“But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

— Luke 12:7

A couple of years after the end of World War II, the British author W. H. Auden wrote a poem about the age in which he lived. Auden entitled this poem “The Age of Anxiety.” Amazingly, the label still describes our time though Auden coined it half a century ago.

Do you ever lie awake at night, worrying about this and anxious about that? If so, you know how distressing that experience can be, tossing and turning, trying to sleep while your concerns hound you. But if you’re a Christian, you needn’t allow worry to plague you. Instead, you can turn over your anxieties to your heavenly Father, casting them on the One who cares for you. I heard about one Christian man who envisioned lifting each of his big burdens, like a large stone, and handing it to Jesus. When Christ took hold of it, suddenly the rock shrank to a pebble. Our worries do indeed shrink when we leave them in God’s care.

A missionary was teaching a Hindu woman, who had just accepted Christ, how to pray the Lord’s Prayer. The woman prayed, “Our Father, which art in heaven.” Then she said, “Stop! Do you mean that God is our Father?” The missionary said, “Yes.” She said, “That’s enough! If God is our Father, then there’s nothing to worry about!”

Do you remember being a child, trusting your parent or guardian to take care of all your concerns? Remember how, no matter how frightened you might have been, all your fears dissipated when you put your hand into the hand of a loving parent? In the same way, we have a divine and heavenly Parent on whom we can still cast our burdens, no matter how big or how small they are.

Do you have a burden causing you to worry today? Hand it to God, your Father who cares for you. Allow Him to give you the peace that comes from trusting Him with everything that concerns you.

“When you have nothing left but God, then for the
first time you become aware that God is enough.”
Maude Royden

“Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?”

— 1 Corinthians 1:20

Our world prides itself on nothing more than its vaunted wisdom. Having confused sophistication for wisdom and knowledge with understanding, our world looks down on those who believe in God and trust in His Word. Yet the Bible says that God has made the wisdom of this world foolishness. Most, however, do not really believe that. Sadder still, even Christians are impressed and intimidated by the world’s apparent wisdom.

But let’s take a quick look at what the world’s wisdom has accomplished through the years. Wisdom supposedly reached a pinnacle in the Golden Age of Greek philosophy. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle brought to light vast stores of knowledge that the world had not hitherto known. Yet their writings have done little to regenerate humankind and alleviate humanity’s problems. More recently (several hundred years ago), we ushered in the Age of Reason, supposedly a golden age of wisdom. But in truth, these were some of the bloodiest years France has ever seen. The guillotine, like some huge monster, consumed its victims until the streets of Paris ran with blood, and that Age of Reason became a very unreasonable, frightening, and terrible time. Even in this modern age, we haven’t learned our lessons. We’ve accumulated great stores of knowledge, so much that we cannot even measure it. Yet have we really arrived at wisdom? The twentieth century has been history’s bloodiest era.

Do we really want to rely on the world’s “wisdom” if it has resulted in all this bloodshed? Let’s bank our lives on the wisdom of God, wisdom that resulted in a different type of bloodshed—the blood shed by Jesus as He hung on the cross to die for you and me. God’s wisdom can do more to ennoble human life and alleviate the pain of human existence than anything conceived by the wisdom of this world.

“Wisdom is the something that enables
us to use knowledge rightly.”
Paul Lee Tan

“As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.”

— Colossians 2:6–7

A secular author was researching the subject of gratitude. As he did, he examined two large dictionaries of modern psychology and could find no mention of the terms “gratitude,” “thankfulness,” or “giving of thanks.” He then scanned the card catalog of a large university library containing hundreds of thousands of volumes. Through his search, he found not one single card giving any reference to the terms “gratitude” or “thankfulness.” Indeed, as one humorist put it, “If you’re looking for gratitude, you’d better look in the dictionary. That’s the only place you’re going to find it.”

If someone looked into your heart today, would that person find thankfulness and gratitude?

