Daily Hope Devotional

“Keep yourself in training for a godly life”  (1 Timothy 4:7 TEV). God wired it so that when you help other people grow, God helps you grow. You never grow faster than when you’re in fellowship with other believers and encouraging each other’s commitment to following Jesus Christ. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 4:7,  “Keep yourself in training for a godly life”  (TEV). How do you keep training for a godly life? You stay in a small group, and you get a spiritual partner. Have you noticed that it’s always easier to work out when you’re working with somebody else? You need someone to walk alongside side you through your journey of faith, and you need to make the same commitment to other people. Nothing affects your life more than your commitments. Tell me what you’re committed to, and I’ll tell you what you’re going to be in 20 years, because you are becoming whatever you are committed to. Your commitments shape your life! ...

The Bible says in Galatians 6:10 ,  “Give special attention to those who are in the family of believers”   (NCV). So why do people in the family of God get special attention? Because whatever you pay attention to is going to grow. If I pay attention to my garden, it’s going to grow. If I pay attention to my kids, they’re going to grow. If I pay attention to my marriage, it’s going to grow. If I pay attention to my work, it’s going to grow. What is the greatest gift of love? It’s not diamonds, flowers, or chocolate. The greatest gift of love you can give is focused attention. You can affirm people just by looking them in the eye, which essentially tells them, “I value you. What you have to say is important to me because you matter to me.” What people want more than anything else is focused attention. They want to know that their thoughts matter, that their lives matter, that they are valuable. The essence of relationships...

“Epaphras ... always prays for you that you will grow to be spiritually mature.”  (Colossians 4:12a NCV) Paul wrote about a prayer warrior in Colossians 4:12 :  “Epaphras ... always prays for you that you will grow to be spiritually mature”   (NCV). Epaphras is a hero to me. I don’t know about you, but prayer is hard for me. You’d think it should come naturally, but it doesn’t for me. So it impresses me even more that Epaphras had the discipline to always take time to pray for people. But I also love the fact that he prayed for peoples’ spiritual growth. We usually pray for peoples’ needs — health and financial and relational — but we don’t spend nearly as much time praying for their spiritual growth. We don’t pray that God would change our character to be more like Him. I think one of the reasons is that we don’t know what to pray about. Fortunately the Bible is filled with verses about how to pray for somebody t...

“Love one another with brotherly affection [as members of one family], giving precedence and showing honor to one another”  (Romans  12:10  AMP). Here’s a little secret: Everybody is looking for affirmation. Have you noticed that? People will do almost anything to get it. If you don’t believe that, just watch some of the reality shows. Look at what people do to get on TV, just so people will applaud them. God is an incredibly affirming and loving Father. When you affirm other people, you are showing love and representing Christ. Jesus affirmed people as He ministered, so you are ministering like Jesus did. You’re showing the world a little bit more about what God is like. One of the best ways to affirm people in everyday life is to show them acceptance. Romans 15:7 says,  “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you”  (NIV). The easy choice sometimes is to snub and belittle and demean people, esp...

“Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from Him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God — truly righteous and holy. So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth, for we are all parts of the same body.” (Ephesians 4:21-25 NLT) To change the defects in your life, you have to have people in your life who tell you the truth. You’re not going to get well on your own; you’re going to need other people in your life. You’re going to need support. You’re going to need a small group. Change requires honest community. There are some things in your life you’re never ever going to be able to change on your own, typically the things that are the most difficult in your life and that you don’t want anybody else to know about. You’re...

When people say “I hate you!” in relationships, it’s often a sign that somebody’s trying to control somebody else. What’s beneath that control? It’s fear. Insecurity causes us to try to control others or resist the control of others. When you’re so insecure that all you think about is what others think of you, it destroys your relationships and disables your life. It’s an amazing dilemma we have as human beings: We long to be close, but we also fear being close. We long to have intimacy with others, but we’re also scared to death of it. Insecurity prevents intimacy and destroys your relationships. You can’t get close to somebody if there’s fear in the relationship. If insecurity destroys relationships, then what builds them? Love! Love builds relationships. The Bible says in 1 John 4:18 ,  “Love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it … shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love”...

“Live in harmony, be sympathetic, love each other, have compassion, and be humble.”  (1 Peter 3:8 GWT) Pride destroys relationships. It shows up in a lot of different ways, like criticism, competition, stubbornness, and superficiality. The problem with pride is it’s self-deceiving. Everybody else can see it in us but us. When you have a problem with pride, you don’t see it in your life. Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride leads to destruction; a proud attitude brings ruin” (NCV). I love this verse in the Message paraphrase: “First pride, then the crash — the bigger the ego, the harder the fall.” Pride destroys relationships, but humility is the antidote to pride. Humility builds relationships. The Bible says in 1 Peter 3:8,  “Live in harmony, be sympathetic, love each other, have compassion, and be humble”  (GWT). How are you and I going to grow in humility? It happens by letting Jesus Christ begin to control our t...