The Up Devotional

This week we have been thinking about Daniel 11:32.

In the second century B.C., Antiochus IV was working mayhem. He was a cunning man of violence. He desecrated the Jerusalem temple and persecuted the people of God.

Some people gave in. Others didn’t. There were resisters. Verse 32 provides this detail: “the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.” 

My suggestion is that their attitude and approach then continues to be something to emulate today, especially as we navigate our own kinds of uncertainty.

Today we look at how they “took action.”

In historical context, this is most likely a reference to a group of people who organized a revolt to take back the temple. 

Today, how we “take action” is going to vary depending on where we live, our local circumstances, and even the nature of our own gifts and strengths. 

Generally speaking, however, one thing doesn’t change. Regardless of the circumstances, our job is always to be the hands and feet of Christ. In so doing, we attend to the practical needs of others.

It’s not to hide in the corner. It’s not to watch the news 24/7. It’s not to adopt a new identity as doom-and-gloomers. It’s to be the hands and feet of Christ.

‘Oh no, deception is on the rise, what should we do?’ Be the hands and feet of Christ.

‘Oh no, fear, worry and chaos are on the rise, what should we do?’ Be the hands and feet of Christ.

‘Oh no, war and destruction loom, what should we do?’ Be the hands and feet of Christ.

I’m not saying there aren’t problems in the world. There are. And as you know, they are quite serious. But the Bible doesn’t have a footnote that says, ‘When things get tough, it’s okay to turn your disciple switch to off.’

There are times when you need rest and to take care of yourself. It’s true for all of us. But the point is that we aren’t defined by the bad, but by the good.

The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action. It was true then, and it’s true now. Let’s be the hands and feet of Christ, come what may.

Notes:

-The Up Devotional is published 5 days a week (Monday-Friday) and resumes on April 20, 2026.
-Bible quotes are from the ESV.

This week we’re looking at Daniel 11:32. 

In the second century B.C. the murderous Antiochus IV was wreaking havoc. He was persecuting God’s people and even set up pagan sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple. 

In response, a group of people resisted and remained true: “the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.” Despite the passage of time, their attitude and approach to the situation continues to be instructive for us today as we live through our own brand of uncertainty.

Today we look at their second action: they stood firm.

This isn’t about our boots. It’s about being resolute in our faith and life, especially when things get difficult. It’s easy to “stand firm” when everything is happy and nice, but it can be difficult when the proverbial winds start to blow.

While reading a book a few years ago I came across a description of some ancient coins. They depicted individuals carrying other people on their backs or children in their arms. They were acting nobly, often fleeing from danger and helping others in the process. In one of them, someone was carrying an elderly man while fleeing the burning city of Troy.

This is a helpful image for us about what it means to “stand firm.” We keep our commitments to God and to the people around us no matter what, even when the world seems to be burning down.

When you start to think about it, this is a consistent attitude throughout the Bible. Isaiah stood firm. Esther stood firm. Jesus stood firm. Mary stood firm. Paul stood firm.

And so can you. 

The people who know their God shall stand firm.

Notes:

-Bible quotes are from the ESV.

In yesterday’s devotional we looked at Daniel 11:32. 

In the second century B.C. a vile leader named Antiochus IV was wreaking havoc and destruction. He was persecuting God’s people and even set up pagan sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple. 

In response, a group of people remained true: “the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.” No matter how many years have passed, their attitude and approach to life is very wise and enduring for people today who are also living through uncertain times. 

Over the next few devotionals, we’re going to unpack those three statements one-by-one. 

First, it says they “know their God.” 

So, to be clear, what do we need to know? Do we need to know everything from every channel and every news source all the time? No, we don’t. It’s actually bad for us. 

Do we need to doom scroll on social media all the time? No, we don’t. It’s actually bad for us. 

Having said that, is it good to be informed? Sure. But being well-informed and saturating ourselves with non-stop bad news are different things. 

Okay, back to our question. The most important thing (or, rather, being) for us to know is God.

He is always, good, holy, wise, loving, true. He is never not those things. Our eyes should be fixed more on the goodness of God than the badness of the world. 

