Daily Devo

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The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion, saying “Rule in the midst of your enemies!” (Ps. 110:2)

Expanded Passage: Psalm 110:1-7

A man at my church is a professional firefighter, and he doesn’t work in a sleepy little town where he helps kittens out of trees. He chose to serve in the busiest sector of an urban area where he regularly puts himself in harm’s way to save people, pets, and property. Every time I see him he appears calm and happy, but his wife sometimes shares how near to disaster he had come that week. It’s hard for me to imagine being in life-threatening situations on a daily basis, but when I do, I quickly find myself thanking God for sparing my friend’s life over and over again. I can only imagine how profoundly this man himself must express that sentiment.

He can probably relate to the psalms of victory, like Psalm 110. After he dashes out of the way of a falling ceiling, hops over a hole in the burned-out floor, and grabs a child, pulling her to safety, he must know exactly what victory tastes like.

That taste of victory is available to all of us who depend on the Lord, whether we’re fighting fires, giving witness, feeding the poor, worshiping in church, or praying for a drug-addicted loved one. All of our trials, burdens, and needs can make us feel defeated at times. But the Lord is mighty and will win our battles for us.

Make a list of all the ways God has given you victory.

HC Wilson is General Superintendent Emeritus of The Wesleyan Church. He and his wife, Debby, reside in New Brunswick, Canada.

© 2025 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.

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“He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.” (John 16:14)

Expanded Passage: John 16:12-16

A nonprofit arts organization in my town once received a generous donation of vases from a local potter as gifts to their volunteers. The nonprofit lacked the artistic abilities and financial resources to offer such gifts on their own, and in the weeks following the potter’s donation, the nonprofit’s staff praised the donor’s generosity in the local papers and on their website. At the volunteer appreciation party, they made sure that every person who received a vase knew where it came from. While they passed the gifts on to others, all of the credit belonged with the potter.

When we serve from our own resources, we not only shortchange the work God wants to do, but we also rob God of the glory. In letting God make himself known through us, we expand the possibilities of God’s work and give him an opportunity to draw the glory to himself. By ourselves we bring very little to what God plans to do, but thankfully, he has given us all he has. Think of the inexhaustible resources God has given us! There is enough to sustain and encourage us even in the darkest of trials. It’s no wonder Jesus shared these words of encouragement before going to the cross.

God desires to pass unfathomable gifts to others through us, but are we willing to step aside and let him?

Give God the glory as he provides the resources you need.

Ed C. previously served as a Light from the Word devotional writer.

© 2025 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.

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“It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you.” (John 16:7)

Expanded Passage: John 16:5-11

When our kitchen sink started leaking, I took it upon myself to wedge the wrench onto the closely packed nuts, twisting and pulling in the tight, dark cabinet. The more I clanged on the pipes, the more I broke. After several hours of this, I asked my wife to try her hand at it. Within a few minutes, she’d fixed everything. As it turns out, I had all the help I needed right there. I just didn’t take notice of her or trust in her abilities until I failed.

God is far more present among us than we realize, offering us help that we may easily overlook. When Jesus physically left his disciples, he moved closer to them through the indwelling Holy Spirit. This stretches the faith of his followers today, as we are challenged to believe that the Spirit is actively at work in the world all around us, convicting the world of sin and empowering disciples. The gift of the Spirit is easy to ignore, but through the Spirit, Jesus is better than present; he is within us.

We may have significant challenges before us, but Jesus is present through the Holy Spirit to guide and empower us. Jesus is always with us, but we will miss out on his strength if we ignore his offer to help us.

Ask the Spirit to empower you to fix something you’ve broken.

Ed C. previously served as a Light from the Word devotional writer.

© 2025 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.

Listen to today’s devo!

He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen. (Acts 10:41)

Expanded Passage: Acts 10:39-44

Brett asked God to use him to share the gospel with just one person. That person was my friend Tom, who not only began to follow Jesus, but has been used by God to lead many to Christ. While Brett’s prayer started with a small, personal goal, he proved a faithful witness. God was then able to use Tom to spread the gospel to hundreds of people. It’s tempting to seek ways of ministering that reach huge crowds, but sometimes reaching out to one person can be equally effective.

