Category: DEVOTIONALS

  • BEFORE THE TEARS ARE WIPED AWAY

    Reflections on Lamentations My brother Tripp died unexpectedly when I was in college. When I returned to school, still shell-shocked from his funeral, I was met with a barrage of friendly fire in the form of “Christian comfort.” One after another, friends offered snippets of hope: “God works all things for good,” “God is in…

  • MORNING & EVENING

    Years are short to the happy and healthy; but thirty-eight years of disease must have dragged a very weary length along the life of the poor impotent man. When Jesus, therefore, healed him by a word, while he lay at the pool of Bethesda, he was delightfully sensible of a change. Even so the sinner…

  • MAKING GOOD OUT OF BAD

    Connect The TestamentsJudges 11:1-12:15; Philippians 3:1-11; Psalm 68:15-35 God is renowned for working through unlikely means with the most unlikely people. During the period of the judges, there were few candidates less likely for God’s work than Jephthah himself: “Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty warrior; he was the son of a prostitute, and Gilead…

  • WHEN EVERYTHING CRUMBLES

    Reflections on Jeremiah We spend our time building for the present. We stack bricks of time and energy into relationships, savings and careers. We believe our passion will serve as the mortar that will hold it all together. When it all comes crumbling down—when a spouse cheats, when a position is terminated, when tragedy strikes—we’re…

  • MORNING & EVENING

    What a mass of hideous sickness must have thrust itself under the eye of Jesus! Yet we read not that he was disgusted, but patiently waited on every case. What a singular variety of evils must have met at his feet! What sickening ulcers and putrefying sores! Yet he was ready for every new shape…

  • COMMUNITY DRIVEN

    Connect The TestamentsJudges 9:11-10:18; Philippians 2:19-30; Psalm 68:1-1 By default, we flag our own needs as high priority. And we often measure our church community by how well it’s serving our needs. Caught up in our own spiritual growth, we tend to forget that we’re meant to attend to the physical and spiritual needs of…

  • WHEN THERE IS NO JUSTICE SEEK PEACE

    Reflections on Isaiah It was a normal, hectic New York City commute. I was walking through the Staten Island Ferry terminal to the subway, when I witnessed two young men collide. What was clearly an accident quickly became a showdown. The men began hurling racial epithets at one another and squared off for a fight…

  • MORNING & EVENING

    Do you want a house for your soul? Do you ask, “What is the purchase?” It is something less than proud human nature will like to give. It is without money and without price. Ah! you would like to pay a respectable rent! You would love to do something to win Christ? Then you cannot…

  • BELIEVING IN THE IMPOSSIBLE

    Connect The TestamentsJudges 8:1-9:21; Philippians 2:12-18; Psalm 67:1-7 Too often, we’re cynical about circumstances. When people come to us for advice, we want to list all the reasons why they shouldn’t take a certain course of action. We want to dissuade them. But what if we had a little faith instead? In Judges, we find…

  • FALLING IN LOVE THE BIBLICAL WAY

    Reflections on Song of Songs I’m quick to fall in love; my wife takes her time. Luckily, this boded well for me. I fell in love with Kalene literally at first sight. Since I had planned for Kalene to be my bandmate—we were meeting for a music audition—I later tried to argue myself out of…