Guidelines For Living Devotional

Ignorance is a wonderful thing!  What you don't know doesn't worry you, though it probably should.  You couldn't be out of money since you still have checks in your checkbook, right? The lump that you have on your neck can’t hurt you as long as you ignore it or can it?  It's not only your bank account or your health which is an issue; it's your spiritual life as well. Strange, is it not, how we prefer to ignore issues rather than confront them.

The writer, C.S. Lewis, points out that you've got to know what a straight line is before you know what a crooked one is.  But the “straight lines” of morality, of what is right and wrong, are fuzzy in the minds of a lot of people. Where do we get our idea of what is right and what is wrong and can something be “right for you, but wrong for me?”

A sign carried by a demonstrating student on a university campus read, "JESUS, YES!  CHRISTIANITY, NO!"  Was the student rejecting the distorted picture of Christianity which is often projected--the image of someone who goes to church yet whose life has been unaffected by the message?  Does this mean that the demonstrator related to Jesus as a revolutionary, as someone who stood against the crowd and certainly against the established government and authority of His day?  Or does that mean He stood for the real, the authentic, the genuine Christ who spoke the truth and gave His life that those who believe in Him could have everlasting life?

How many children grew up with a real distaste for the word “discipline?”  Like 2-year-old James, who, when his father announced that he would have to be disciplined for misbehaving chirped, “Discipline—that’s bad stuff!”

A husband picked up a call from his wife.  “Michael got his first tooth and took his first step!” she excitedly told him.  “That’s so great!” he answered. “No, there’s more,” continued the wife. "He also had his first fall and cut his lip, and when he did, he said his first bad word!"

Two brothers are scuffling in a disagreement.  Down on the floor they tumble, fists flailing.  Soon enough, the older brother manages to end up on top of the younger brother, who wails, “You’re not the boss of me!”    And, it’s true.  Mom or Dad is the real boss.  Hopefully we have long ago abandoned tussles with our siblings, but how often do we wrestle over the right of God to rule in our lives?

Some men find it difficult to say, "I love you," but in Bert Salva's case, what was tough was getting Mary Shiminsky‑‑the object of his affection‑‑to really believe him.  For almost four years Bert courted Mary but didn't get anywhere.  Actually, what he got was a clear message, "Get lost, Buddy, I never want to see you again."  To make the message more explicit, Mary changed her phone number, and moved in with her parents who live in an isolated area and left no forwarding address.

In many places of the world, it’s not easy being a Christian.  A 2016 Pew Research Center study revealed that 83 percent of the world’s population lived in countries with high or very high religious restrictions, with Christians facing the most widespread religious restriction.  Open Doors, a ministry to the persecuted Church, estimates that 260 million Christians live in places where they experience high levels of persecution.

When Moses wrote the genealogies of our first fathers, he came to the sixth generation from Adam and recorded a curious and stunning entry. He says simply, “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away” (Genesis 5:24). So what happened?  One old preacher explained it like this:  as Enoch and God walked together, along towards evening they were a long way from home and God said, “Enoch, it’s closer to my home than yours. Why don’t you just go home with me?”

"Heaven is full of answers to prayers for which no one ever bothered to ask," said the venerable Billy Graham.  How often do we go plodding on, sometimes blundering, getting ourselves into situations which turn into nightmares because we never bother to stop long enough and say, "God, what do you want me to do? Is this your will, or does it simply look pretty good to me?"  Answers to prayers that were never prayed could have saved you all kinds of headaches.