While Jesus spoke to crowds of all sizes, we find his most important messages entrusted to a few followers. He taught us to never underestimate the value of investing in small groups and individuals. After Jesus rose from the dead, he could have appeared to all of Jerusalem, but he didn’t. He proved his resurrection to a few followers, ate with them, and commissioned them to tell others. The story of Jesus was passed on personally to individuals and small groups. While we rightly celebrate the dramatic conversion on Pentecost, Peter’s personal sermon to the friends and family of Cornelius continued the spread of the gospel on a small but effective scale.

God can multiply and expand our relationships, small though they may be. Faithfulness in these small interactions added up to significant growth in the early church and puts us in good company.

Ask God to help you witness through interactions great and small.

Ed C. previously served as a Light from the Word devotional writer.

© 2025 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.

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Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. (Acts 2:18)

Expanded Passage: Acts 2:14-21

There have been a few times when I’ve been rendered speechless. When I met my favorite author, I lost the ability to speak in complete sentences. However, more seriously, there have been times when I tried to talk about my faith and failed to articulate the gospel clearly. While it’s probably up to me to make the most of my next meeting with a favorite author, God has provided his people with the means to make the most of their words.

The mission of the church to share the gospel makes the actions and words of believers critically important. At the start of the church’s ministry, Peter promised that the Spirit will come on all of God’s people and enable them to share his message. Because of Pentecost, prophets are no longer solitary figures with the unique ability to hear from God. Everyone with the Spirit of God can learn to receive and communicate messages from God. This empowering may look different depending on the person, but God’s generous promise ensures that his people can depend on the provision of the Holy Spirit to supply wisdom, insight, and even the right words at the perfect time.

We may need to practice listening for the Spirit’s words, but anyone with the Spirit of God is now able to share God’s message freely.

Allow the Spirit of God to guide your speech.

Ed C. previously served as a Light from the Word devotional writer.

© 2025 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.

Listen to today’s devo!

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. (Acts 2:4)

Expanded Passage: Acts 2:2-6

“It’s going to be temporary,” my friend told me. “We’re just ministering in this prison on the side. I don’t think it will really amount to much.” Soon after that conversation, she and her husband had built a flourishing prison ministry that touched a large number of inmates. Little did they know, God had placed a burden on one Christian inmate’s heart to pray for more church planters. Today, my friends serve as full-time prison ministers who have started several churches in largely unreached prisons and trained many volunteers. They are the first to admit they didn’t plan the success of their ministry.

God initiated something in their midst and empowered them, and they ministered where God’s power took them. Acts tells us about a more dramatic moment in which the Holy Spirit visibly rested on the disciples and gave them specific messages to share in a variety of languages. This explosion of growth in the early church was not the product of a careful plan. God initiated a supernatural work among his people. They had to faithfully move with God, but the initiative and resources were supplied by the Holy Spirit.

Whatever God’s next plans are for my friends, they aren’t expecting to figure it out on their own. They trust that God will lead them when it’s time to take the next step forward.

Let God lead and empower you for service through the Spirit.

Ed C. previously served as a Light from the Word devotional writer.

© 2025 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.

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“And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.” (John 15:27)

Expanded Passage: John 15:26-27

Ryan convinced college students they should climb mountains in Colorado on the weekends instead of watching football and ordering cheap pizza. He was the kind of guy who could inspire the listless to summit mountains and crawl through cavernous caves. As word of his adventures spread, Ryan began to book large vans to take forty students or more with him. Though he started with small groups, Ryan’s expeditions expanded to entire dorms because his band of fellow travelers couldn’t stop talking about their experiences.

When Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would come to testify about himself, he didn’t let his disciples off the hook. Though they had the resources of God available to empower them, they had a calling to testify concerning the work of God they witnessed. Their ability to be witnesses of Jesus rested on whether they spent time with him. By traveling, eating, and working with Jesus during his earthly ministry, they gathered a collection of stories to relate to the world.

God has called us to join him in his redemptive adventure on earth. As we see him work among us, we have been called to share it. The Holy Spirit will empower us to share God’s truth, but that does not rule out the need to actively join in God’s redemptive work and tell others about it.

Ask God’s Spirit to help you testify to God’s redemptive work.

Ed C. previously served as a Light from the Word devotional writer.

© 2025 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.

