Today Daily Devotional

“Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold.”

— Matthew 24:12

As time passes, this passage becomes more frightening. Perhaps every generation feels that the signs of the end times are increasing. Perhaps the signs are increasing. Certainly the generations that are still living have seen plenty of earthquakes, famines, and wars. And certainly today we see an increase in wickedness, at least in some places.

The particular wickedness Jesus warns about in verse 12 could be called “lawlessness.” It goes beyond refusing to live God’s way, and it basically refuses to live according to anyone’s rules. It’s the attitude that believes “It’s only illegal if I get caught.”

The problem with this wickedness, according to Jesus, is that it works against love. It holds no commitment to another and has no willingness to sacrifice for anyone. In the end times most people will care only about themselves, and most people’s love will grow cold.

Taken to the extreme, that’s a bone-chilling thought. It will be “survival of the fittest” among people who are most violent and crafty. May Christ return before we become so lawless.

Spirit of Jesus, guide our lives to save us from lawlessness. Fill us with your love and wisdom, we pray. Amen.

“Learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

— Matthew 9:13

Some years ago the United States Senate held confirmation hearings for a top government position. The appointee had done something bad in the past but had also done some good things since then. Sadly, the most disappointing part of the process was in the arguments that were made in favor and against. The underlying belief on both sides was that bad people stay bad and good people stay good. People don’t change.

Jesus didn’t believe that about people. The whole point of Jesus’ coming was to change people. And while only God can truly change people, God grants those changes abundantly. That’s because God acts with mercy, and he calls us to do the same.

Too often people get caught up in trying to please God by their acts of worship, including sacrifices—that is, giving things up in order to please God. But if our actions are just self-serving, they are not sacrificial. Yet, ironically, if we act with mercy toward someone struggling to turn their life around, that is a sacrifice that pleases God.

In Christ, we can believe that a person’s life can change. And if you are wondering if God will accept you despite what you’ve done with your life, yes, he absolutely will accept you. Give your life to him today, and pray for others to encourage you in your life of faith.

Dear Jesus, thank you for your grace in turning our lives around. Help us ­never to withhold the mercy you have shown to us. Amen.

“Keep on, then, with your magic spells and with your many sorceries. . . . Perhaps you will succeed, perhaps you will cause terror.”

— Isaiah 47:12

It may be surprising to hear that sorcery is still practiced today, not just in remote parts of the world but even in towns and cities in the Western world, and among well-educated people. Some sources say it’s actually on the rise.

Ancient Babylon was full of sorcery in Isaiah’s time. And many people credited sorcery for the rise of Babylon. But God showed Isaiah that Babylon would fall, and it did—and no amount of sorcery could save it.

Through Isaiah, the Lord mocks sorcery in this passage. It has no power over the true God. Babylon’s downfall came not from a lack of sorcery or misreading the stars. Babylon fell because all its attention to manipulating natural and super­natural forces came down to selfishness, which leads only to ruin.

Modern sorcery or witchcraft is no different. It misses the big picture. And even if it saw the big picture, it would be powerless to bring it about or stop it.

Don’t fall prey to the promises of today’s sorcerers and their crafts. In the end all true good is in the hands of God.

Lord and God, protect and strengthen us with your true goodness. Though strange and powerful forces may be at work around us, help us always to trust in you. Amen.

Love . . . always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

— 1 Corinthians 13:7

We talked earlier about the power of God’s love and how amazing it is (Oct. 19). Let’s look today at what love does to trust.

Our passage tells us that “love . . . always trusts.” Other translations say that “love trusts all things.” The original Greek text says, more simply, “trusts all”—always and all things. When I first noticed that, it seemed impossible to me.

Have you ever been let down by someone only to find that it was because they never trusted you? You might want to scream about who turned out not to be trustworthy! I learned early in life not to trust people that I sensed didn’t trust me. But that can lead to a destructive cycle in which people begin to trust each other less and less.

Love offers a different approach. Love says, “I’ll give you trust.” Period.

An unrelenting effort to “trust all” moves us to dig as deep as we need to in order to find what is trustworthy. And that always brings us to God.

The world will let you down, and you should feel free to move yourself to safety when you need to. But God’s perfect love can drive us to look constantly for new ways to trust.

God, in and through your perfect love, help us to find trust that doesn’t depend on circumstances but on you. Amen.

Put to death . . . whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.

— Colossians 3:5

This passage reminds me of my swimming instructor when I was young. The instructor stood just a few body lengths away from me in the pool, but as I swam toward him, he moved backward so that I would stretch my abilities to reach him. When I reached him, he showed me how far I had gone, and, more importantly, I found that he had improved my confidence.

While I was swimming, I wanted so badly to reach the instructor. And Jesus wants us to reach for him like that. But in the pool of life there are many other things we could grab onto. None of them are as safe as Jesus, but many of them seem easier to reach.

These other things we want to grab are idols. Idols can be false gods or false goods. This passage is warning us about false goods. We get greedy for things that seem able to help us, but they can never be as safe as Jesus. In fact, these things are so unsafe that if we don’t let go of them, they will bring us to destruction.

It’s not safe to grab onto the false goods or idols of this world when we simply need to keep stretching toward Christ, who is with us always (Matthew 28:20).

Lord, keep near to us so that we don’t lose confidence in reaching you. And free us from the things of this world that falsely offer the safety that only you can give. Amen.

I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience. . . .

