The woman Jesus met at the well had been married five times. She had tried multiple relationships in an attempt to fill the void within her. But it didn’t work for her, and it won’t work for you. Neither will climbing the corporate ladder, or acquiring more and more stuff, or achieving fame. Note what Jesus told this woman: ‘Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again’ (v. 13 NKJV). When you’re in the desert without water, there comes a point at which you start seeing mirages and believing things that are not real. And when your soul continues to be parched and dry, you start reaching for things that are not real and cannot satisfy it. Jesus didn’t bring up this woman’s past to embarrass her. He referenced it for one reason only: to let her know that He could heal the wounds of her past and give her hope for a better future. And He did. Not only did He transform her, but she also became the first person to introduce the gospel to Samaria. Perhaps you think you’re beyond hope and redemption. David wasn’t, and he committed adultery and covered it up with murder. Peter wasn’t, and he denied Jesus. Thomas wasn’t, even though he is still remembered as a doubter. Paul wasn’t, and he killed Christians before he became one. Your unfulfilled desires and your unquenched thirst are a plus, not a minus, if you let them drive you to the feet of Jesus. Here is His promise: ‘The water that I shall give…will become…a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life’ (v. 14 NKJV).

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

You will go to heaven because you trusted in Christ’s righteousness, not your own. You say, ‘But isn’t doing the right things important?’ Absolutely. Your reward in heaven will be predicated upon what you do for God here on earth. But your salvation depends on trusting in Christ’s performance, not your own. Satan knows this, and he will try to drive you back to performance-based Christian living. And when you fail, as you assuredly will, he will condemn you and tell you that you don’t measure up and, therefore, you are unworthy of God’s love and acceptance. Notice what condemnation does: 1) It robs you of confidence before God. You are unable to claim His promises because you feel unworthy. Thirty-one times in Scripture, it says that we are ‘in Christ’. That’s one for every day of the month. So, each day, remind yourself that you are ‘in Christ’, and because He is worthy, you are accepted. 2) It makes you irritable and unpleasant to be around. Addiction counsellors describe this as being ‘squirrelly’ or uneasy in your own skin. As a result, you begin to put out what you feel on the inside. What’s the answer? Paul gives it to us: ‘Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight…But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed…even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe’ (vv. 20-22 NKJV). Bottom line: righteousness is credited to your account through faith, not works. Today you are loved and accepted ‘in Christ’.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego refused to bow before Nebuchadnezzar’s ninety-foot golden god, he threatened them with a fiery furnace. Here is what they told him: ‘Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not…we do not serve your gods’ (vv. 17-18 NKJV). When does God show up? When you say, ‘God is able to deliver me, but if not, I’m going to serve Him anyway.’ It’s wonderful when God provides what we need. Yet, the faith that truly pleases God says, ‘But if not, I’m going to trust God anyway.’ Peter writes: ‘There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold –though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honour on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world’ (1 Peter 1:6-7 NLT). And one more thought: the Bible does not say that the three Hebrew children saw the fourth man who was with them in the fire; it says that Nebuchadnezzar did, and he described Him as ‘the Son of God’ (Daniel 3:25 NKJV). So even when you don’t know it, your faith, your life, and testimony are impacting those around you and bringing glory to God.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

Notice what Joseph told Pharaoh: ‘Collect one-fifth of the produce of the land of Egypt in the seven plentiful years…gather all the food of those good years that are coming, and store up…Then that food shall be as a reserve for the land for the seven years of famine…that the land may not perish’ (vv. 34-36 NKJV). There are two important lessons for us in this story. 1) Don’t let your bad times eat up your good ones. And what is the best way to do that? By standing on the Word of God during times of discouragement and difficulty. ‘Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ’ (Philippians 1:6 NKJV). 2) Don’t just enjoy your good times; glean from them the wisdom, strength, strategies, relationships, and resources that will sustain you in the bad times. Paul writes, ‘We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character’ (Romans 5:3-4 NLT). But when God blesses you, don’t just store it up – share it with others. Practise the law of reciprocity that Jesus taught: ‘Give, and it will be given to you…For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you’ (Luke 6:38 NKJV). What you cling to for selfish purposes, you will eventually lose. But when you give to bless others, God has promised to reward you both now and in eternity.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

Solomon says there is ‘a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to gain, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace’ (vv. 2-8 NKJV). That’s a total of twenty-eight different ‘times’. But notice what Solomon does not give us – a time to give up! As long as you stay on the battlefield, God can turn your situation around and give you victory. If you’re worried today about your marriage, your children, your health, your finances, your job, and your future, here is a promise you can stand on: ‘“No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from Me,” says the Lord’ (Isaiah 54:17 NKJV). God didn’t say that the weapon wouldn’t be formed against you, but He said it wouldn’t prosper. So don’t give up!

