Zondervan Inspire

Wake Up to Gratitude

The feeling part of gratitude is important. But don't wait to feel thankful before giving thanks. Usually the thinking and the doing lead to the emotions. C. S. Lewis once said that it's a thin line between pretending to feel something and beginning to feel it. There is a reason why the holiday is called Thanksgiving, not Thanksfeeling.

The apostle Paul wrote, "Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." God says to the human race: "Wake up. I need to tell you I love you." Every once in a while, people do wake up. When they do, what they wake up to is gratitude.

From When the Game Is Over It All Goes Back
in the Box

by John Ortberg

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Too Good to Be True?

If you were to receive Isaiah 55 in the mail you might easily dismiss it as junk mail, as too good to be true! In the opening lines God promises free food and drink. What's the catch? You wonder. Then God pledges to "freely pardon" those who turn away from evil and turn toward him (verse 7). Of course, that offer seems totally far-fetched, completely unbelievable. Cynically, you ask yourself, "Free pardon" ... free for how long before the hidden charges kick in?

Yet though you search for the fine print in this offer, you won't find any. God offers forgiveness as a gift. The price was enormous—God himself paid it through the blood of his Son, Jesus. Yes, God offers pardon to us free of charge. You can't pay even if you want to. In fact, if you try to earn this offer from God, you can't have it! When God freely offers pardon and mercy and life and love and blessing, he really means it. Don't even bother groping for the fine print.

From New Men's
Devotional Bible

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The Historical Reliability of the Bible

The Bible lists the Hittites as one of the nations living in the region of Canaan during the time of Abraham (Genesis 15:18-21) and says that they purchased horses from King Solomon (1 Kings 10:29), but critics of the Bible doubted that a people called Hittites ever existed. Not one shred of historical evidence of Hittites had ever been found.

In 1906 German explorers began to search the ruins of an ancient city in Turkey called Bogazkoy. After uncovering five temples, magnificent sculptures, and over 10,000 clay tablets, they announced to the world that the Hittites had been found! Not only was the historical reliability of the Bible confirmed again, but also scholars were able to fill in the political and cultural landscape of the Old Testament much more accurately with the art, history, and military exploits of Israel’s neighbor to the north.

From Amazing Discoveries That Unlock the Bible

by Douglas Connelly

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Everything All at Once

God created time, just as he created space and matter. Someone once said that time is God's way of keeping everything from happening at once. As finite beings, we can comprehend only so much. We must "concentrate" in order to think. But with his infinite mental capacity, God can think about everything all at once. He doesn't need to experience things sequentially as we do. He knows the world in one eternal "moment," comprehending the whole of reality in a single thought. This explains how God can perfectly know the future. All of human history is fully laid out before him, and he directly observes the end of history just as clearly as he does our present moment.

From Gum, Geckos, and God: A Family's Adventure in Space, Time, and Faith

by James S. Spiegel

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The Flood Account: Preserved Accurately in Genesis

More than 200 flood legends have been found in cultures all over the world. The legends are so numerous and from such diverse cultures that they could not have been simply copied from each other. Furthermore, the legends were recorded long before missionaries brought any knowledge of the biblical account of the flood to these cultures. (The account is preserved accurately in Genesis 6-9.)

James Perloff makes some startling comparisons: In 95 percent of the more than 200 flood legends, the flood was worldwide; in 88 percent a certain family was chosen to survive; in 70 percent survival was by means of a boat or raft; in 67 percent animals were also saved; in 66 percent the flood was due to human sin and wickedness; and in 57 percent the boat came to rest on a mountain.

From Amazing Discoveries That Unlock the Bible

by Douglas Connelly

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reality

For two thousand years the historicity of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection has been challenged on many grounds. But no one has ever produced evidence of the kind that brought President Nixon down—"a smoking gun," that is, evidence that could contradict the biblical account. Is that not evidence of its veracity? Can you think of any other event in history that has been so thoroughly examined, has not been disproved, and yet some still disbelieve it? The consistent eyewitness testimony of the apostles and earliest believers to the reality of Jesus' bodily resurrection, given among those hostile to the claims of Jesus, clearly points to the resurrection as a historical reality.

From The Faith: What Christians Believe, Why They Believe It, and
Why It Matters

by Charles Colson and Harold Fickett

Any comments or testimonies today?

created

Astronomers Fred Hoyle and N. C. Wickramasinghe found that the odds of the random formation of a single enzyme from amino acids anywhere on our planet’s surface are one in 10²⁰. Furthermore, they observe, "The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in
(10²⁰)^20,000 = 10^40,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup." And this is just one step in the formation of life. Nothing has yet been said about DNA and where it came from, or of the transcription of DNA to RNA, which scientists admit cannot even be numerically computed (see Genesis 1:1-27).

From The End of Reason:
A Response to the
New Atheists

by Ravi Zacharias

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choice

This is the great choice every human being has to make: Is the resurrection account true or only a myth? If the latter, it is an abomination, taking away any validity to the Christian claim. Believing that the resurrection was merely symbolic doesn't create liberal Christianity or a more enlightened version of our faith as many argue; it reduces Christianity to something utterly vain, a belief system like paganism. For if we were to believe Christ was not bodily raised, then Christianity would rest on the belief in a human sacrifice—offering an innocent man to die for our sins. This is not enlightened thinking; it is barbaric. It is why so-called liberal Christianity is untenable, no better than paganism.

From The Faith: What Christians Believe, Why They Believe It, and
Why It Matters

by Charles Colson and Harold Fickett

Any comments or testimonies today?

greatness

y

We long to be first, to be the center of attention, to have control. We hate to admit it, but we can struggle with insecurity and jealousy and sometimes become threatened when others succeed. We find secret satisfaction when our rival fails. We yearn for significance, to accomplish something great.

But Jesus redirects our earthly rationale by teaching us that being great means serving, choosing to be second, stepping out of the limelight so someone else can shine. We are on our way to greatness in God's perspective when we roll up our sleeves and offer our gifts wherever they are needed (see Mark 10:42-45).

From The Grandmother's Bible

Devotion by
Dawn Scott Jones

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sobering

If you can still imagine yourself as a prisoner, think about what the scene at Golgotha reveals. Being nailed to a cross was an invention of the Romans, considered the most painful death imaginable, with prolonged suffering often lasting hours. None of us can get out of our minds the grisly portrayal of the crucifixion in Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ. Watching that film was one of the most sobering and convicting experiences of my life. Prisoners can really relate when they realize that Jesus went through that horrific experience for them, as He endured it for all of us. I see the truth register in their expressions: Jesus suffered like this just for me? Yes.

From The Faith: What Christians Believe, Why They Believe It, and
Why It Matters

by Charles Colson and Harold Fickett

Any comments or testimonies today?