Daily Hope Devotional

“Show proper respect to everyone.”  (1 Peter 2:17a NIV) Respect has become an endangered value over the past few decades. We live in the “Age of Irreverence,” where sarcasm rules the day and everyone loves a good put down. Yet the Bible makes it clear that stable families — and stable societies — are built around respect. The Bible commands us to honor our parents, respect civil authority, and respect church leaders. Wives are called to respect husbands in Ephesians. In the book of 1 Peter, husbands are called to respect wives. Just to make it clear that the Bible leaves no one out, the Bible also tells us to “show proper respect to everyone” (1 Peter 2:17a NIV). Everyone, regardless of beliefs or behaviors, is worthy of respect. Why? 1) God made everyone.  Psalm 8:5 says, “You [God] made them inferior only to Yourself; You crowned them with glory and honor” ( GNT). God doesn’t make junk. No one is worthless. People make wrong decisions all the time, but they are sti

We all must make a conscious decision to make time for things other than work. If we don’t, we’ll never rest. I make a conscious decision about how many hours I’ll work each week, and I stick to it. I encourage everyone to do the same thing. Otherwise, we’ll quickly burn out. It’s like a bow and arrow. When a bow is constantly strung tight, it loses its power. It has to be unstrung periodically. You need to force yourself to set realistic hours and then hold yourself accountable — and ask someone to check up on you in the process. Getting proper rest isn’t pop psychology or just good advice. It’s so important to the heart of God that he put it in the Ten Commandments — along with “Do not murder,” “Do not lie,” and “Do not steal.” “Take a day off every seven days” made it on God’s top 10 list of moral behaviors. Shouldn’t it make it on ours too? The Bible says, “You have six days in which to do your work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to Me” (Exodus 20:9-10 GN

“Only someone too stupid to find his way home would wear himself out with work.”   (Ecclesiastes 10:15 GNT) You’re not God. You don’t have all the answers. You can’t do everything. If you’re struggling to find balance in your life, that one admission can transform everything. The Bible says, “Only someone too stupid to find his way home would wear himself out with work” (Ecclesiastes 10:15 GNT). It’s just plain dumb to wear yourself out with work. When you overwork, you’re playing God. You’re saying that it all depends on you. That the world will crash down around us if you don’t keep the world spinning. That’s just not true! You’re not the general manager of the universe. You can resign. The universe will not fall apart. God has it under control. Often one of reasons we do this to ourselves is that we try to please everyone. Learn this lesson today: You can’t please everyone. Even God can’t please everyone! One person wants it to rain. Someone else wants it to be sunny.

If you want to live a truly balanced life, you can only look at one person in all of history as a model: Jesus. If you put Him at the center of your life, your life will be more balanced. Think of your life like a wheel. The center of the wheel is a hub. All of the spokes of your life (which represent your relationships, your family, your career, your goals, etc.) come from that hub. We all build our lives around some sort of hub. The question is, what will be your hub? Will it be your family? Will it be your career? Will it be money? Or will it be Jesus? How do you do know what you’re building your life around? Take a look at whatever you think about the most. That’s what is driving you. The center of your life is critical to developing a balanced life. A solid center leads to a solid life. A weak, flimsy center leads to a weak life. When I hear people tell me that their lives are coming unglued, it usually means one thing: They have a faulty center. Something other than Go

We can come up with many excuses for overworking. Sometimes we blame it on providing for our family. Other times we insist our work is so important that to slow down would be negligent. But usually, it’s a values problem. We start valuing the wrong things. Specifically, we value the acquisition of stuff above all else. The Bible says, “I have also learned why people work so hard to succeed: it is because they envy the things their neighbors have” (Ecclesiastes 4:4 GNT). God says we have two options: We can either spend all of our time keeping up with the Joneses, or we can forget them and reduce our stress level. But we can’t have both. That’s how this becomes a question of values. Do you want more stuff, or do you want less stress and more time with your family? The choice is yours. When is enough, enough? You can win the rat race, but you’re still a rat! Jesus said it like this: “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Mark 8:36 N