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

If you want to know how incomprehensively big God is, read this: ‘My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand has stretched out the heavens’ (Isaiah 48:13 NKJV). Could such a God care about your daily troubles and woes? Yes. ‘Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows’ (Luke 12:6-7 NKJV). God values sparrows – more than you know. He feeds them, and supplies them with trees and twigs for nests and other sparrows to mate with. He cares so much about them that He keeps a running inventory. How about you? ‘The very hairs of your head are all numbered.’ When you care about someone, you observe details. When a baby is born, what do parents do when they see the tiny fingers and toes for the first time? They count them. For years later, every time that child comes home, if they are missing one of those ten fingers or toes, the parents notice. Even inadequate parents do this. Jesus was saying, ‘God doesn’t only number your fingers and toes. He loves you so much He numbers the hairs on your head. He notices their quantity. He notices their colour.’ Proverbs 16:31 tells us, ‘Grey hair is a crown of splendour; it is attained in the way of righteousness’ (NIVUK). The cross proves how much God loves you and how much you mean to Him, including the details of your life.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

Paul’s life changed forever when he asked the question, ‘Lord, what do You want me to do?’ Note how God answered his question: ‘Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do’ (v. 6 NKJV). Discovering God’s will takes place in steps. Step one is awareness. You cannot change direction if you’re unaware you’re heading in the wrong direction, so spend some time thinking about where you’re presently heading. If it’s not where you need to go, then write down the steps you must take to go where you want to go, to accomplish what you want to accomplish. Make them as concrete as you possibly can. Will they absolutely be the right steps? Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But you won’t know for sure until you start moving forwards. Step two is action. You can’t win if you don’t begin! Take initiative. Do something specific each day that will move you one step closer to your goal. Then, continue to do it every day. Step three is accountability. Few things will inspire you to see your goals through like accountability. One way you can do that is to share your goals. When you tell people what you plan to do, you feel pressure to keep working at it. Give those people permission to ask you about your progress. It’s like giving yourself a deadline so that you keep moving towards it. Writing things down gives you another form of accountability. Do you want to do God’s will? Then start with these steps.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

Gideon’s army of thirty-two thousand men is enormously outnumbered by the Midianites when God tells him, ‘You have too many men.’ He instructs Gideon to release anyone who is afraid, and Gideon loses two-thirds of his army. Now he has only ten thousand men. Again the Lord says, ‘There are still too many men,’ and reduces Gideon’s army to three hundred men. At that moment, the odds had to be a million to one. And it even gets better! God directs Gideon to attack the Midianites with trumpets and pitchers. Now for the real kicker: Israel wins! Why did God do it like that? Because if Gideon had attacked with thirty-two thousand men and won, the Israelites would have thought that God didn’t provide much help, and God would have received limited credit. But God is worthy of more. God desires and deserves complete credit. And when three hundred men defeat a massive army with trumpets and pitchers, God receives all the glory (see Judges 7). Why? The reason is a victory like that overcomes all odds. Too frequently, our prayers revolve around requesting God to increase our odds of winning. We would like everything in our favour. But maybe God wants the odds to oppose us so we can encounter a miracle of divine proportions. Faith is trusting God no matter how hopeless the odds are. Our impossible circumstances are chances to experience a new height of God’s glory. Are you facing a situation that, humanly speaking, is beyond your ability to cope with it? Read this: ‘Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God’ (2 Corinthians 3:5 NKJV).

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

In 1857 David Livingstone gave this speech at Cambridge University: ‘People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa…Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.’ When you serve the Lord, you always get back more than you give up. And if you get back more than you give up, have you really sacrificed anything at all? ‘Then Peter began to say to Him, “See, we have left all and followed You.” So Jesus answered and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time – houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions – and in the age to come, eternal life”’ (Mark 10:28-30 NKJV). The only regrets you will have at the end of your life will be that you didn’t seek and serve God more and seek and serve Him sooner.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.

Paul had a succession plan for his ministry. That’s why he mentored Timothy and instructed him, ‘Meditate on these things; give yourself entirely to them, that your progress may be evident to all.’ The words ‘that your progress may be evident to all’ mean that growth is measurable. Question: as you look back over the last few years of your life, in what areas have you grown? Before you read on, take a moment, and think carefully about how you answer that question. In childhood, our bodies automatically grow. But some of us bring into adulthood a subconscious trust that spiritual, emotional, and mental growth follow a comparable pattern. We think that as time goes by, we inevitably improve. We’re like cartoon character Charlie Brown in Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip, who once said, ‘I think I’ve discovered the secret of life – you just hang around until you get used to it.’ The problem is that you don’t get better by just living; you must be intentional about it. No one improves by chance. Personal growth doesn’t simply take place on its own. And when you’re finished with your formal education, you must take full ownership of the growth process because no one else will see to it for you. The ultimate growth manual is your Bible. It’s ‘living and powerful’ (Hebrews 4:12 NKJV). Everything you need to know and everything that’s required for you to grow can be found in its pages. So, open your Bible. Delve into it. Read it. Meditate on it. Apply its principles to your life, and you will be amazed at how you grow.

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.