Encouraging Words Devotional

Two times someone asked Jesus the question, "Don't you care?"

            The first took place on the Sea of Galilee when an angry squall came up. Waves began to break over the boat so that it was nearly swamped. During all of this Jesus was asleep on a cushion in the back of the boat. The disciples woke

Him. "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?" Jesus "got up…and said to the waves, 'Quiet! Be still!' …and it was completely calm" (Mark 4:38-39).

A plaque hanging on hospital wall puts it well.

Cancer is so limited…

It cannot cripple love.It cannot shatter hope.It cannot corrode faith [or]…destroy peace [or]…kill friendships.It cannot suppress memories…silence courage [or]…invade the soul. It cannot steal eternal life.It cannot conquer the Spirit.

When Jesus stepped on shore after crossing the Sea of Galilee, he was immediately confronted by a man possessed by demons. The Bible tells us the details: "For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs" (Luke 8:27). The local people had tried to chain him and keep him under guard, but he always broke the chains and escaped.

The first four books of the New Testament in your Bible contain pages and pages of the teachings of Jesus. Do you want to know if what Jesus said here on earth is true?  Jesus Himself told us how to find out.  He said, "If anyone chooses to do God's will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own." You find that claim in the fourth book of the New Testament—the book of John, chapter seven (John 7:17).

Missionary doctor Margaret Brand wrote of the time that her young son, Christopher, was outside playing in the hill country of India toward sunset time. "Suddenly he rushed in excitedly. [He] seized my hand," she related, "and tried to drag me outside as he almost shouted, 'Come see the sky. It's unnecessarily beautiful!'

Some people see the Bible as just a book of rules and regulations that God has given to keep us in line. They perceive God as a bully looking down from heaven with a big stick ready to punish anyone who disobeys. How mistaken they are!

The ministry is called Jackets for Jesus, and it's a very practical one.  Every Sunday night Pastor Eric Denton takes a team of people more than 50 miles from Riverside, California to the streets of Los Angeles to feed the street people a hot meal and share the love of Jesus with them—people for whom this may be the only gift of love they ever receive.  Oh, and yes, if they're cold, they get a good, previously-owned jacket as well.

One of the universe's most beautiful galaxies as seen from earth is called the Sombrero galaxy. This very bright heavenly mass got its interesting name from its resemblance to a broad-rimmed Mexican hat.  Data from the Hubble Telescope has determined that it's actually a massive object equivalent to 800 billion suns. If you wanted to travel from one side to the other of the Sombrero Galaxy, it would take you 50,000 years—if you were traveling at the speed of light.[1]  

 

[1] http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2003/28/image/a/

Does it seem to you that birthdays keep rolling around faster and faster, year after year?  Obviously, that means that sooner or later, if we live long enough, each of us is going to grow old. I, for one, want to make the best of my years.

When a woman has given birth to her first baby, she starts off determined to be the best mother she can be, often keeping in the back of her mind a picture of the mother who meets all her child's needs, teaches wisely, and trains that little one in the way he or she should go, to paraphrase Proverbs 22:6.