“All of us should … enjoy what we have worked for. It is God’s gift.”   (Ecclesiastes 3:13 GNT) In a 21st century world where we’re overworked, overstressed, and over-scheduled, this may be one of the most significant and freeing sentences you’ll ever read: You have just enough time to do God’s will. That means if you don’t feel you have enough time in your day, one of two things is true. Either: You’re doing things God doesn’t intend for you to do. You’re doing the things God intended the wrong way. God wouldn’t give you a list of things to do and not give you the time to do them. Either you’re trying to do too much or you’re wasting time. There’s really no other option. Either way, you need to learn to enjoy the moment. The Bible says, “All of us should … enjoy what we have worked for. It is God’s gift” (Ecclesiastes 3:13 GNT). Too many of us fall victim to a terrible trap. I call it “when and then” thinking. We believe “when” we achieve a particular goal, we’ll b

“A hot-tempered man … gets into all kinds of trouble.”   (Proverbs 29:22 TLB) Anger has a price tag. When you realize that truth, you’re more likely to control the anger in your life. The Bible tells us, “A hot-tempered man … gets into all kinds of trouble” (Proverbs 29:22 TLB). Most of us have seen someone do something really stupid because that person was angry. The Bible is very specific on the cost of anger. The Bible says: It causes arguments (Proverbs 15:18). It causes mistakes (Proverbs 14:29). It causes foolish things (Proverbs 14:17). You’ve probably seen all of these results from your own anger and the anger of others. The Bible is also clear on the ultimate conclusion of our inappropriately expressed anger. Proverbs 11:29 says, “The fool who provokes his family to anger and resentment will finally have nothing worthwhile left.” Think of the impact anger has on your family. As parents, we’re often tempted to use anger to motivate our children. It works in the

We all get angry from time to time. We may handle it differently, but none of us can escape the emotion entirely. But just because we get angry doesn’t mean we’re sinning. The Bible says, “If you become angry, do not let your anger lead you into sin” (Ephesians 4:26a GNT). Paul tells us in this passage not to let our anger lead us into sin. That means that anger isn’t necessarily sin. The truth is, we can deal with our anger in both appropriate and inappropriate ways. Unfortunately, most of us express our anger in ways that get us further from our goals instead of moving us closer to them. For example, here are three things to avoid when angry: 1) Don’t suppress your anger.  Don’t store it up inside. When you suppress anger without expressing it in proper ways, it’s like taking a soft drink bottle and shaking it up. One day it’s going to pop! It’ll impact your body eventually. Doctors tell us a number of physical ailments are often brought on by suppressed anger. 2) Don

Anger confounds many people in our world today. We simply don’t know how to handle our anger like we have in the past. One of the Bible’s simplest yet most profound answers for our anger comes in Proverbs 29:11: “Stupid people express their anger openly, but sensible people are patient and hold it back” (GNT). Think before you speak. Delay is a tremendous remedy for anger. You don’t need to delay indefinitely. If you’ve got an issue you need to deal with, you need to do so. Anger delayed indefinitely becomes bitterness. That’s worse than anger. Bitterness is always a sin; anger isn’t. If you respond impulsively, you tend to respond in anger. If you wait to talk about whatever conflict you’re dealing with, you’ll be more rational and reasonable when you do. The longer you hold your temper, the better your response will be. Give yourself time to think. When conflict arises and you give yourself time to think, what should you think about? Consider these five questions: T: Is

One of the great fears we all face is the fear of the future. We fear for the futures of our families, our friends, our jobs, our communities — and everything else in between. It’s natural. We’re not in control. But that realization should drive us to trust God more deeply. We might not be in control of our future, but God is. He created the whole universe. If He wanted to, the Lord could just snap it out of existence in a moment. Yet He is working His plan in history. He is moving history to a climax, a destiny. One day Jesus Christ will come back to Earth. Nothing will stop that. Just as He is working in history to move events toward that day, He will work in your life for a purpose, too — if you’ll let Him. The Bible says, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them” (Romans 8:28 NLT, second edition). God’s Word doesn’t say that everything is good. It also doesn’t say that Go

I’ve talked to thousands of people about why they don’t fully trust God. Usually it’s one of three things. People are afraid that if they give their lives fully to God, they’ll lose their freedom, they’ll lose their fun, and God will turn them into some kind of religious fanatic. None of that sounds inviting. The bottom line is, people are afraid. Yet God has an answer for our fear of trusting Him. The Bible says, “We know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love …. because God’s perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:16a, 18a NCV). God loves you. You were created as an act of God’s love. Over and over in the Bible, God makes this clear. God thought you up and created you to love you and to let you love Him. The greatest expression of God’s love is Jesus. God came to Earth in the form of a human being to show us what he is really like. He then showed us how much He loved us by dying on the cross. The cross tells us once and for all that we can fully trust God.