Keep in mind that knowing God is different than knowing about God. Knowing God presumes intimacy and closeness. When things are dark and difficult, you only trust people you are close to. If you keep God at a distance, you will find it hard when things get hard.

Of all the things there are to know about in the information age, know God first. It gives perspective. It also helps to keep us focused on Christ, truth, love, and hope.

Let’s fix our eyes on the goodness of God more than on the badness of the world.

Notes:

-“Know God. Stand Firm. Take Action.” Click here. Sermon.
-Bible quotes are from the ESV.

On the surface, Daniel 11 is not a happy piece of reading. In it, the archangel Gabriel tells Daniel what is about to happen in the coming centuries. There is a lot of war, bloodshed, political gamesmanship, and persecution. 

Amongst other things, a vile leader named Antiochus IV, rises to power, desecrates the Jerusalem temple by outlawing proper worship to the Lord and setting up an altar to the Greek god Zeus. 

Then in verse 32, we read this: “He shall seduce with flattery those who violate the covenant, but the people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.”

In the midst of the mayhem, there would be people who remained true. Historically, this is most likely a reference to the revolt that reclaimed the temple in the second century B.C.

But what they did then is a strong word for what we can do now. No matter how many years have passed, their attitude and approach to life is very wise and enduring for people living through uncertain and dangerous times. 

The second half of verse 32 includes three specific things: Know God, stand firm, and take action. 

Over the next few devotionals, we’re going to unpack what it means to live in this way come what may. 

Today, our focus is this: We don’t need to adopt the prevailing attitude of our times. We don’t need to buy into the fear, the panic, the dread, or the worry. 

There is another way—which just so happens to be a better way.

The world unceasingly barks like a mad dog. Thankfully, there are other options about how to live our lives.

Know God. Stand firm. Take action.

Notes:

-“Know God. Stand Firm. Take Action.” Click here. Sermon.
-Bible quotes are from the ESV.

In his wisdom, God has given us certain things to do. They are for our good. They are a conduit for his grace in our lives. 

These are things like prayer, reading the Bible, and the Sacraments. There are more, but these are some of the most commonly referenced.

Today I’d like to share something with you that has been especially powerful and meaningful for me personally: Bible memorization. 

Before you dismiss the idea out-of-hand, hear me out.

First, this practice isn’t about looking righteous to other people. “Oh, gee, you quoted the Bible, look at how holy you are.”

Second, this practice isn’t about words only. If your focus is on information while neglecting transformation, you’re missing the point.

The reason this practice has been so powerful and meaningful to me is because, by God’s grace, it has started to change my thinking. As I often say to the congregation where I pastor, the more you get into God’s Word, the more God’s Word gets into you. Increasingly, biblical passages start coming into your mind when you pray, and when you are making a decision, and when someone asks you for advice, and when you are lying in bed.

Psalm 119:11 says: “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” The author has stored up God’s word in his heart like someone who stores up food in the cupboards. When this happens, he is more likely to live by faith because God’s word is in his heart.

It doesn’t have to be intimidating. Find a key passage and work through it, one verse per day. Then, after you have it, keep reviewing it every day to ensure it sticks. When done prayerfully, this will help you to think, speak and act in a way that is more consistent with the God of grace and truth. 

The more you get into God’s Word, the more God’s Word gets into you.

Notes:

-Bible quotes are from the ESV.

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:4-6)

Someone recently posted something online about how Christianity just makes you feel bad. They used different words, but that was the idea. 

This person, however, was missing something significant when it comes to our faith.

Yes, we are sinful people. When we learn about Jesus and commit to seriously following him, not only do we become enamoured by him, but we become increasingly aware of how much we are unlike him! All of us have a long way to go.

And yes, it is true that an awareness of sin can make you feel “bad.” Hopefully, it compels us to humbly admit our reliance on God, and to be grateful for God’s grace.

But there’s more. And it has to do with God’s attitude toward us as his children. 

Brother Lawrence was a monk who lived in the seventeenth century. Listen to his words about this very thing: “I consider myself as the most wretched of men, full of sores and corruption, and who has committed all sorts of crimes against his King. Touched with a sensible regret, I confess to Him all my wickedness, I ask His forgiveness, I abandon myself in His hands that he may do what He pleases with me.