Someone once said that thankfulness is the least of the virtues and ingratitude the worst of the vices. We consider gratitude an easy virtue to attain, yet so few people distinguish themselves by their thankfulness. Meanwhile, in the first chapter of Romans, Paul, in cataloging the descent of humankind into the mire of depravity, begins by saying that “although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful” (Romans 1:21, emphasis mine). He then describes humanity’s fall into all sorts of base immorality. The slide from godliness into wickedness begins with ingratitude.

Shakespeare once said, “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” But the Bible repeatedly calls upon us to remember our blessings and express gratitude. It says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits” (Psalm 103:2). What blessings can you thank God for today? Beginning now, cultivate a grateful heart.

Make it a regular practice to thank the Lord for who He is and for all He has done for you.

“As a rule, a man’s a fool. When it’s hot, he wants it cool. When
it’s cool, he wants it hot. Always wanting what is not.”
Anonymous

“Whom will he teach knowledge? And whom will he make to understand the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just drawn from the breasts? For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept. Line upon line, line upon line, here a little there a little.”

— Isaiah 28:9-10

If you’re a parent or hope to be one someday, then you’ve probably already considered how you’ll raise your children. Allow me, if you would, to put my oar in the water and give you a few thoughts about godly parenting.

When we first look at our newborn children, we are full of hopes and dreams for them and their future. To guide our children toward reaching their potential, we can rely on promises and principles from God’s Word. Biblical parenting boils down to two main things: We must train our children in God’s Word and discipline them according to God’s principles.

“Training our children” means teaching them line by line, precept by precept, a little bit here, a little bit there about the things of God. A father must fulfill his role as spiritual head of his household, teaching his family the things of God: “And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). This includes teaching the Ten Commandments, the gospel of Christ, the importance of memorizing Scripture, and how to pray. And because our lives speak louder than our words, we must teach by both precept and example.

Disciplining our children must be done in love, not anger. We shouldn’t raise our voices. We should listen to our children and refrain from disciplining them until we hear all the facts. We should set explicit and reasonable boundaries, enforce them consistently, and make it clear that Mom and Dad will always have the final say. We should encourage good behavior by offering positive rewards. A father once paid his son to read certain books and write book reports on them. When in college, the son often expressed gratitude to his father, because his knowledge of those books put him far ahead of his classmates. This father’s initiative helped the son reach his potential.

Parenting is tough but worth every effort we make. As we train our children in God’s ways, we can feel confident that our children will reach their full, God-given potential. Today, pray for your children. Ask God to help them grow in Him. And ask Him to give you the wisdom you need to train them in the way they should go.

“You cannot change your ancestors, but you can
do something about your descendants.”
Anonymous

… Unlike those high priests, He does not need to offer daily sacrifices—first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for He did this once for all when He offered up Himself.

— Hebrews 7:27

There were priests in the Old Testament, but now Christ, our great High Priest has come. He completed the work that they could only begin.

With a priest and an altar you have something else: you have a sacrifice. For hundreds of years, at God’s instruction, the ancient Hebrew priests offered sacrifices with many specific guidelines. There were daily sacrifices and specific annual offerings. They may have “forgiven” sins temporarily, but never permanently.

All of these sacrifices foreshadowed the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross. What He did is the basis for all forgiveness. His blood was much more precious than that of bulls and goats.

Read Hebrews 9-11 and you will notice that one word appears over and over and over again. It is a word that I recommend you underline. It is “once” or “one.” By one sacrifice Christ has forever reconciled us to God. There was only one sacrifice, and it took place upon the Cross 2,000 years ago. On that finished sacrifice all of our hopes are founded.

Question to ponder:
What does it mean that our High Priest offered Himself up “once for all”?

… weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

— Psalm 30:5

Sorrow, sadness, and weeping are all part of this life. None of us are untouched by the troubles of the world. But these are temporary—whereas joy, for the Christian, is everlasting. 