For most of us, the reason we don’t trust God fully with our lives is because we really don’t know Him. We usually don’t trust people we don’t know. The same is true with God. That’s why God wants you to know the real Him — not a fake version you’ve learned from popular culture. There are many popular myths about who God is that simply aren’t true. For example, some believe He’s like: A cosmic cop: He’s the big, bad policeman in the sky looking to catch us doing something wrong. The celestial Santa Clause: He’s just there to give gifts. He smiles, nods, and never really pays attention to the naughty list. The grand, old man: He’s the old, old God who isn’t much different from you. He has His own failures and faults. He doesn’t have any of the answers, either. The Force: Like in the popular science-fiction series “Star Wars,” God is an impersonal force that we can bend to our own will. If I thought God was like any of those popular misconceptions, I wouldn’t trust Him

Everyone trusts in something. We can even make good things — like our marriages, our families, or even our ministries in the church — into idols. But trusting in things other than God can have devastating effects upon our lives. If we think who we’re with or what we do will make us totally fulfilled, we’re setting ourselves up for deep disappointment. The Bible reminds us of this in Jeremiah when he says, “Those who make idols are disillusioned” (Jeremiah 10:14 GNT). But we do it all the time with our careers, relationships, and bank accounts. We act as if those created things give us meaning in life. And when we do that, we’re just setting ourselves up for failure. The Bible says, “The poor, deluded fool … trusts something that can’t help him at all. Yet he cannot bring himself to ask: ‘Is this idol that I’m holding in my hand a lie?’” (Isaiah 44:20 NLT, second edition) Oh, yes, those idols are lies. Sadly, idols don’t just stop after they’ve disappointed us though. Event

Everyone trusts something. The question is, what — or who — do you trust? Our society tends to spurn trust — or at least we say we do. We’re skeptical of everyone and everything. We don’t trust the government. Employees don’t trust employers. Customers don’t trust businesses. When you get down to the bottom of the decline of trust today, you’ll find that our society’s “truth decay” is a big part of it. Truth and trust go together. You trust people who tell you the truth. You don’t trust people if you don’t think they’re telling you the truth. And if you don’t believe in absolute truth, then you can’t trust anyone to tell you the truth. Our lack of trust causes us tremendous stress in life. We were born to trust. God wired us with the capacity and desire to trust in something greater than ourselves because he wanted us to have a relationship with him. If you don’t trust God, you will create something else to trust. It may be a diploma on the wall, money in the bank, your spou

“A fool expresses all his emotions, but a wise person controls them.”  (Proverbs 29:11 GW) You can’t control much of what happens to you in life. Like I mentioned a few days ago in these devotionals, you can’t control who your parents are, where you were born, and a variety of other factors that have a significant influence on your life. But you can choose how you react to what life throws your way. You can get angry or stressed out or shrink into depression when slights come at you — or you can respond gracefully. The choice is always yours. The Bible says, “A fool expresses all his emotions, but a wise person controls them” (Proverbs 29:11 GW). To live responsibly, we must put our minds in gear before we put our mouths in gear. We must think before we act. When others cause pain in our lives, we often respond by trying to get even. Ironically, in our effort to “get even” with a person who has wronged us, we do get even. We sink to the other person’s level. God calls

“Wise people live in wealth and luxury, but stupid people spend their money as fast as they get it.”  (Proverbs 21:20 GNT) The number one reason couples get a divorce isn’t adultery. It isn’t abuse. It’s debt! At one time, 54 percent of the divorces in the U.S. were related to financial pressures. That shouldn’t surprise us. The Bible makes it clear that it’s just plain foolishness not to manage your money well. And foolishness never ends well. Proverbs 21:20 says, “Wise people live in wealth and luxury, but stupid people spend their money as fast as they get it” (GNT). So often our culture convinces us to buy now and pay later. The average American puts $1,300 on his credit card for every $1,000 he makes. That leads straight to debt, and God calls that stupid! Friend, no one just drifts into debt — or out of it, either. Deciding to build your financial future on the commitment to be responsible starts with intentionality. After you’ve made that important commitment, y

