Then the presidents and officials sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they could find no occasion or fault because he was faithful; nor was there any error or fault found in him.

— Daniel 6:4

Several Babylonian officials were on a fault-finding mission, to bring Daniel down. They found nothing. People love to find faults in others, especially in people who are in the Church. We Christians should be blameless ourselves, nor should we find fault in others. Sad to say, very few people are in Daniel’s league. We are told not to judge others and not to point out their faults. That should be left to the Lord.

Every commandment in the Bible also contains a commandment to do the opposite good. Not only is it true that we are not to find fault (do not judge, or you will be judged), we are to find good. We are to be “good-finders.”

Andrew Carnegie said that when gold is mined, tons of dirt are moved to get one ounce of gold, but they are not looking at the dirt, they are looking for the gold. The faultfinder is looking for the dirt, and he never finds the gold. We have to become a good-thinker and a good-seeker so that we are looking for the good.

Just think of how many good things you could find about relatives, fellow workers, fellow students, friends, neighbors and others that you could bring to their attention and thereby bless their lives.

Question to ponder:
Can you find some good in another today and share that good with them?

Teach me Your statutes. Make me to understand the way of Your precepts; then I shall contemplate on Your wondrous works.

— Psalm 119:26-27

The idea is repeatedly and almost constantly put forth by the secular media in all of its forms that belief in God and in the Christian faith is somehow irrational, obscurantist, and un-intellectual. By contrast, it is held that unbelief in God and the Christian faith is the rational, enlightened, and intelligent view of life. Though the thesis is hardly ever set forth as clearly and precisely as that, it very subtly seeps into the mindset of modern man from multiple sources.

But is it really so? I am sure that many people have been convinced that it is, including people within the Church. They have concluded that to believe in God and Christianity is to commit intellectual suicide. One must, somehow, have had a frontal lobotomy or parked their brain in the narthex when going in to worship God to hear the preaching of His Word.

This, of course, has a very adverse effect upon human beings because, instinctively, we know that if God has created us, He has obviously given us intellects as well as hearts and souls. It seems inconsistent that we should short-circuit our intellect and leap into a blind faith of some sort.

True worship of God always involves our mind. We are to love God with all our minds. We are to learn, to understand, to meditate, and to wonder at His greatness.

Question to ponder:
How can we love God with all our minds?

Remember how short my time is!

— Psalms 89:47

When we look back, it always seems that time was so very short. The years the children were home—gone. The years of school and study—over. We must remember to redeem the time we have.

It is interesting that what children most remember about their parents when they grow up is not so much what they said, but what they did with them—the time they spent with them. One recent study has shown that the average father spends 37 minutes a day with his child. That would be tragic, except the truth is he spends 37 seconds a day talking to his child. That truly is a tragedy.

What is worse, this is given the name of “quality time.” But it has also been discovered that children are totally incapable of recognizing “quality time.” From their perspective, what concerns them is how much time you spend with them.

Time is a gift and time spent with a child, a parent, a spouse is never wasted. Our families are our first priority under the Lord. These are the people God us put in our lives for us to minister to. Time spent with family is time well spent.

Question to ponder:
How can you show love by spending time today with a family member?

They would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof.

— Proverbs 1:30

We go to all kinds of sources to find out how we ought to do things in this country. Decades ago, we went to Dr. Benjamin Spock to find out how to rear children and produced the most rebellious generation of young people this country has ever seen. We have gone to Marx and other socialist writers to find out how to run our economy, and to one radical teacher after another to learn how to do the various things we do in this nation. The results have, for the most part, been disastrous.

Just because someone has a degree or writes a popular book does not mean that we should necessarily follow him or take her wisdom to heart. We have seen the liberal theological scholarship dismantle our biblical foundation in the minds of many. People listen because they are the “ones who know.” You can find a scholar and expert who says virtually anything. Therefore, be careful who you listen to and whose advice you take.

Question to ponder:
Who are the people you take advice from and whose scholarship do you trust?

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

— Ecclesiastes 1:2

It was left to that mournful Dane, Søren Kierkegaard, the father of existentialism, to say that all is vain and the quest has ended in utter despair; rationalism is dead and human reason has failed in its great effort to grasp and comprehend the universe in which we live.

It was at the time of the bloody First World War that Kierkegaard’s ideas began to take root, slowly at first, until today existentialism is without question the regnant, the dominant philosophy of our time in the world. Existentialism teaches that because of the finiteness of man and his understanding, he will never be able to grasp ultimate reality—that there is nothingness out there. The world is unintelligible, the cosmos cannot be comprehended, and ultimately all things are without meaning and significance. This has been the great contribution of existentialism to our time.

It is a philosophy of despair.

A young woman told me that when she was in college she embraced the existential philosophy. Certain pressures then came upon her and she endeavored to take her life. She ended up in a mental institution having shock treatments. All this because existentialism had robbed her of any meaning to life and ripped from her grasp any hold she had upon transcendental significance or purpose in this world. She knew the blackness and emptiness that the worldview of existentialism offers.

Question to ponder:
Can you be a Christian existentialist? Is there such a thing as meaninglessness with God?

