Encouraging Words Devotional

Sometimes God allows painful experiences in our lives, and we simply don’t understand why.  You know that God can heal, yet at times He allows your illness to continue. Perhaps you have a problem that lands you in court, and although you ask for God’s help, you don’t win the lawsuit. You have a financial need, yet you don’t get hired at that new job you applied for. Those are the times when our faith is tested.

Once when we were walking through the ruins of Petra in the country of Jordan, a woman in our group became dizzy and lay down on the sandstone floor. I stayed with her while the rest of the group continued the tour. In a short time, a number of the local men came and sat nearby. I could see compassion on their faces, though they never said a word.

On January 12, 2020, Taal Volcano in the Philippines erupted.  Our friends Len and Mari Cris Faustino had developed a farm located 16 kilometers from the volcano--filled with crops, fruit trees, coffee trees, rare plants and a number of animals. When the volcano erupted, Mari Cris posted pictures on Facebook of the gray, ash-coated farm that looked as if they had been taken with black-and-white film, and we wondered if the farm would ever again produce the beautiful crops for which it had become well known.

John 3:16, the verse that probably more people know than any other in the Bible, tells us that if we believe in Jesus, we’ll not perish but have eternal life. That’s a wonderful promise.  But there’s a verse in the 14th chapter of the book of John that somehow is of even more comfort to me. It’s verse 3, which says, “When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am” (John 14:3 NLT). In this verse Jesus promises not just eternal life, but eternal life with Him

Have you ever dreamed that you were trying to run in your sleep? Isn’t it frustrating? Try as you will, you can make very little progress. And if you are trying to run from some danger, the dream turns into a nightmare.

The man had been lame for thirty-eight years—so lame that although he lay right by the Pool of Bethesda, he couldn’t get himself into the waters. “When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, ‘Would you like to get well?’” (John 5:6 NLT).

I’ve noticed that many of the Psalms repeat the story of the Israelites as they made their way from Egypt to the land that God promised them. Over and over you will read similar accounts of those same events.  I used to wonder what the reason was for the repetition. Didn’t the Israelites know the story already?

A friend of mine had worked untiringly on a project, and finally it seemed there was a breakthrough and she would be able to put the project together. But then someone confronted her in a very abrasive manner and told her she was wrong, out of God’s will and that she should abandon the whole project. As the saying goes, she had the wind knocked out of her sails. Was God speaking to her through this person, or was this Satan trying to defeat the endeavor, she wondered.

“Grace” is one of those words that I find hard to define.  In the Christian world, grace has often been defined as G-R-A-C-E, God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense.  And that it is! God gives us His grace, or undeserved favor, at the expense of His Son, Who died on the cross to pay for our sins.

Notice this Bible verse: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). I don’t know why, but that verse has always been hard for me to grasp.  “Perfect love casts out fear”? What is the writer saying? And how does it fit into my life?