A thought for today 

Who he is (Saturday, May 10)

God is more than a father. Like our earthly fathers, he cares, protects, guides and provides. But God the Father is greater than all of these. Our Father in heaven goes far above the limits of earth.

He has prepared a complete future for us. Each minute and each day has been planned personally by him. He knows where we will be next month as well as years from now. God is present and with us at all times, every place and anywhere. He can heal our sickness, take away our failures, give us strength and power. He can even grant us his authority.

Our life is a story written by a heavenly Father who loves us beyond measure. Like an author who creates a character, God made us for his great glory and divine delight. Our path will not always be smooth and comfortable. In fact, some of the chapters of our journey will be painful.

But it is the end, the final scene, that really matters. This biography of our life – our story – will end happily ever after, as they say. To each one of us who accept his gift of salvation, the story will go on and on forever in paradise. God the Father is saving the most incredible chapter for the last.

Do you surrender all? (Friday, May 9)

The highest degree of faith is found in the sacrificial element of surrender. One must be willing to surrender all, the whole self, to the Lord. Nothing can be withheld. There is no holding back. No hesitation. No reservation. It is different than saying this is all I surrender, whether that one thing is time, service, money or work.

Everything is needed for the kingdom. No part of us can be left out. We must immerse ourselves completely in him, going in for the full baptism. Being wholly committed by committing our whole life is the only way to surrender. We must lay down all: our words, actions and thoughts.

We need to be like Peter who asked Jesus to cleanse his entire body, not just his feet. We, too, have to allow Jesus to wash us completely or he has no part in us. We must surrender to his will with our hands, heart and head.

When we sing “I surrender all,” the words come easily and effortlessly. What really matters, though, is if we truly mean them and accept them. The world will see our level of faith by how much we are willing to surrender to God.

Living with or for him? (Thursday, May 8)

Perhaps it is time for us to take a slightly different approach in our faith. Instead of thinking about living for Jesus, we should focus on living with Jesus. This subtle shift in perspective can make a tremendous change in our daily activities.

Going through the day with Jesus allows us to go beyond our own limitations. Our faith in him becomes an active, living trust. We rely on him to do what we cannot and we do not fear challenges because he is there. If we merely think about living for him, we separate ourselves from the power and authority we have been given through the Holy Spirit.

He is with us, present each moment, no matter what we face. There is no distance at all between us and our Savior. Time does not separate us from him. Nor does the fact that we are human and he is divine. His infinite presence surrounds us constantly and he goes with us on the journey.

Jesus did not die and return to paradise 2,000 years ago, leaving us alone to live for him. He is alive now in a body that transcends the human one, and he is as near to us as our own flesh. He walks with us just as he did with the disciples. Surely, we can do more for him when we live with him. Nothing in the world should make us think or believe otherwise.

Covered with his will (Wednesday, May 7)

We can measure our commitment to God by how much we are willing to persevere for him. We say we will follow him, serve him and work for him, yet we often lose heart when his plans and ours collide. He takes us one direction, while we want to go a different way.

What do we do, for example, when God leads us to be separated from family and friends, to be far away from the home we know and love so well? How do we react when God places us in difficult situations that seem almost impossible to overcome? There are many times when we must suffer physically and emotionally for him, not in spite of him. What we do during the struggle makes all the difference in what happens next.

As we walk through the door of each new day, we must be determined to continue to follow God no matter how we feel or what we think. There must be a constant renewing of our minds in him. Over and over again, we will wrestle with doubt, fear, insecurity, hesitation, even rebellion. We are stubborn creatures who think we know what is best. A new job, a new house, a new church or a new life somewhere else will not make any difference if it is not God’s will. Something different in our mind is rarely something better.

God knows what path we must take. In fact, he set the course long before we were ever born. Where we are right now is where he wants us to be. Where we go in the future is up to him. We can make our journey easier and lighter if we set aside our will for his. Instead of arguing with ourselves over things that do not matter, we can put all of our determination, hope and trust in him.

When we give ourselves completely to God, he gives himself completely to us. There, covered in his will, we are safe and secure even when we wonder where we are going or what is going on.

The complete New Testament (Tuesday, May 6)

All four gospels of the life and ministry of Jesus are slightly different, yet each one is inspired by God. Matthew is writing to the Jews. Mark is trying to reach the Gentiles, especially the Romans. Luke is addressing the Gentiles as well. John, on the other hand, is offering a theological treatise on the meaning of faith in Jesus.

Four separate stories. Four observations and four diverse audiences. Each book is unlike the other, yet all go the same according to God. The truth we seek about the example of Jesus Christ is not found in just one chapter or one verse; rather, it is in the whole testament of his life.

A friend of mine once said that the first great journalists were Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. He is right. Where would we be today without these eyewitness reports? Together, these four journalists give us a complete picture of the ministry of Jesus. When combined, they tell us a story of both the divine and the earthly. Nowhere else in all of history do we find such narratives.