“The King, full of mercy and goodness, very far from chastising me, embraces me with love, makes me eat as His table, serves me with His own hands, gives me the key of His treasures; He converses and delights Himself with me incessantly, in a thousand and a thousand ways, and treats me in all respects as His favorite.”*

What a great perspective. Brother Lawrence knew his own brokenness, but he also knew he wasn’t defined by it. He had been adopted by the God who was also his Father, and who treats him “in all respects as His favorite.” 

Today, when sin and shame heckle you, remind them who your Father is. You are defined not by your failures, but by the saving love of God.

Notes:

–An Invitation to Help: I’m looking for one (or three) individuals to help expand the online reach of ‘The Pulse Podcast with Matthew Ruttan’ and ‘The Up Daily Devotional.’ Click here to learn more in the one-page explanation.

-The Up Devotional is published 5 days a week and returns on April 13, 2026.

-*Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God (Grand Rapids: Spire,1967), 36-7.

-Bible quotes are from the ESV.

Ryan Skoog had a friend who went in a mission trip to Russia after the fall of communism. 

They went to a former gulag, a forced labour camp. Horrible things had happened in that location. Their mission was to deconstruct the prison and repurpose the stones to build a church. 

Their mission was to make something good and beautiful out of something bad and ugly.

After several days, they found something. It was a canister with a note that was tucked in amongst the stones. They gathered around as someone read it, tears building up in their eyes as they did so: “We are a community of believers being forced to take the stones of our church and use them to build our own prison. We pray one day God will hear us and use these stones to build a church again.” 

Incredible! A long time ago there had been a church. Its members were forced to tear it down and use the stones to build their own prison. When that happened, they prayed for a day in the future when the prison would be torn down and rebuilt as a church again. They hid their prayer request in a canister amongst the stones for someone in the future to find. And that’s exactly what happened.*

It’s easy to get discouraged when all we see is defeat or darkness. But ours is a God who doesn’t give up. He is stronger than any adversary. He is smarter than any foe. He has his own timeline. He can’t not win. After all, he’s God.

Paul includes this word of praise in Ephesians 3:20-21: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.”

He is able to do far more abundantly, not less. 

Just because you can’t see God working, that doesn’t mean he isn’t. No matter the nation, no matter the language, no matter the obstacle, the Lord Almighty is a never-failing warrior for his people.

Notes:

–An Invitation to Help: I’m looking for one (or three) individuals to help expand the online reach of ‘The Pulse Podcast with Matthew Ruttan’ and ‘The Up Daily Devotional.’ Click here to learn more in the one-page explanation.

-*Ryan Skoog, Peter Greer, and Cameron Doolittle, Lead with Prayer: The Spiritual Habits of World-Changing Leaders (Nashville: Faith Words, 2025), 205-6.

-Bible quotes are from the ESV.

“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55)

“We are an Easter people.” I’m not sure when I first heard that expression, but it was probably when I was in high school. 

Being “an Easter people” means that the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is the defining aspect of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. The events that transpired at the end of Holy Week aren’t somewhere on the periphery of our faith; they’re right there at the centre.

But what is the significance of the resurrection?

Of the many life-changing things that could be said, today let me highlight three details. 

First, the resurrection is Jesus’ victory over sin, death and evil. Perhaps that’s obvious.

Second, it has to do with our own victory over sin, death and evil as his people. We get to eternally share in the accomplishment of our Lord and Friend.

Third—and this is the detail that is often missed—it also has to do with a larger and more global victory over sin, death and evil.

The resurrection is a key moment in the larger narrative arc of human history. Everything is working together toward a larger victory. What happened to Jesus is a foretaste of what will happen everywhere.

One of the implications of this is that we know the end of the story! The resurrection is a guarantee of what is to come.

On the surface it may seem as if fear, violence, anxiety, darkness, and uncertainty are winning, but they’re not. One day they will be fully and finally trampled, and the light of Christ will shine everywhere.

Max Lucado says: “Everything will work out in the end. If it’s not working out, it’s not the end.”*

So true! This gives us hope. This gives us confidence. And this gives us new life for the living of difficult days.

