Standing for Truth and Defending Your Freedom
Standing for Truth and Defending Your Freedom
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O C T O B E R 3 “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” — Philippians 4:6–7, NIV

Living Serenely

One of the best definitions of worry that I’ve ever heard is “interest you pay on debts you may never owe.” Have you paid interest like that recently? Worry and anxiety take a great toll on our minds and bodies. For example, research has shown that anxiety causes high blood pressure. Researchers placed a mouse in a cage. At another location within the mouse’s sight, they placed a cat in a cage. The cat had no contact... More
O C T O B E R 2 “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” — Psalm 23:1

God’s Tranquilizer

On a scale from one to ten (ten being the highest), what is your daily level of stress? Do you cruise through life at level two? Or do you constantly run on all cylinders at level nine? Seventy-five years ago, the only people who used the term “stress” were engineers talking about the physical pressure placed on objects. But now we use the term to express the pressure we feel mentally and emotionally as we live through each day.... More
O C T O B E R 1 “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” — 2 Corinthians 11:30

George Wishart

How well do you do when an occasion calls for going above and beyond the call of duty? If you need some encouragement in this area, then consider George Wishart, a sixteenthcentury Scotsman. You may have never heard of Wishart, but he is one of the great heroes of our Christian faith. Even before the Reformation came to Scotland, he preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Wishart lived in a time when a plague decimated great numbers of people... More
S E P T E M B E R 3 0 “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” — Mark 8:35

The Quest For Life

When, at the end of your life on earth, you look back over your life, what do you hope to have accomplished or experienced? I think we would all like to “go for the gusto,” pursuing life with a capital “L”. But many pursue this goal in the wrong way. Sadly, even many Christians seek life with a capital “L” in a way that will prevent them from ever attaining it. People miss out on abundant life because it... More
S E P T E M B E R 2 9 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” — Philippians 4:13

Possibilities Unlimited

What would you try if you knew you could not fail? Would you climb a mountain? Learn to fly an airplane? Share the Gospel with your family? The Scripture promises us that we can do “all things.” Have you claimed that promise? A person who professes to believe he or she “can do all things through Christ” and does not exercise that belief is like a miser who has a hundred million dollars in the bank but goes hungry day... More
S E P T E M B E R 2 8 “… to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever …” — Revelation 1:6

John Milton

How blessed we’d be if we could give ourselves over, body and soul, to the glorification of our Savior Jesus Christ. John Milton, England’s most profound poet, did precisely this. He was a man molded by the Scriptures, and many consider Milton one of the highest examples of Puritanism. Though he lived much of his life in blindness, God granted him the vision to see things in the vast universe that lie beyond what the rest of... More
S E P T E M B E R 2 7 “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” — Ephesians 5:19

Commanded To Sing

Do you ever find yourself, without even realizing it, humming a praise song? Did you know that as the Holy Spirit fills you, the joy you experience will express itself in song? The Bible makes it clear that God is bound up with singing. When God created the world, the morning stars sang together for joy. The seraphim and the cherubim praise God around His throne forever, not because God has commanded them to do so, but because in Paradise... More