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With my mouth I will greatly extol the Lord; in the great throng of worshipers I will praise him. (Ps. 109:30)

Expanded Passage: Psalm 109:1-2, 26-31

The abundant praising of God at the start and end of what has been called the strongest imprecatory prayer—a passage pronouncing a curse on the enemies of God’s people—found in the Bible might seem strange, even contradictory in nature. Others, however, see a method in it, believing they not only frame the chapter but ultimately redirect its tone and purpose.

How so? Through them, we realize that God acts not because of David’s honor or even guiltlessness but for God’s own name’s sake. And David not just privately, but publicly praised God, directing the attention away from the injustice of his wrongly condemned state and his earthly enemy to the justice of his righteous rescuer.

No earthly ill will is ever a match for divine goodwill and deliverance. As Matthew Henry said, “Men’s curses are impotent; God’s blessings are omnipotent.”

People may talk ill of us, sometimes with and oftentimes without due cause. Regardless, as no false testimony against us will ultimately prevail (Rom. 8:33) and as nothing can separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8:39), we should never use our words to retaliate nor allow our minds and hearts to wallow in self-pity.

When God saves us from whatever besets us—an illness, a sin, or slander—not only we, but all of those around us, see his glory and goodness more clearly. And that’s precisely why his name should be magnified both unreservedly and unendingly.

Sing joyfully and jubilantly—and continuously—to the tune of deliverance.

Laurie Dashnau is professor of English and writing, and director of the writing center at Houghton University (NY). She regularly teaches Narrative and Personal Essay, and Writing about Spiritual Experience.

© 2025 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.

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“Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.” (John 13:14)

Expanded Passage: John 13:1-17

As a daycare provider, my mother needed to bathe siblings who came to our house covered in their feces. As a volunteer at a summer camp for abused, neglected, and abandoned children in our county, I have seen staff members doing extra laundry for children who, because of the trauma they have experienced, wet their beds. I also have read accounts of saints, including Mother Teresa, washing the hair of people in hospice.

Perhaps some of these individuals thought, “This is not what I signed up for” when faced with these challenges. I know I would have. Nevertheless, they kept doing what they were doing because of Jesus’ lordship over their lives. Like Jesus, they were convinced that they needed to “pour” (v. 5) themselves (the Greek verb βάλλει connoting intensity) into others’ lives.

Although many of us might not be members of a denomination that practices foot washing and even fewer of us are members of a religious order, all believers are members of what has been called “the order of the basin and towel.” We are to get down and dirty—in the best possible sense of the phrase—so that Christ can be seen, heard, felt, and understood by those with little to no knowledge of the Bible. Only then can they, too, bear witness to God’s transformative, ongoing work within them in word and deed.

Let Christ’s lordship reign in your reservations and rule your service.

Laurie Dashnau is professor of English and writing, and director of the writing center at Houghton University (NY). She regularly teaches Narrative and Personal Essay, and Writing about Spiritual Experience.

© 2025 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.

Listen to today’s devo!

“Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.” (John 13:17)

Expanded Passage: John 13:12-17

A phrase I repeatedly heard while growing up was, “Pretty is as pretty does.” Far too often, the girls deemed most beautiful in my neighborhood were subject to the same temptations we all are, including jealousy, cliquishness, and self-absorption.

What might strike us at the end of Jesus’ teaching on and practice of foot washing is the adjective he used to describe those who follow his example: “blessed.” At the very least, it has countercultural connotations. It certainly does not denote happiness, health, wealth, or recognition. In fact, the same word is used in the Beatitudes to refer to the poor in spirit, the meek, and the merciful.

It’s a strange equation, indeed. Jesus didn’t say we will be overwhelmed, exhausted, and sometimes tempted to become bitter and jaded. What’s more, the Greek word used here (μακάριοί) means “very blessed” or even “supremely blessed.” The skeptic in us might consider this word choice idealistic or hyperbolic.

It’s easy to adopt a scarcity mentality when contemplating service, yet Scripture assures us, “Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed” (Prov. 11:25). We are not told, “Blessed are you if you think about serving or talk about serving” but, “You will be blessed if you do” serve (John 13:17). As God’s promises are trustworthy and Jesus’ example is perfect, we should love boldly—and serve faithfully—in light of this blessed assurance.

Act as a role model: blessed is as blessed does.

Laurie Dashnau is professor of English and writing, and director of the writing center at Houghton University (NY). She regularly teaches Narrative and Personal Essay, and Writing about Spiritual Experience.

© 2025 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.