Do you think, O man, who judges those who do such things, and who does the same thing, that you will escape the judgment of God?

— Romans 2:3

W. C. Fields, the old-time comedian who in his professional persona seemed to be in a continual state of inebriation, came to the final illness of his life. He was in the hospital and neither he nor his friends or doctors gave him much hope. One of his friends, who had known him for many years and had seen his disdain for religion and everything godly and moral, walked into the hospital room. He stopped as if he had run into a pane of glass, because there before his eyes was W. C. Fields in his hospital bed reading the Bible. His friend said in utter amazement, “W. C., what in the world are you doing?” And he replied, “I’m looking for a loophole … looking for a loophole.”

It seems that there are lots of people who are looking for loopholes—who are trying to find some way to escape the just consequences of their sins.

There is no way around God’s judgment, but there is one who went under it and has promised a way of escape.

Question to ponder:
What would your response be if you could have talked to W. C. Fields?

Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

— Job 38:2

People believe what they want to believe whether they have studied the particular issue or not. When it comes to origins (creation-evolution), more and more scientists and respectable scholars see the flaws of evolution and draw different conclusions.

A group of scientists studying the human genome are now claiming that Neo-Darwinism “ignores much contemporary molecular evidence and invokes a set of unsupported assumptions about the accidental nature of hereditary variation.”

The great philosopher of science, Dr. Karl R. Popper, said, “I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program—a possible framework for testable scientific theories.”

In a sense, some evolutionists are saying, “Don’t confuse me with the facts.” Facts like the missing links that are completely missing, or the improbability against life just arising by chance, or how mutations are virtually always harmful, but according to the evolutionary scheme they proved beneficial, and so on.

Question to ponder:
How can we stand up for the truth in a world of lies?

Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing, that there will not be room enough to receive it.

— Malachi 3:10

What an incredible promise we see here in Malachi. If you have never “tried” the Lord in this, you have missed probably the greatest temporal blessing you can know in this life … a deliverance from all anxiety and worry and concern about your own finances. All of those things are encapsulated in that marvelous promise and the provision for all of your needs. “My God shall supply your every need,” cried the Apostle Paul, “according to His riches in glory.”

God owns all things—the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. He gives them to us as a stewardship to be used for His glory and our testing as to our faith. The tithe is not just God’s way of raising money for His work; it is also His way of raising Christians in His image. God commands that a tenth or the tithe, be returned unto Him. The word “tithe,” whether in Hebrew, Greek, old Anglo-Saxon, or modern English, means the same thing. It means a tenth—a tenth of our income is the tithe. And God says that it belongs to Him, and we are not to touch it, but to give generously.

As we become more generous in all ways, including with our tithes and offerings, we become more like Jesus.

Question to ponder:
Are you pleased with the level of your giving to the Lord?

… those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them …

— 2 Corinthians 5:15

Selfishness is the universal form of human depravity; it lies at the base of all of our sins. Every sin that can be named is only a modification of it. What is avarice, but selfishness decorating and indulging itself—a man sacrificing to himself as his own god? What is sloth, but that same god asleep, and refusing to attend to the calls of duty? And what is idolatry, but that god enshrined—man worshipping the reflection of his own image?

Sensuality—indeed, all the sins of the flesh—is only selfishness setting itself above law and gratifying itself at the expense of all restraint. And all the sins of the spirit, are only the same principle impatient of contradiction, and refusing to acknowledge superiority, or to bend to any will but its own. What is egotism, but selfishness speaking? Or crime, but selfishness without its mask, in earnest and in action? Or offensive war, but selfishness confederated, armed and bent on aggrandizing itself by violence and blood?

Indeed selfishness is the universal form of all sin. Jesus Christ said, “Beware of covetousness.” It is covetousness and unbelief combined that keep people from obeying many of God’s commands to their own hurt. But God rewards obedience to His Word.

We are called to live for Christ and not ourselves. It is by focusing on Jesus that we can overcome selfishness.

Question to ponder:
Are you as selfish now as you were before Christ came into your life?

When he lies, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

— John 8:44

Satan is a great deceiver. He first blinds his victims before he binds and leads them unto destruction. The great and mighty Samson discovered that. Before he could be bound and set to grinding in the prison house, he first was blinded. Gehazi saw only the shiny Syrian raiment; he didn’t see the leprous scars that would cover his face. Achan saw only the goodly Babylonian garments; he didn’t hear the execrations of the people and the lamentations of his wife and children or the crackling of the fires of the funeral pyre that would consume him and all of his. Judas saw only the glitter of silver; he did not see the darkness of remorse or the blackness of the pit into which he plunged.

The deception can be very small at first. At Stone Mountain in Decatur, Georgia, there is a warning railing that keeps sightseers from getting anywhere near the edge of that great rock. So gradually does it slope downward that if one were to get within 75 or 100 feet of the edge, he would already find himself slipping toward the precipice and would be unable to recover himself. With no way to stop, he would continue to slide downward until he plunged over the edge to his death hundreds of feet below. Sin, like this same slippery slope, pulls us down into things that we never expected we would do.

Question to ponder:
How can we be alert to the deceptiveness of temptation?