Encouraging Words Devotional

When you lose a loved one—someone very close and dear to you, you naturally grieve.  Something would be wrong if you didn't, for that person's input in your life has, in a practical sense, come to an end.

It happened in southern India in the 1940s. A young village boy about twelve years old was helping Dr. Margaret Brand, the missionary eye doctor, as she did cataract surgery.

Probably everybody wants to go to heaven when they die.  At least, they certainly don't want to go to hell! But have you thought about what it would be like to wake up and find yourself in heaven—not knowing your way around?  Common belief is that Peter will be there to welcome you, but actually we don't find that in the Bible.

On Christmas day 1863, the poet Longfellow wrote,

I heard the bells on Christmas dayTheir old familiar carols play,And wild and sweet the words repeatOf peace on earth, good will to men.

In 1994, two Americans who had answered an invitation from the Russian Department of Education to teach Biblical ethics, were invited to a government-run orphanage, where about 100 abandoned and abused boys and girls were being cared for.  It was Christmas, so the Americans gathered the children together to tell them the story of the first Christmas.

I wish I knew the unknown author of this Christmas version of 1 Corinthians 13. Christmas or not, I'm grateful for her insights.

Here's a verse in Psalms I call The Shopper's Prayer because when I'm shopping, I need this verse: "Turn my eyes away from worthless things" (Psalm 119:37).

How do we know what God is like? From the New Testament we learn specifically what He is like by how Jesus, God's Son, lived right here where we live--on planet Earth.

Yesterday I met a friend I haven't seen in quite a long time. Her natural loveliness draws your attention. But she has another characteristic that I think is the true secret to her attractiveness.  She always makes the person she is talking to feel special.  Whenever I meet her, she has a ready word that is complimentary and encouraging. I go away from talking with her feeling that I am special too.

In 1949 when Billy Graham held his big tent revival in Los Angeles, some of Hollywood's most famous made decisions to accept Christ. Among those was Jim Voss, an electronics genius, who was a wiretapper for underworld gangster Mickey Cohen.