The world may often point to the disparities of the four accounts. What they do not realize is that the so-called differences actually give a fuller explanation. All in all, they reveal the totality of the life, death and resurrection of the Savior. It is much like looking at a magnificent work of architecture. How can we truly appreciate the grandeur of the great cathedral of Notre Dame, for example, by viewing only its façade? We must walk around the building, looking at it from all sides and angles. We must also go inside.

We need to do the same with Jesus. We must see all he was and is in order to appreciate him fully, and to love him as we should. One story or one gospel would not be sufficient. We have to know him inside and out.

Gifts from heaven (Monday, May 5)

What we have, we cannot keep forever. All that we possess is a gift from God. The only way to make our gifts last is to give them away, to share them with others just as Jesus shares his life and resurrection with us. He gave us salvation by dying for us; he did not keep his life for himself.

How does it prosper us to squander what we own, whether it is time, service, food or even money? For the sake of others – to save them, so to speak – we must give up ourselves. The Israelites hoarded manna in the desert, despite what God told them. I will provide for you, he said, do not gather more than you need. He promised to bless them with food each day. Yet they tried to store manna for future, just in case God somehow forgot about them.

All that we try to store up for the days ahead will spoil and go bad. We have what we need for today. More than that will be wasted. God will take care of us tomorrow, and for all of our days to come. We have his word. We have his covenant. Therefore, there is no need to covet anything. God will always give us more when we use up our gifts for his service.

His presence (Sunday, May 4)

What an incredible opportunity we have each day of our lives. We are able to go to the Creator of the universe with all of our concerns and frustrations. Not only can we cry out to our Father, but Jesus himself intercedes on our behalf. He prays for us as both our Savior and the Son of God.

Nothing in all the world can equal who we are: chosen children of the King. He created us and set us apart. We are special, more valuable than all the treasure in the earth. His eye is always upon us and his hand is always around us.

He delights in us, just as proud parents take joy and pleasure in their children. Nothing can keep him from loving us. His mercy and grace know no end, nor do they depend on what we have done at times. We may disappoint him, but he will never disown us.

He is always there, waiting for us to talk with him, to spend time with him. What we do, and what we are going through, is important to him; in fact, nothing else matters more to him. He will always listen. And he will always help us, for we are his offspring. He is a Father who stands by his children at all times. Especially right now. 

Believing with our life (Saturday, May 3)

Trust is where thought and action become one. It is there, at that moment, when the unseen becomes seen and the invisible becomes visible. God reveals himself as our trust turns into a physical act.

There is little power in merely thinking about our trust in him. We must be willing to put our lives into it. Like Peter, we need to get out of the boat and walk on the water. Or perhaps we are called to trust him with our finances or our health. We want to trust what he says about taking care of us, but somehow we are not able to go all of the way. We trust what we know physically more than what God can do spiritually.

Moses had faith in what God said. His trust became a physical act. Standing before the Red Sea, Moses raised his rod and immediately the waters parted.

Trust without action is of no use. We can think all day about how much we trust God. But it does no good until we take the first steps. Anyone can believe after seeing God's power. Trust is all about believing first in the unseen, and to be willing to stake our lives on it.

New mercies (Friday, May 2)

God’s mercies are new each day. No matter how we felt yesterday – what we experienced, what happened or what we encountered – we are now living in a completely new time. We have an opportunity to begin anew, unencumbered by the bonds of the past.

In order to move forward into this new day, we have to learn how to be unaffected by what has occurred already. We do not have to be bound, like captives in chains, to all of our yesterdays. In fact, the only way we can truly enjoy today is to forget our previous mistakes, shortcomings and misgivings. They are vanished forever, unless we bring them back into our lives.

Too often, we wrestle with dead issues. Like frustrated playwrights and authors, we try to rewrite the script of how we wanted a certain situation to turn out. No matter what we do or say at this point, time does not grant us the luxury of changing yesterday.

Whenever we are tempted to live in the past, we need to convince ourselves that what happened back there is over. It is dead and buried forever. There is no purpose in reliving and rehearsing our regrets and worries even one more time. God has erased the past and given us a future. His mercies are new each day. All we have to do is accept them.

Teaching through living (Thursday, May 1)

Jesus’ life is a clear demonstration of how to serve. In everything, Jesus gave up his will to allow himself to be used by the Father. Not only did he surrender his place in paradise to come to earth but, in the end, he sacrificed his physical body as well.

From the time he was first tempted in the desert until his final trial before Pilate, Jesus followed the road that the Father had set before him. Through it all, he remained faithful as the Son of God. He was saving the world by serving the world.

The path we must walk today may not be easy. Sacrificing our will for the will of our Father does not come naturally to us. Nor did it come naturally to Jesus. While he was on the earth, he had to struggle with the same things that come against us. We are not alone in our suffering; Jesus has already gone before us. He remains with us on the journey just as the Father remained with him all the way to the cross.

You and I cannot fail as long as we listen to God. I know the plans I have for you, he says; plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. These plans depend on doing his will – being willing to serve him at all cost. In order to do so, we must sacrifice our plan and our life. Jesus taught us the way. Now it is up to us to teach others through our life.