One time at a speaking engagement in Indianapolis, a man came up to me and said, “I was down in Ft. Lauderdale on vacation, and I met a lady in your church who shared with me those good tidings of great joy.” She had told him of the Gospel and he had accepted Christ. He continued: “You certainly cannot know, you cannot imagine the indescribable joy I have known for the last year since I came to know Christ. I never would have believed it.”

It is never recorded once that Jesus ever laughed, and yet the night before He went to the agony of the Cross, He said, “I have spoken these to you, that My joy may remain in you” (John 15:11). He came from the source of all joy—from Heaven—and He came to bring that joy to us. He took all of our sorrows and our griefs upon Himself, and thus, though He never laughed that we know of, He did weep. And He wept, so that we might be glad.

Question to ponder:
What difference does it make that sadness is temporary?

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

— Matthew 5:3

To be poor in spirit is to recognize that you are spiritually needy. It is to see that in ourselves we are poor and in need of a savior.

Christ came—not with pomp and circumstance, not with royal splendor, not with power, not with armies, but into a family with a great lineage: however, one that had fallen into poverty. He grew up in the home of a carpenter. He grew up in a city that was a byword: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46 NKJV).

He grew up with no education, and yet He was the wisest person who ever lived. He grew up, astonishingly, with no background. He exited that town, which was nothing, walked up on a hill, and there delivered the greatest discourse on human ethics the world has ever heard—the Sermon on the Mount. It has never been equaled and certainly never excelled.

The humble carpenter spread His blessings all over the world and taught us that humility is a virtue.

Question to ponder:
What is the relationship between having spiritual riches and being poor in spirit?

They feared greatly and said to one another, “What kind of Man is He, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?”

— Mark 4:41

We see something of the Deity of Christ and His uniqueness in the fact that He never bothered to trouble Himself to explain His frequently ambiguous conduct. For example, Jesus was asleep in the back of a boat in the midst of a great storm. Waves were breaking over the sides of the boat and the disciples were paralyzed with fear. They cried, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38).

“Well, I’m sorry fellows. If you had only awakened me earlier, I would have tried to help, but you see, it’s been such a long day and I was so tired. I just had to get some rest.”

No. He didn’t say anything like that. He simply said, “Peace, be still.” The waves ceased and the wind stopped. That is not the way any other man lives his life.

Jesus can calm the storms of our lives. The wind and the waves still obey His voice. He still calms storms.

Question to ponder:
What storm are you possibly experiencing in your life that you need to take to Jesus to calm?

There is no salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

— Acts 4:12

There are many today who would say that there are innumerable doors that lead to spiritual safety. My friend, there is but one. There was but one door into the ark of Noah; there is but one door into the ark of Christ, and that is the door of faith—the faith of the Cross. The door of the ark of Christ is cruciform: it is shaped like a Cross. He is the one and only place of safety in this world, our only sanctuary from the stormy blast that God has said will come upon the world. Other religions have teachers. Only Christianity has a Savior.

Because He is the only savior, His name is so precious to His saints. The name is whispered over a cradle and to the dying. The name of Jesus is praised by millions in worship. His name gives comfort and peace. It stills the storms around us and conquers our fears within. It is the most beautiful name in the world.

Question to ponder:
Why do you love the name of Jesus?

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.

— John 14:1

Will my life count for something? This question has perplexed the minds of thinking men and women from time immemorial: What will be the outcome of my life? Men have wondered whether their lives would end in triumph or tragedy.

Life is a probation; it is also an education and a school. The tragedy is that the vast majority of people in America, as well as in other lands, don’t even know the one central lesson God is trying to teach them in the school they are attending—the school of life.

The lesson is this: God says “Trust Me.” Throughout the Scriptures, from one end to another, God is teaching people the great lesson of faith—to trust Him amidst all of the vicissitudes of life.

Every class is the same in every subject we go through—Trust 101. Some of us do not go any further, and others have learned to trust Him in virtually all things.

Question to ponder:
A life of triumph is a life of trust. How can you better trust Him today?