Guidelines For Living Devotional

"What is culture?" asks an article in National Geographic magazine.  Answering the question, the writer says, "Even anthropologists struggle to define the word. Food, dress, tools, dwellings, laws, manners, art, myths--culture can be described as the manifestations of human existence that are transmitted from one generation to the next, a pool of the collective intellect and memory."

Some have called it "the Protestant work ethic!"  But it isn't, really.  It is simply the application of several phrases found in Scripture which can be paraphrased, "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right; so give it your best effort!"

Have you had the experience of starting something...you really poured your body and soul into a cause, and then you began to wonder whether it was really worth the time and effort?  We describe it as "discouragement."  Webster defines it as "that which causes one to weaken."

C.S. Lewis once wrote that when errors come into the world they come in pairs, as people are driven to one extreme or another.  For example, think of yourself more highly than you ought to and we say you are stuck on yourself–full of pride, arrogant and haughty.  On the other hand, if you constantly belittle yourself, your self‑image crumbles, you're insecure and withdraw from others.

A young man described by Luke, the physician, as "a man full of God's grace and power" did great wonders and miracles among the residents of Jerusalem shortly after Christ's ascension to heaven.  But the religious leaders of the day didn't like it.  He was taken before the Sanhedrin.  When the high priest asked him if these charges were true, Stephen proceeded to preach to the crowd, but his sermon didn't sit well with them, either.  "When they heard this," says Luke, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him."  Eventually, they "dragged him out of the city and began to stone him."

God has a plan, and chance has no part in that plan.  Take, for example, planet Earth‑‑this elliptical sphere spinning on its axis at the rate of 1,000 miles per hour, hurtling through space at the rate of 27,000 miles per hour.  Planet Earth, of course, is but one of eight major planets which revolve around the sun, all of which are part of our solar system, which moves through space at the speed of 720,000 kilometers per hour in an orbit so large that it takes 2 million centuries to complete.

When you don't in a world that generally does, you stand out like a sore thumb!  In other words, when almost everybody cheats, and you don't, you are penalized.  When almost everybody lies to get ahead, and you feel compelled to tell the truth, you are at a distinct disadvantage.  When almost everybody uses company time for their own personal business or pleasure and you don't, you are thought strange or even stupid.

A man and woman wanted to sneak off for a romantic lunch together, away from the eyes of their colleagues at the office they both worked in.  They picked up a pizza and headed for a nearby park.  When they opened the pizza box, however, they found, not only the pizza, but an envelope full of cash, which the restaurant manager had hidden in the box the day before, for safekeeping.  Fearing that they might be accused of theft, they immediately returned the money.  The owner of the restaurant, so impressed at their honesty, said, "Let me call the local TV news and have them do a story.  I can’t believe that you actually returned this cash!  The couple, though, was horror‑stricken.  "Oh, please don't do that," they pleaded, "we're married to other people!"

Ezekiel was a priest who had been carried away by King Nebuchadnezzar and forced to settle in Tel Abib on the Chebar Canal in Babylon.  As this man grew older, he grew both hungry for God and lonesome for his homeland that we know as Israel today.

Long ago the psalmist prayed, "Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?" (Psalm 85:6).   A generation ago, folks sang the rousing words of a song written by John Husband: "Revive us again; fill each heart with thy love; May each soul be rekindled with fire from above. Hallelujah! Thine the glory, Hallelujah! Amen; Hallelujah! Thine the glory, revive us again."