Tagged: verse for the day

“He remembers forever His covenant which He made binding for a thousand generations – which He entered into with Abraham.” –Psalm 105:8-9 God took the initiative to make a covenant, a solemn promise, with Abram. This covenant included a strange ritual: God, represented by a flaming torch, passes physically between the split halves of the sacrificed animals (see Gn 15:9ff). This action is God’s way of swearing that, if He is not faithful to this covenant promise, then may He suffer the fate of the sacrificed animals and be torn in two. It is a most solemn pledge of fidelity...

“Do not give what is holy to dogs or toss your pearls before swine. They will trample them under foot, at best, and perhaps even tear you to shreds.” –Matthew 7:6 Have you ever been tempted to toss your pearls before swine? Even if we take this command to mean: “Don’t share the pearls of the Gospel with the swine-eating Gentiles,” the first Jewish Christians did not initially evangelize the Gentiles. In fact, the Lord did call the Jewish Christians to evangelize the Gentiles, but only after they had first devoted themselves to evangelizing the Jews. Are we saying that...

“Go forth…to a land that I will show you.” –Genesis 12:1 Over three decades ago, God called our family to leave behind all that was familiar, move hundreds of miles, and join Presentation Ministries as volunteers. In a small way, I came to learn some of what Abram learned about following the Lord: When you step away from what is familiar to you, you allow God to become more familiar to you. Before the Lord calls you somewhere, He has already prepared everything for you (Heb 11:16). “All depends on faith, everything is grace” (Rm 4:16). Often God doesn’t provide...

“Stop worrying, then, over questions like, ‘What are we to eat, or what are we to drink, or what are we to wear?’ ” –Matthew 6:31 Because many of us are so affluent, we don’t worry about food, drink, or clothes. Instead we worry about retirement, inflation, and investments. We are more like Solomon than like the “lilies of the fields” (see Mt 6:28-29). Trusting in the Lord as the birds do is “for the birds,” as far as we’re concerned (see Mt 6:26). Because of our self-seeking, pleasure-seeking lifestyle, we regard the Bible and especially the Sermon on the...