Tagged: verse for the day

“Since I am about to be taken to my kindred, bury me with my fathers in the cave that lies in the field…Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite for a burial ground. There Abraham and his wife Sarah are buried, and so are Isaac and his wife Rebekah, and there, too, I buried Leah.” —Genesis 49:29-31 Abraham waited about fifty years to enter the promised land. He got there “over the dead body” of his wife, as he bought a field in the promised land for her burial (see Gn 23:4ff). He was buried there too. At his death, he...

“You will be hated by all on account of Me. But whoever holds out till the end will escape death.” —Matthew 10:22 “Anyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus can expect to be persecuted” (2 Tm 3:12). The Lord has clearly revealed that we will be persecuted if we are trying to live the Christian life (see Mt 5:11). For us, being persecuted is not a possibility but a certainty. The Lord has sent us as sheep among wolves (Mt 10:16), and, no matter how clever and innocent we may be, we will be persecuted. We...

“In fact, all the world came to Joseph to obtain rations of grain, for famine had gripped the whole world.” —Genesis 41:57 In Joseph’s time, there was a worldwide physical famine. Amos prophesied a spiritual famine: “Yes, days are coming, says the Lord God, when I will send famine upon the land: not a famine of bread, or thirst for water, but for hearing the word of the Lord” (Am 8:11). Today we have worse famines. While hundreds of millions starve to death physically, Chinese Communists and Muslim-dominated countries deny well over two billion people free access to the spiritual...

“When the crowd had been put out He entered and took her by the hand, and the little girl got up.” —Matthew 9:25 The Lord hears the cry of the poor. In His mercy, “the Lord is close to the brokenhearted; and those who are crushed in spirit He saves” (Ps 34:19). When Jairus was crushed by the news of the death of his twelve-year-old daughter, Jesus raised her from the dead (Mt 9:25) and turned Jairus’ greatest sorrow into his greatest joy (see Ps 30:6). When a woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years had reached “the end...