that seemed harmless at the time leaves you broken and scarred years later. If you want to have fewer dead ends and failures in your life, you need to hear what the Bible says

The Bible says God is love. It doesn’t say God has love; it says God is love. Love is His nature. God is love. God created the entire universe. He created this planet; He created the human race; then, He created you because He loves you. God created you as an object of His love. He made you so He could love you and so you could love Him. God’s love for you is the reason your heart is beating right now; it’s the reason you’re breathing. God’s good news is that he loves you on your good days as much as He loves you on your bad days. He loves you when you can feel His love, and He loves you when you can’t seem to feel His love. He loves you whether or not you think you deserve His love. There is nothing you can do that will make God stop loving you. You could try, but you simply can’t do it, because His love for you is based on His character and not on anything you do or say or feel. God loves you so much that He sent His only Son, Jesus, into this world, “so that everyone w

“But the angel reassured them. ‘Don’t be afraid!’ he said. ‘I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.’”  (Luke 2:10 NLT, second edition)  Knowing God is for you will change your whole perspective on life. You’ll stop thinking of God as someone looking down from Heaven, ready to yell “Gotcha!” any time you mess up. God is for your success in life; He created you for a purpose, and He wants you to succeed. It is God, your Creator, Who will measure your success in life and no one else. This is extremely good news! It means you don’t need to be afraid of God, because God is for you. Yet some people are so afraid of God they get nervous just talking about Him. Do you know why? They feel guilty, and then they start thinking, “If I get close to God, He’s going to lecture me. He’s going to remind me of all the things I’ve done wrong, and then I’ll feel even worse!” Nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus said,  “I did not come into the world to conde

We are commanded to serve God. Jesus was unmistakable: “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (‭‭Matthew‬ ‭20:28‬ ‭NASB‬‬) For Christians, service is not something to be tacked onto our schedules if we can spare the time. It is the heart of the Christian life. Jesus came “to serve” and “to give” — and those two verbs should define your life on Earth, too. Jesus taught that spiritual maturity is never an end in itself. Maturity is for ministry! We grow up in order to give out. It is not enough to keep learning more and more. We must act on what we know and practice what we claim to believe. Impression without expression causes depression. Study without service leads to spiritual stagnation. The old comparison between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea is still true. Galilee is a lake full of life because it takes in water but also gives it out. In contrast, nothing lives in the Dead Sea because, with no outflow

What is grace? That’s when God gives you what you need, not what you deserve. Grace is when God says, “I’m going to take your problem and make it My problem.” Grace is God’s Riches given to you At Christ’s Expense. The Bible says, “God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it” (Ephesians 2:8-9 NLT, second edition). In other words, you can’t earn your way to Heaven. You can’t work your way in. It’s just a gift. I know I don’t look like it today, but for three years I was a lifeguard. And every lifeguard knows you can’t save people as long as they are trying to save themselves. If somebody is drowning and flailing around in panic, a lifeguard knows to just stay back for a few seconds and wait until that person gives up. Because if you try to save others while they’re trying to save themselves, they will pull you under, too. Whe

“Take on an entirely new way of life — a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces His character in you.”  (Ephesians 4:22-24 MSG) Many religions and New Age philosophies promote the old lie that we are divine or can become gods. Let me be absolutely clear: You will never become God or even a god. That prideful lie is Satan’s oldest temptation. Satan promised Adam and Eve that if they followed his advice, “You shall be as gods” (Genesis 3:5 KJV). This desire to be a god shows up every time we try to control our circumstances, our future, and people around us. But as creatures, we will never be the Creator. God doesn’t want you to become a god; He wants you to become godly, taking on His values, attitudes, and character. We are meant to  “take on an entirely new way of life — a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his cha

God calls you to a service far beyond anything you could ever imagine. You were put on Earth to make a contribution. You weren’t created just to consume resources — to eat, breathe, and take up space. God designed you to make a difference with your life. You were created to add to life on Earth, not just take from it. God wants you to give something back. The Bible says, “God … has created us for a life of good deeds, which He has already prepared for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10 TEV). These “good deeds” are your service to the world. Whenever you serve others in any way, you are actually serving God (Colossians 3:23-24; Matthew 25:34-45; Ephesians 6:7). What God told Jeremiah is also true for you: “Before I made you in your mother’s womb, I chose you. Before you were born, I set you apart for a special work” (Jeremiah 1:5a NCV). When most people think of this “special work,” they think of pastors, priests, and professional clergy, but God says every member of his family is to

At the end of your life on Earth, you will stand before God, and He is going to evaluate how well you served others with your life. The Bible says, “Each of us will give a personal account to God” (Romans 14:12 NLT, second edition). Think about the implications of that. One day God will compare how much time and energy we spent on ourselves compared with what we invested in serving others. At that point, all our excuses for self-centeredness will sound hollow: “I was too busy” or “I had my own goals” or “I was preoccupied with working, having fun, or preparing for retirement.” To all excuses God will respond, “Sorry, wrong answer. I created, saved, and called you and commanded you to live a life of service. What part did you not understand?” The Bible warns unbelievers, “He will pour out His anger and wrath on those who live for themselves,” but for Christians it will mean a loss of eternal rewards (Romans 2:8a). We are only fully alive when we’re helping others. Jesus said

Once you’re convinced that a daily quiet time is necessary for spiritual growth, how do you go about having one? You may be motivated to do it but don’t know how. Someone has said, “If you aim at nothing, you are sure to hit it!” To have a meaningful quiet time, you will need a plan or some kind of general outline to follow. The main rule is this: Keep your plan simple. First, make sure you have a Bible in a contemporary translation, a notebook for writing down what the Lord shows you and for making a prayer list, and a hymnbook in case you want to sing your praise. Then, follow these three simple steps: Relax, request, and read. 1. Wait on God (relax).  Be still for a minute; don’t come running into God’s presence and start talking immediately. Follow God’s admonition: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10a NIV). Be quiet for a short time to put yourself into a reverent mood. 2. Pray briefly (request).  This is not your prayer time, but a short opening prayer

God’s purposes for your life aren’t just for here and now; they are forever and ever and ever. If you think this life is all there is, then you will set goals as if this life is all there is. On the other hand, if you realize one day you are going to stand before God — when He’s going to ask, “What did you do while you were on Earth? Did you learn the things I put you there to learn? Did you trust My Son?” — then it will shape how you look at your goals. Do your goals help you know God, grow in God, serve God, share God, love God, and tell others about God? What I’m asking you is, for instance, how do you pray? When you pray, do you pray to get God to help you with your own purpose or do you pray to align yourself with God’s purpose? If you say, “God, I just want to do what you put me on Earth to do,” I guarantee you, God will bless everything you touch, because He is looking for people He can use to fulfill His purposes. Godly goals have eternity in mind. Paul gives an exam