Daily Hope Devotional

“The thought of my pain, my homelessness, is bitter poison. I think of it constantly, and my spirit is depressed. Yet hope returns when I remember this one thing: The Lord’s unfailing love and mercy still continue, fresh as the morning, as sure as the sunrise. The Lord is all I have, and so in Him I put my hope.”  (Lamentations 3:19-24 TEV) When your world is falling apart, it’s so easy to focus on the pain, the problems, the pressure, and the difficulties. It’s the natural response. But the biblical response is to turn your focus to God’s love. Even though you’re mad at God, you need to remind yourself how much He loves you. Focus on His unconditional love. Remember that you can’t make God stop loving you. You can complain, yell at Him, and scream at Him, but He will still love you forever. You can see this biblical approach in Jeremiah’s life in Lamentations 3:19-24. Jeremiah starts out focused on his pain: “The thought of my pain, my homelessness, is bitter poison. ...

Have you noticed how many difficult people there are in the world? Do you feel like you have to deal with most of them some days? You know what rude acts bug me the most? People who call me and then say, “Who is this?” People who honk their horns in traffic jams. People who cheat in the 10-items-or-less grocery line. People who steal your parking spot. The list goes on, and I’m sure you can relate. So, how should we respond in love to difficult people? Proverbs 16:21 says, “A wise, mature person is known for his understanding. The more pleasant his words, the more persuasive he is” (TEV). The more pleasant you are, the more persuasive you are. And, you’re never persuasive when you’re abrasive. Nagging doesn’t work. The way you say something determines the way it’s received. If you say something offensively, it’s going to be received defensively. That’s why love is all about your words. Love is truthful, but it is also tactful. Tact and tone always go together. It matters...

God has a unique role for you to play in His family. This is your ministry, and God has gifted you for your assignment: “A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other” (1 Corinthians 12:7 NLT, second edition). Your local fellowship is the place God designed for you to discover, develop, and use your gifts. You may also have a wider ministry, but that is in addition to your service in a local church. Jesus has not promised to build your ministry; He has promised to build His Church. You will share in Christ’s mission in the world. When Jesus walked the earth, God worked through the physical body of Christ; today He uses His spiritual Body. The Church is God’s instrument on Earth. We are not just to model God’s love by loving each other; we are to carry it together to the rest of the world. This is an incredible privilege we have been given together. As members of Christ’s Body, we are His hands, His feet, His eyes, and His heart. He works through us in ...

A church family helps you develop spiritual muscle. You will never grow to maturity just by attending worship services and being a passive spectator. Only participation in the full life of a local church builds spiritual muscle. The Bible says, “As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love” (Ephesians 4:16b NLT, second edition). The phrase “one another” or “each other” is used more than 50 times in the New Testament. We are commanded to love each other, pray for each other, encourage each other, admonish each other, greet each other, serve each other, teach each other, accept each other, honor each other, bear each other’s burdens, forgive each other, submit to each other, be devoted to each other, and many other mutual tasks. This is biblical membership! These are your “family responsibilities” that God expects you to fulfill through a local fellowship. Who are you doing these with? It ...

God loves you so much that He sent Jesus on a mission of love with a message of love. The Bible 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. It could be said the reason you’re alive is because God created you as an object of His love. God made you so He could love you and so you could love Him. God’s love for you is the reason your heart’s 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 regardless of 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 upon His character and ...

Whenever a child is born, he or she automatically becomes a part of the universal family of human beings. But that child also needs to become a member of a specific family to receive nurture and care and grow up healthy and strong. The same is true spiritually. When you were born again, you automatically became a part of God’s universal family. But you also need to become a member of a local expression of God’s family. The difference between being a church attender and a church member is commitment. Attenders are spectators from the sidelines; members get involved in the ministry. Attenders are consumers; members are contributors. Attenders want the benefits of a church without sharing the responsibility. They are like couples that want to live together without committing to marriage. Why is it important to join a local church family? Because it proves you are committed to your spiritual brothers and sisters in reality, not just in theory. God wants you to love real people, not ...

There is no place you can go where God’s love isn’t. You’ll never be separated from God’s love. Nothing — no circumstance, no situation — can separate you, because God’s love is everywhere: “Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39 NIV). If you want an antidote for loneliness, here it is: You will never be separated from God’s love. The fact is we do lose loved ones. If you’re married, one of you is going to die first. And you will grieve over that. But if you’re a Christian, you’ll never be lonely, because you can tune into God’s love. I’m not talking about religion; I’m talking about a relationship with Jesus Christ. His love lasts forever, and His love is everywhere. “Where could I go to escape from You? Where could I get away from Your presence? If I went up to heaven, You would be there; if I lay down in the world of the dead, You would be there. If I fle...