Our minds control everything else about us. Our thoughts influence our feelings. Our feelings impact our actions. What you think matters, because everything starts in the mind. To be a responsible person, you have to control your thoughts. But let me relieve you of a little false guilt: You’re not responsible for every stray thought that passes through your mind. Stray thoughts enter our minds for a variety of reasons — conversations you hear by accident, things you see, stuff the devil puts in your mind, etc. You’re responsible for how you deal with those stray thoughts. Martin Luther said it like this: “You can’t keep the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair.” God will hold you accountable for what you allow to enter your mind. I’m amazed by what some people watch — not to mention what they let their children watch. Many true followers of Jesus spend their time watching trashy TV and listening to trashy radio. They pay

“A man who refuses to admit his mistakes can never be successful. But if he confesses and forsakes them, he gets another chance.”   (Proverbs 28:13 TLB) God is always ready to give you another chance. That’s a bedrock piece of Christianity. We’ve all been irresponsible. We’ve all screwed up. The Bible tells us, “Not a single person on earth is always good and never sins” (Ecclesiastes 7:20 NLT, second edition). God doesn’t want you living with a heavy guilt trip about all the irresponsibility in your life. Guilt destroys your confidence, damages your relationships, keeps you stuck in the past, and even hurts your health. I read a report a few years back that said 70 percent of people in the hospital could leave if they knew how to resolve their guilt. God wants far better for your life than that. You don’t want to live with guilt. And here’s an important truth to always hang on to: You don’t have to. God wants you to live with a sense of promise and hope. God can even bri

“Live life, then, with a due sense of responsibility, not as men who do not know the meaning and purpose of life but as those who do.”   (Ephesians 5:15 Phillips) You and I have a variety of great abilities. For some of us it’s the ability to do math, fix computers, or to sew. We all have abilities — even if at times we need others to point them out to us. But do you know what your greatest ability is? Responsibility. Responsibility is your ability to respond to life. It’s what makes you human — and it’s a gift from God. Much of your life hasn’t been in your control. You didn’t choose where you were born. You didn’t choose who your parents would be. You didn’t choose how your parents would raise you. You didn’t choose the unique gifts and talents you brought into the world. Responsibility is how you handle everything else. God has given you the freedom to respond to what comes your way. How you respond to what life throws at you impacts your life more than any other fac

Three philosophies — individualism, secularism, and relativism — have devastated our society’s moral thermometer over the past few decades. The consequences have been dramatic on society in general and each of us individually. So what do we do about it? You have to start with God. He embodies truth. What is right and wrong gets its meaning in the character of God Himself. Dishonesty is wrong because God is honest. Unfaithfulness is wrong because God is faithful. You can know truth by looking at how God interacts with us. The Bible says, “[God] shows how to distinguish right from wrong, how to find the right decision every time” (Proverbs 2:9 TLB). We can know the character of God through His Word. The Bible tells us what’s true whether we like what it says or not. Once we encounter truth, God’s truth, we’ll recognize two key features of it every time we see it. 1. It’s universal. It applies to everyone. If it doesn’t apply to everyone, it’s not truth. It’s an opinion.

“When the foundations of life are undermined, what can a righteous person do?”  (Psalm 11:3 GW) What we believe about the world around us shapes everything about our lives. What you believe determines your behavior. Your behavior then determines what you become, and that has a direct effect on the direction of your life. The same is true of a country or the world; they are largely shaped by the values we believe. The problem is, we’ve bought into three very destructive philosophies that have replaced truth in our lives. 1. Individualism: We buy into the lie that we’re the only standard for our lives. A few years back I read a Wall Street Journal article that said 44 percent of executives consult first with themselves in an ethical crisis. That’s really nothing new. The Israelites went through this in the book of Judges when the Bible says, “In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes” (Judges 21:25 NLT, second edition)

To experience significance in life, you must serve with others in ministry. Ministry just means doing good to other people. Significance does not come from status or a hood ornament on your car or a logo on your shirt. Significance does not come from a bigger salary. Significance does not come from sex. Significance comes from service. Significance comes when you start thinking about other people more than yourself and you give your life away. You cannot be selfish and significant at the same time. The Bible says in 1 Peter 4:10, “Each of you has received a gift to use to serve others” (NCV). The talents you were given are not for your benefit. God gave them to you for the benefit of the people around you. You are shaped for significance, and you find that significance by using your gifts and talents and abilities to serve other people. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 says, “Two people are better than one, because they get more done by working together. If one falls down, the other