— 1 Timothy 1:16

Earlier this month we looked at the virtue of steadfast endurance (Oct. 5), a sort of super-patience. Today our attention is on the more normal patience we need as we deal with waiting in everyday life. Perhaps the most common example of this is the patience that parents and teachers hopefully showed us while they were waiting for us to grow smarter and wiser.

It’s heartwarming that Paul uses this type of patience to describe Jesus’ waiting before we repent and commit our lives to him. It suggests that Jesus never lost sight of our future in him. He knew he would win us over; it was just a matter of time. So he was patient, being the best of teachers, even when we insisted on doing things our own wrong way.

This passage prompts us not to hide the patience we needed from Christ. We should be open about our sinfulness and repentance and faith so that the patience Jesus had with us will be on full display. And as we share the story of Christ’s patience with us, we will grow in patience and understanding toward others who still need to “believe in him and receive eternal life.”

Dear Jesus, many of us have come so far because of your patience with us. Help us to grow more and to share your patience with others. Amen.

Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.

— Psalm 37:8

Injustice makes us angry. That’s okay, but we must be careful. Psalm 37:8 cautions us not to fuss so much about the evil we see that we become evildoers ourselves.

First, we see evil or injustice, and we begin to fret about it. It’s not fair that by doing evil things some people gain power and wealth. And what if that evil gets directed toward us? If we fret about it too much, we can begin to get angry. “Why doesn’t anyone stop them?” we cry. “We ought to put them in their place!” And if we stay angry, that can grow and become wrath. In wrath, we can be consumed by our anger. If we are not thinking straight and are not careful, we can fall into behavior that leads to evil.

A lot of research in past decades has shown that this kind of progression is behind a lot of criminal activity. Someone experiences injustice, and before you know it, they are acting unjustly too. Maybe at first they directed their evil at people who were hurting them. But it doesn’t always end there.

Though wrath may not always lead to criminal activity, it is destructive. Wrath can cause things like mocking, bullying, and other unjust activities as well.

The solution is to avoid even fretting about evil. God will provide justice, and he will provide for our needs as well. We might not be able to stop everyone else’s evil, but we can at least stop ourselves by resting patiently in God.

Dear God, help us to trust that you will provide justice fittingly in your time. Amen.

He [has shown] the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

— Ephesians 2:7

Sometimes we use the words kind and nice interchangeably. For many of us, the word nice simply means that something is pleasant. But in the Bible the Greek word chrestotes, translated as “kindness,” goes deeper. It refers to making ourselves useful or beneficial to ­others, and sometimes that is not pleasant.

In Ephesians 2 we read some amazing things about the grace of God. By God’s grace we receive the free gift of salvation from our sins. The gift is free, and yet we sometimes forget that it changes us. Grace gets results. Grace is useful, beneficial, kind.

Grace is useful because it changes us. It lifts us up. It seats us on a heavenly throne with Christ Jesus—we become minor rulers serving the King of kings! But don’t forget that kings have responsibilities. Our royal responsibilities include showing the grace of God to everyone, everywhere. We do that by living out the good works that the King of kings has prepared for us to do. And when we do those good works, we become useful (kind) to the world, which in turn can better understand the grace of God expressed through the kindness of Christ Jesus to us.

Lord Jesus, what you did on the cross was so kind. It wasn’t pleasant, but nothing has ever been more useful to us. Help us to do the good works we are called to do, and to be kind (useful) to the world as well. Amen.

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar.

— 1 John 4:20

In our polarized world today, this statement is a convicting reminder, isn’t it? Its message is quite simple: anyone who hates another person does not love God.

When I was growing up, I thought hate was a thing I felt only in the rarest moments of my deepest anger. That was certainly a severe form of hate, and I’m glad it was rare and fleeting. But I’ve learned that the Bible teaches there are several other forms of hate as well. In fact, a much more common form of hate can occur when we simply cease to care about someone at all. Hatred begins when we stop caring about what is good for someone. And it can range all the way to wishing harm or death on them.

I have seen a lot of statements from Christians and non-Christians alike that wish harm on their opponents in politics, in lifestyles, and even in sports! It’s one thing to wish that opponents would change their minds or hearts, and it could even be an act of love to try and convince them to change, as long as we did so using virtues. But if we start wishing that our opponents would leave the country, be embarrassed, need to hide something about themselves, or maybe even get sick or worse, then we are entertaining hatred.

Dear Jesus, teach us to wish the best even on our enemies. May your love so overflow from us that it also fills our opponents and returns to us. Amen.

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

— 1 John 4:10

This might be the most power­ful sentence ever written. With all the volumes written about love, even with all the Scriptures that talk about love, this is the only place where God wrote down his definition of love for all to see. Love is not simply a feeling, or an action, or even a commitment—although all of those things are involved. Love is beyond words and has been communicated most clearly through the Father’s will and the Son’s sacrifice—when Jesus died on a cross so that our relationship with God could be restored.

No matter what angle we view it from, God’s love is always more. From the angle of the Father, he sacrificed what was dearest to him for the sake of those who needed him more. From the Son’s perspective, he sacrificed himself so that we could be restored to the Father. And from our perspective, to the extent that we can see it honestly, we were lost and without a hope in the world. Because of our sin, we were headed for destruction with no way to save ourselves. So God “sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Why? Because he loves us.

And in the light of that love, there is more: “If we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, my love is so much less than yours. How can it be that my weak love can complete yours? Help my love to grow. Amen.