“And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”  (Ephesians 3:18-19 NLT, second edition) The width of God’s love extends across the entire world and includes all people: “The Lord is righteous in all His ways and faithful in all he does” (Psalm 145:17 NIV). God loves the whole world (John 3:16). God never made a person that He didn’t love. He made you; He loves you. And God doesn’t make junk! He loves you unconditionally. He loves you very, very, very, very, very much. Everybody matters to God. In fact, we see in the life of Jesus that He even loves the unlovely and those who may feel unlovable. Do you want to know the secret of self-esteem? Here it is: If you want confidence, then understand how much you matter to God...

“Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. This is what He wanted to do, and it gave Him great pleasure.”   (Ephesians 1:4-5 NLT) A while back, a man came into my office and said, “I’m a Christian, but I don’t feel like I’m going anywhere in my spiritual growth. I’m kind of stuck in neutral.” I said, “What do you think the problem is?” He said, “I think my problem is I just don’t love God enough.” I said, “That’s not your problem. Your problem is not that you don’t love God enough. Your problem is that you don’t understand how much He loves you.” Love is always a response to love. The Bible says, “We love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19 NIV). When you say, “I don’t love God,” it’s because you don’t understand just how much He really loves you. To understand your life’s purpose and calling...

“All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.” (1 Corinthians 12:27 NLT, second edition) You are not the Body of Christ on your own. You need others to express that. Together, not separated, we are His Body. A church family moves you out of self-centered isolation. The local church is the classroom for learning how to get along in God’s family. It is a lab for practicing unselfish, sympathetic love. As a participating member, you learn to care about others and share the experiences of others: “If one part of the body suffers, all the other parts suffer with it. Or if one part of our body is honored, all the other parts share its honor” (1 Corinthians 12:26 NCV). Only in regular contact with ordinary, imperfect believers can we learn real fellowship and experience the New Testament truth of being connected and dependent on each other (Ephesians 4:16, Romans 12:4-5, Colossians 2:19, 1 Corinthians 12:25). Biblical fellowship is being as committe...

The world defines freedom as a life without any restraint — “I can do anything I want to do and say anything I want to say, without anybody telling me what to do.” You may burn everybody else, but you get to do it your own way. You can have your freedom, but only by being totally selfish. Yet the Bible says the only way to true freedom is through Jesus: “If the Son sets you free, then you will be really free” (John 8:36 TEV). Real freedom is freedom from fear, where you’re truly free from guilt, from worry, from bitterness, and from death. You’re free to quit pretending because you’re free to be yourself. How do you get rid of those kinds of fears? By letting God love you! The apostle John teaches that “there is no fear in love; perfect love drives out all fear” (1 John 4:18). When you realize how much God loves you, you’ll begin to live in true freedom. In fact, you worship God when you recognize that “God is love.” It is an act of worship to agree that He is a loving, ca...

You are called to belong, not just believe. We are created for community, fashioned for fellowship, and formed for a family, and none of us can fulfill God’s purposes by ourselves. The Bible knows nothing of solitary saints or spiritual hermits isolated from other believers and deprived of fellowship. The Bible says we are put together, joined together, built together, members together, heirs together, fitted together, and held together, and we will be caught up together (1 Corinthians 12:12; Ephesians 2:21-22, 3:6, 4:16; Colossians 2:19; 1 Thessalonians 4:17). You’re not on your own anymore! While your relationship to Christ is personal, God never intended for it to be private. In God’s family you are connected to every other believer, and we will belong to each other for eternity. The Bible says, “In Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (Romans 12:5). C. S. Lewis noted that the word “membership” is of Christian origin, but t...

You don’t have to understand all the implications of your decision when you choose to follow Jesus. You simply need to respond to His invitation and make a commitment to follow Christ. Your commitments shape your life more than anything else. Your commitments can develop you or they can destroy you, but either way,  they will define you . Tell me what you’re committed to, and I’ll tell you what you’ll be in 20 years, because we become whatever we’re committed to. It is at this point of commitment that most people miss God’s purpose for their lives. Many are afraid to commit to anything, and they just drift through life. Others make half-hearted commitments to competing values, which leads to frustration and mediocrity. Others make a full commitment to worldly goals, such as becoming wealthy or famous, and they end up disappointed and bitter. Every choice has eternal consequences, so you need to choose wisely:  “...

God wants you to grow up:  “We are not meant to remain as children”   (Ephesians 4:14a Phillips). Your heavenly Father’s goal is for you is to mature and develop the characteristics of Jesus Christ, living a life of love and humble service. Sadly, millions of Christians grow older but never grow up. They’re stuck in perpetual spiritual infancy, remaining in diapers and booties. The reason is because they never intended to grow. Spiritual growth is not automatic; it takes an intentional commitment. You must want to grow, decide to grow, make an effort to grow, and persist in growing. Discipleship is the process of becoming like Christ, and it always begins with a decision:  “‘Follow me and be my disciple,’ Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed Him”  (Matthew 9:9b NLT, second edition). When the first disciples chose to follow Jesus, they didn’t understand all the implications of their decisio...

