Zondervan Inspire

Light Overcomes Darkness

From the Editor: I chose this picture for obvious reasons, but also because it reminds me of walking through the woods in beautiful Michigan on a fall morning. May today's post bring you hope. 

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith 

Light and darkness are distinct opposites and each displays its own unique properties. John 1:5 says, "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." The NIV text note, however, gives this alternate translation of the Greek: "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome."

Darkness cannot overcome light. Consider this simple example: you open the door of your unlit closet while standing in your well-lit bedroom. What happens? Does the darkness spill over into the bedroom? Of course not. The light overcomes the darkness and you can now see into the once dark closet. Yet the light in the bedroom has not been diminished. Spiritual light has this same unique quality of physical light — it will always overcome darkness.

From Look Unto Me: The Devotions of Charles Spurgeon

by Jim Reimann

A Life-Transforming Awareness

From the Editor: This picture reminds me of my oldest daughter when she was young—tough, determined, looking to the future. It’s good to know that God’s love and grace is with all who trust him.

Wishing you blessings today,

Keith 

Our souls deeply desire affirmations. Think how often you may have wondered, "Does God really love me like the Bible says he does?" To know that God does love us and that he bestows his grace upon us is a life-transforming awareness. It gives us confidence in ourselves and our abilities. It helps us know the value of what we can do. It makes us long to serve such a God, and it makes us long to serve others. God's love and affirmation for us leads us to his calling, plan, and purpose for our lives.

From The Seven Desires of Every Heart

by Mark & Debra Laaser

Our Condition Is Not Hopeless

So when Jesus spoke of the poor in spirit, who was he referring to? Who is this misfortunate bunch in such desperate need? Everyone.

All of us have places that are filled not with the spirit of God but with the void of sin. Everyone has broken and disgusting spots in their lives that just won't heal right. Everyone fails. Everyone hurts those they love most. Everyone lacks the kindness, the courage, and the wisdom they ought to possess. No one is solid inside; everyone is deficient.

Jesus alone shows us that our condition is not hopeless. Just as Socrates knew that the only ones who are wise are those who know they are fools, so too Jesus shows us that the only ones who are complete are those who know they are falling apart. Heaven is occupied not by those who think they have it all together. Heaven is the refuge of the infirm and the mending.

From Seven: The Deadly Sins and the Beatitudes

by Jeff Cook

Any comments or testimonies today?

Your Inheritance Forever

Jesus Christ is Himself the sum total of the covenant, and, as one of its gifts, He is the possession of every believer. Dear Christian, are you able to fathom what you have received in Him, "for in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form" (Colossians 2:9)?

Consider the word God in all its infinite greatness, and then meditate on the beauty of "becom[ing] mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13). Remember, as God and man, all that Christ ever had or has is yours purely because of His favor. It has been freely bestowed on you and will be your inheritance forever.

From Look Unto Me: The Devotions of Charles Spurgeon

by Jim Reimann

Any comments or testimonies today?

What God Is Really Like

Imagine what God is really like. Unless we believe God is, above all, loving and good and for us, we won't be willing to seek him. The Bible says, "God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 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 4:8–10).

Do you see what this says? God is love. Is God a just judge? Yes — God will one day make right all the wrongs — but is he primarily a judge? No! Jesus came to show us that first and foremost, God is Love, and God loves us so much that there is nothing he won't do to deliver us from our broken ways and bring us into a shared life with him. Jesus even gave his own life so that "we might live through him" — starting now and forever more.

From Soul Revolution: How Imperfect People Become All God Intended

by John Burke

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Touch the Face of God

The journey to the Celestial City can be every bit as arduous as John Bunyan depicted in his famous Pilgrim's Progress. It will not always be filled with happy faces, fun times, and an incessant fare of upbeat praise choruses. There will be tears too, and through it all the ache of yearning. We face into the wind as we journey through this fallen world, and there are plenty of struggles ahead. Nowhere does the Bible say it will be easy. We have only been assured that it is infinitely worthwhile.

But we also journey in hope, and by hope we mean a confident and sustaining anticipation of a positive future. We have received sufficient assurances that we are on the right track (traveling mercies, Anne Lamott calls them) to keep us pressing forward. It is true that for the time being we know only "in part." But someday we will see him face-to-face, and will know him fully, just as we are already fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12). The time is coming when we will "slip the surly bonds of earth ... and touch the face of God."

From A Little Guide to Christian Spirituality: Three Dimensions of Life with God

by Glen G. Scorgie

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God's Silent Work

Fanny Crosby was not content to be a victim. She voraciously memorized five books of the Old Testament and most of the New Testament by the time she was ten years old. She attended the New York Institute for the Blind, where she became a teacher and gifted poet. After surviving the cholera epidemic in 1849, Fanny realized something was missing in her life and turned to Christ at the age of 30. God had been silently working in her heart. The poetry that formerly flowed from her heart turned into hymns of praise, many of which we still sing today.

In Genesis 41 we see God silently working in Joseph's life. Joseph could have grown bitter and inflamed by the dreadful circumstances of his life. But amazingly, Joseph experienced God's silent work as much in slavery and in prison as he did when he rose to prominence.

Whatever your circumstances, you can trust that God is working behind the scenes. When you experience trouble—and you will—God can make you fruitful and full of praise, just as he did with Joseph and with Fanny Crosby.

From New Women's Devotional Bible

New International Version (NIV™)
Most read. Most trusted.
Celebrating 30 Years
30NIV.COM

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God Doesn't Play Favorites

God doesn't play favorites. He loves us all the same but differently, the way a parent loves four children. God doesn't shell out a cup of love for Americans and a fourth of a cup to the Sudanese. God doesn't hate homosexuals or bigots. If you believe the B-I-B-L-E, he doesn't hate anybody. He's not a hateorator. He loved us enough to send his only begotten son to forgive us from all our ignorant, bigoted ways.

From Where's Your Jesus Now? Examining How Fear Erodes Our Faith

by Karen Spears Zacharias

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Qualities that Suffering Produces

 

Life for godly [Polish] people was not easy during the long, hard years of Soviet occupation. Some of them suffered terribly, and others lived with continual frustration and restrictions, but they learned how to live well under them. As I grew to know the believers who had suffered for their faith and had stood firm in hardship and distress, I could not avoid seeing the certain qualities that suffering and deprivation had produced in them. Their faces were often lined deeply beyond their years, but their eyes shone. They were frequently close to tears, but smiles and laughter quickly lit up their faces. They conversed readily on serious topics but loved a joke. They spoke little about their hardships and always with a shrug of the shoulder. And they were hungry for God, they loved the teaching of his Word, their praise was infectious, and their prayers shook the rafters.

From Flowing Streams: Journeys of a Life Well Lived

by Stuart Briscoe

Any comments or testimonies today?

Strength to Overcome Anything

The challenges in your life are real, but Jesus is the truth! If you will learn to praise Jesus Christ regardless of your circumstances, you will find inner freedom and joy, and you will have the strength to overcome whatever you are faced with. The joy of the Lord is such a key, because Nehemiah said, "The joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10).

If you have allowed the devil to steal the joy of the Lord from you, then you will feel weak and powerless. But when the joy of the Lord returns, you will be strong! If you feel defeated, then "strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, 'Be strong, do not fear; your God will come'" (Isaiah 35:3–4). It is in the very nature of our God to help the oppressed (see Psalm 146:7–8).

From Living Water

by Brother Yun

Any comments or testimonies today?