It can be difficult to make sense of our trials as we endure them. But the Bible always assures us that our difficulties are never purposeless but always in some way purposeful. God is always using them to accomplish something good. This is the theme of this short devotional reflection from my friend Paul Tautges (and drawn from his new book Remade). ❖ The simple gold ring on my left hand is priceless to me. It is my most valuable …

This life is filled with many cares, many concerns, and many anxieties. It is fitting that in our times of trouble we turn to the Lord, the one who is always eager to hear us and to bless us. This prayer from George Swinnock gives words to such prayers. Perhaps it would serve you to make its words your own. You, O God, are all good things and every good thing. You are self-sufficient, alone-sufficient and all-sufficient. Nothing is wanting …

Sometimes we are forced to have conversations that are almost too strange to believe—conversations, for example, in which we insist that there is such a thing as a gender binary. Yet today so many people are convinced that gender is a mere construct of an oppressive culture. Gender, they believe, is a decision we make for ourselves and not one grounded in any biological reality (not to mention any divine design). In his book Does God Care About Gender Identity?, …

The Lord calls many of us to live humble and quiet lives, lives that are lived far more in the mundane than in the spotlight. And truly, even the most exceptional of men and women still spend most of their time in obscurity, laboring in secret, carrying out their tasks far from human eyes. But this does not at all mean that our lives are wasted or that we are failing to meet God’s expectations for us. F.B. Meyer explains well …

I spend a surprising amount of time reading through old hymnals and collections of poetry—rather a strange hobby, I suppose. There is a lot that’s familiar and a lot that’s terrible. Every now and again, though, I come across a poem that is new to me and that I find especially enjoyable. That was the case with this one written by Caroline Noel in honor of her husband. It reflects on the joy they experience in one another and the …

We often marvel at the wonder of God made man—of Jesus coming to earth to inhabit a human body and to live in a world like this. Yet as Theodore Cuyler points out in this short reflection, Jesus is not the only member of the Godhead who has been willing to condescend for the sake of love. We speak a great deal, especially at Christmas time, of the condescension of the eternal Son of God in coming to earth, to …

It does us good to consider the return of Jesus Christ. When times are difficult, when life is sorrowful, when we are just plain weary, it does us good to shift our hearts from our circumstances to Christ’s sure and certain return. That’s the purpose of this sweet poem by Reginald Heber. “The Lord shall come,” he assures us… The Lord will come: the earth shall quake, The mountains to their centre shake; And, withering from the vault of night, …

Never has there been a medium so ideally suited for spreading gossip as social media. Never have Christians been so eager to hear an evil report about another Christian than they are today. And that means gossip, slander, and evil reports move further and faster than ever. This old warning seems even more relevant today than in the day it was issued. I plead with you to read it, to consider it, and to apply it. There is only one …

Sometimes it seems as if the cause of righteousness must be overthrown, as if the cause of evil must triumph in the end. Sometimes we look at the darkness of the world and wonder if and when the light will really break through. This was on the mind of De Witt Talmage in a sermon he preached many years ago and with a powerful image he shows how we need not fear. Oh, how many good people are affrighted by …