As you grow to spiritual maturity, you will have to cooperate with God in the process. One way to do that is to believe God is working in your life, even when you don’t feel it. Spiritual growth is sometimes tedious work, one small step at a time. Expect gradual improvement. The Bible says,  “Everything on earth has its own time and its own season”  (Ecclesiastes 3:1 CEV). There are seasons in your spiritual life, too. Sometimes you will have a short, intense burst of growth (springtime) followed by a period of stabilizing and testing (fall and winter). What about those problems, habits, and hurts you would like miraculously removed? It’s fine to pray for a miracle, but don’t be disappointed if the answer comes through a gradual change. Over time, a slow, steady stream of water will erode the hardest rock and turn giant boulders into pebbles. Over time, a little sprout can turn into a giant redwood tree towering 350 feet tall. ...

While you were given a brand new nature at the moment of conversion, you still have old habits, patterns, and practices that need to be removed and replaced. Let go of the fears that keep you from growing.   The truth will set us free, but it often makes us miserable first. The fear of what we might discover if we honestly faced our character defects keeps us living in the prison of denial. Only as God is allowed to shine the light of His truth on our faults, failures, and hang-ups can we begin to work on them. This is why you cannot grow without a humble, teachable attitude. Stop basing your identity around your “defects.”  We say, “It’s just like me to be …” and “It’s just the way I am.” The unconscious worry is that if I let go of my habit, my hurt, or my hang-up, who will I be? This fear can definitely slow down your growth. Good habits take time to develop. Remember that your character is the sum total of your habits. You c...

“So get rid of your old self, which made you live as you used to — the old self that was being destroyed by its deceitful desires. Your hearts and minds must be made completely new, and you must put on the new self, which is created in God's likeness and reveals itself in the true life that is upright and holy.” (Ephesians 4:22-24 TEV) Although God could instantly transform us, He has chosen to develop us slowly. Jesus was deliberate in developing His disciples, just as God allowed the Israelites to take over the Promised Land “little by little,” so they wouldn’t be overwhelmed (Deuteronomy 7:22 ). He prefers to work in incremental steps in our lives. Why does it take so long to change and grow up? There are several reasons: We are slow learners.  We often have to relearn a lesson 40 or 50 times to really get it. The problems keep recurring, and we think, “Not again! I’ve already learned that!” But God knows better. The history of Israel i...

It takes years for us to grow to adulthood, and it takes a full season for fruit to mature and ripen. The same is true for the fruit of the Spirit. The development of Christ-like character cannot be rushed. Spiritual growth, like physical growth, takes time. Billy Graham associate Lane Adams once compared the process of spiritual growth to the strategy the Allies used in World War II to liberate islands in the South Pacific. First they would “soften up” an island, weakening the resistance by shelling the enemy strongholds with bombs from offshore ships. Next, a small group of Marines would invade the island and establish a “beachhead”—a tiny fragment of the island that they could control. Once the beachhead was secured, they would begin the long process of liberating the rest of the island, one bit of territory at a time. Eventually the entire island would be brought under control, but not without some costly battles. Adams drew this parallel: Before Christ inv...

Your choices are far more powerful than your circumstances. You may not like how complicated your life has become. But with few exceptions, no one is forcing you to keep your life complicated. You have the power to simplify your life. In fact, God expects us to assume responsibility for our lives and to carefully choose how we spend our time. You have just enough time to do God's will while you’re here on Earth. You’ve been given just enough time to fulfill your purpose. When you try to do more than God planned for you, it’s only natural that you will find yourself constantly out of time or stressed over your schedule. My prayer for you is that you will find relief from stress and a new sense of satisfaction as you do only the things God created you to do. Talk It Over Make a list of the activities and responsibilities that are causing you stress. Ask God to help you determine the things on your schedule that He never intended for you to do. Where do ...

Have you ever felt that somebody was a hopeless case? That he or she was never going to come to Christ? Maybe it was an alcoholic relative, a drug-addicted parent, or a co-dependent neighbor — someone with a hurt, habit, or hang-up that kept him from knowing God. But no one is outside Jesus’ reach! Last article talked about the importance of small groups in helping “hopeless” people find healing. From the story in Luke 5 of the group of men bringing their paralyzed friend to Jesus to be healed, we learned three characteristics of a small group that God uses to heal people who others might consider hopeless. Today we’re going to look at four more: Persistence:  We all get discouraged as we try to reach our family, friends, and acquaintances with the Gospel. But we can’t give up! The friends in Luke 5 didn’t let difficulties discourage them. It didn’t matter that crowds were between them and Jesus. Galatians 6:9 says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for a...