Month: <span>October 2013</span>

Published October 28, 2013

There is a Time to Mourn

by Max Lucado

Solomon said, “There is a time to mourn!” Give yourself some. Face your grief with tears, time, and one more—face your grief with truth. God has the last word on death. And if you listen, He will tell you the truth about your loved ones. They’ve been dismissed from the hospital called Earth. You and I still roam the halls, smell the medicines. They meanwhile, inhale springtime.

You miss them like crazy, but can you deny the truth? They have no pain, doubt, or struggle. They really are happier in heaven. Reunion is a splinter of an eternal moment away. I Thessalonians 4:13 says that there is no need for you “to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope.”

God understands. He knows the sorrow of a grave. He buried His Son.  But He also knows the joy of resurrection. And by His power, you will too.

You can comment on this devotional online at:
https://thoughts-about-god.com/blog/2013/10/28/ml_there-is-a-time-to-mourn/

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Max Lucado
From: Facing Your Giants

Used by permission

To learn more about Max Lucado visit his website at:
http://maxlucado.com/about/

Thoughts by All thoughts by Max Lucado Thoughts by Men

Published October 27, 2013

The Bible

by Darren Hewer

“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” Romans 15:4

I love the Bible. It’s God’s Word, our ultimate source of truth. It contains not only the grand story of the beginning of time and space and our Earth, but also the intimate story of God’s people, and the glorious coming of God’s Son Jesus Christ for our salvation.

But even so, I find that there are times in my life when my daily Bible reading becomes merely routine, if I happen to do it at all. In fact, sometimes I wonder about the Bible: Couldn’t God have given us a more efficient manual? What I mean is, it sometimes seems so complicated. Did you know that the Bible has 66 books, containing 1,189 chapters and 31,170 verses? Instead of 17 major and minor prophets, for example, maybe we could have been given a list of the top 10 marriage tips instead?

Then I think: God didn’t want to give us the kind of book that you read once and put on the shelf. He wasn’t interested in giving us a pamphlet. God wanted to give us something that would engage us and continue to challenge us for a lifetime. He, in His infinite wisdom, gave us a book that was so deep that we could read it every hour of every day of our entire lives and still not exhaust its wisdom.

If you’ve spent any serious amount of time reading the Bible you can probably attest to how you’ve read a passage a dozen or more times before, but somehow this time, it hits you in a totally new way as God illuminates your mind to deeper meaning and fuller understanding. “How did I not see it before?” you think. And it’s so amazing how deep this book is!

God Himself is like that: Our great God isn’t someone of whom you could say, “Oh, God? Yeah, I met him once, I think.” God is so amazingly great that it’s a lifelong process to know Him. He wants us not to just know ABOUT Him, but to KNOW Him intimately. And for that, a simple pamphlet won’t do.

God, we thank you for your Word, the wisdom of which can never be exhausted!

Question: How has your Bible reading been lately? Is it time to begin to re-read it with “new eyes?”

You can comment on this devotional online at:
https://thoughts-about-god.com/blog/2013/10/27/dh_the-bible/

Thoughts by All thoughts by Darren Hewer Thoughts by Men