“He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow.” (Ephesians 4:16a NLT, second edition) There are some things you will never learn on your own. You only learn them in community. To grow and develop your potential, you must learn from other people. For instance, you can only learn forgiveness in relationships. You can’t learn that on your own. You can only learn loyalty in relationships. You can only learn love in relationships. You can’t learn kindness or faithfulness or graciousness or unselfishness without others. In fact the most important things you need to learn in life require that you be in relationship to other people. You can’t do it on your own. If you want to build your potential, you must learn from others. Where is the best place to do that? In the family of God. In the Body of Christ. In the church. Ephesians 4:16 says, “He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does

“We are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around …. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of His body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn’t amount to much, would we?”  (Romans 12:4-5 MSG) We only learn who we are in relationship. We only learn our true identity in community. You’ll never learn who you really are by yourself. You only learn it in relationships. That means you must connect with others for fellowship. If you had been born and lived your entire life to adulthood with no human contact, you wouldn’t have the slightest idea who or what you were. You wouldn’t even know you were a human being. You only know that because you’re in relationship to other human beings. You learn your identity by being in relationships. The Bible says we need to be connected to God’s family, the Body of Christ: “We are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its

To strengthen your faith, you must unite with others in worship. Worship is for God, but it also has benefits for you. Here are two of the biggest benefits of corporate worship: It renews your faith, and it restores your joy. Isaiah 40:31 says, “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (NIV). How many times have you gotten up on a Sunday morning and said, “I am so tired. I really don’t have any energy to go to church,” but then you went to church and worshipped and afterward you were more energized? That happens because worship renews you. It strengthens you. It strengthens your faith. You’re not going to get your strength renewed by watching golf on tv. That’s just going to make you lazier and lazier. You get renewed by worshipping God with other believers. As a pastor, sometimes I think of myself like the coach in the boxing movie “Rocky.” Rocky is out ther

“Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest.” (Psalm 126:5-6 NLT, second edition) You need to plant by faith, not by your feelings. Do you think that every day a farmer wakes up excited to go to work on his farm? No. It’s hard work! But if a farmer only worked his crops when he felt like it, not much would get done. He may not want to get up early. He may not want to go harvest and plant and weed. But he does it anyway. Let me make a little confession: I don’t always feel like being nice to people. I hate to admit it! Sometimes I want to be cranky. Sometimes I just want to say, “Leave me alone!” I don’t always feel like being kind. I don’t always feel like being generous. I don’t always feel like giving people hope. I don’t always feel like preaching. But I don’t happen to live by my feelings. I happen to live by faith. Sometimes I plant when I’m tired. Sometimes I plant w

When you’re persecuted, harassed, and face opposition, you need to respond with a blessing. Jesus says in Luke 6:27-29, “Love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also” (NLT, second edition). Who does that?! Not many people, actually. It’s what sets Christians apart, because it’s not a natural or popular or easy response. It takes a lot of courage to do those things! Any fool can fight back. Any wimp can retaliate. Any idiot can say something mean back. Even parrots can be taught to curse. God wants you to love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who hurt you, and turn the other cheek. Is that easy? No. You can only do it by being filled with God’s love. And, it is the most powerful form of witness. When you refuse to retaliate and instead respond in l

There are people out there who say God wants everybody to be a millionaire. God never wants anybody to have cancer. God never wants any problems in your life. But the Bible says sometimes suffering is God’s will for your life. Why? Because it makes you more like Jesus. It deepens your faith. It brings you rewards in Heaven. It builds your character. It teaches you to worship instead of worry. There are three kinds of suffering in the world. Common suffering is suffering that’s common to everybody. It doesn’t matter if you’re Baptist or Buddhist or Muslim or atheist or whatever. Everybody suffers certain things. When a hurricane comes into town, it doesn’t just pick on Christians. There is suffering in the world that we all share in common. The second kind of suffering is carnal suffering. That’s suffering you bring on yourself from your own sin. If I go out and live a very loose immoral life and get a sexually transmitted disease, that’s my fault. It’s not God’s fault. It’s no