We are an Easter people. One day, the victory of Christ will expand over the entire earth. Until then, just remember: “Everything will work out in the end. If it’s not working out, it’s not the end.”

Notes:

–Ministry Announcement: I’m looking for one (or three) individuals to help expand the online reach of ‘The Pulse Podcast with Matthew Ruttan’ and ‘The Up Daily Devotional.’ Click here to learn more in the one-page explanation.

-“The fight’s been fixed” Click here. Sermon.

-*Max Lucado, Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear (Nashville: ThomasNelson, 2009), 160.

-Bible quotes are from the ESV.

[Ministry Announcement in the Footnotes Below]

~

Jim Carey was in a movie called Bruce Almighty. Carey played Bruce, and God was played by Morgan Freeman. 

In short, Bruce complained to God that he wasn’t doing his job very well. So, in a kind of cosmic experiment, God gave his powers to Bruce to see if he could do any better. He got to spend several days with God’s power. (Only in the movies!)

As you can imagine, it didn’t go very well. Bruce started to use his new powers to advance his own selfish agenda. He got himself better clothes. He schemed to have a co-worker demoted and himself promoted. He also did things to improve the romance in his life! 

Although things seemed to initially improve in his personal life, that didn’t last for very long. Plus, things in the wider world were quickly deteriorating. 

Over time, Bruce realized the error of his ways. Things only started getting better when he brought his life back into alignment with the kinds of things God wanted—like helping that poor guy on the street, like being honest with his wife, like putting others first, and like actually trusting God to know what’s best. 

The Bible is full of praise about the greatness of God. I particularly like Psalm 145:3: “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.” His greatness is quite literally beyond both comprehension and description.

This verse (and others) is a reminder that God is doing a better job at being God than we could ever do. He governs with wisdom. He loves with patience. And he rules with justice.

Why, therefore, do we so often try to push him to the sidelines?

Today, let’s remember the greatness of God. We may not always understand everything that is happening, and there may be intimidating things about our lives and about the world, but the Lord who has governed human history with grace and truth since the dawn of time, will continue to shepherd, forgive, strengthen and guide his people. 

Let’s trust the only One who is qualified for God’s job.

“Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.”

Notes:

–Ministry Announcement: I’m looking for one (or three) individuals to help expand the online reach of ‘The Pulse Podcast with Matthew Ruttan’ and ‘The Up Daily Devotional.’ Click here to learn more in the one-page explanation. 

-“The Fight’s Been Fixed” Click here. Easter sermon on Luke 24:1-49.

-Bible quotes are from the ESV.

Happy Easter! 

Johnny Hunt once said: “In the end we win because the fight’s been fixed.”*

I love it! But what does he mean? 

He’s referring to the victory of Christ. On the cross and through the empty tomb, he defeated the powers of sin, death, despair, darkness and even the Devil himself. Colossians 2:15 says: “He disarmed the rulers and authorities [a reference to demonic powers] and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him [on the cross].”

So, even though the evil one continues to do his work in the world, he has been mortally wounded. His days are numbered. He doesn’t have the strength he had before the cross. 

In other words, the fight’s been fixed! Sooner or later, the powers of darkness will finally tumble to the ground, succumbing to the wounds inflicted at the cross.

Speaking about ultimate victory, Michael Green writes: “This is why Christians can lift up their heads, however black the clouds. Their hope does not rest upon fairy tales and the hope of pie in the sky, but rather on the solid achievements of Bethlehem, Golgotha and the first Easter Day.”**

We are now living on the other side of the empty tomb. Though there are clouds that gather, we are the victorious people of the risen Christ. Though the darkness intimidates and threatens, we are the victorious people of the risen Christ. Though the world is full of fear, we are the victorious people of the risen Christ. 

Today, be confident and victorious. The battle may rage, but the fight’s been fixed.

Notes:

-*This quote was on a handout at the Re-Think Conference in Georgia in 2016.
-**Michael Green, “Principalities and Powers” in: Territorial Spirits: Insights Into Strategic-Level Spiritual Warfare and Intercession, ed. C. Peter Wagner (Chichester: Sovereign World Limited, 1991), 191.
-Bible quotes are from the ESV.