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?

Yet we speak wisdom among those who are mature, although not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.

— 1 Corinthians 2:6

We need to hear from the mature saints—those who have searched the strength of their spiritual lives. We need to hear how they escaped the snare of the fowler, by what subtleties they have been beguiled, how they have taken the hill, what footwear they have found best for the enterprise, and how they have comforted their hearts after they dug the grave by the side of the way.

What about those who have grown old in Christ? What delicacies does the Lord have for the aged pilgrims along the way? Have they seen any particular and wonderful star in the evening sky? Have they seen the glimmering of that city made of gold? Is it already drawing their hearts? Do they yearn to be with those whom they have loved, those who have gone before? How much could we learn from those who have suffered many things and endured the battle for many years for Christ?

Question to ponder:
Is there a mature saint you can seek out for counsel? If not, why not pray for one?

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, so that we should walk in them.

— Ephesians 2:10

All of our philosophies have degenerated into irra­tionalism as man has discovered that apart from revelation he cannot find meaning or significance in life.

If you want to find significance and purpose and meaning in life, whether you are a man or a woman, there is only one place to find it. I don’t care what siren songs are sung and what lies are told, the only place you will find significance and meaning in life is right in the center of God’s will for you. Outside of that, no matter how appealing the lie may appear, you will finally find that it will turn to ashes in your mouth.

Aldous Huxley, the renowned agnostic evolutionist of the twentieth century, said he believed in the meaninglessness of the world. Huxley said he and his contemporaries objected to the idea that the universe has meaning—that there is a God—because this idea interfered with their sexual freedom.

If life has no purpose, it has no meaning and consequently, it has no significance. No wonder that today suicide is the second major cause of death among young people. Suicide becomes a tempting option when life has no meaning.

But life does have purpose—we were created to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

Question to ponder:
Since we are His workmanship, what good works do you think He may want you to do today?

For whoever therefore is ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.

— Mark 8:38

One of my favorite stories illustrates the courage it takes to obey God and never be ashamed of Him. This story is about a senior high school football player who was a star quarterback. He was also a dedicated Christian. Every day he attended a little Bible study after school, so he took his Bible to school and carried it right on top of all of his other books.

Of course some of the other guys on the football team mocked him and laughed at him. One day after football practice, after the team had finished showering and dressing and were about to leave the room, this young quarterback started to pick up his books with the Bible right on top of them. One of the other football players looked at him and said, “Don’t you feel like a sissy carrying that Bible around with you all the time?”

The young man looked at his teammate and then he looked down at his Bible. He picked it up and hit the fellow right in the gut with it. “Here,” he said. “You carry it around for a week. See how much of a sissy it takes.”

Paul declared that he was not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nor should we be.

Question to ponder:
Is there any context where you are tempted to hide the fact that you are a Christian?

“Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and of the elders who outlived Joshua…”

— Joshua 24:31

It is interesting that the greatest of saints and the greatest of conquerors in this world have been those who had had grit—they have been willing to go just a little bit farther, a little bit longer for God.

General William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was very enthusiastic in his love for the Lord to the end. When he reached about 80 years of age, he had an operation on his eyes for his failing sight. It was unsuccessful, and he called his son, Bramwell Booth, to his side and his son heard his father say this, “I fear that I shall not have much chance to see objects anymore. God knows best. I have done what I could for my Lord with my eyes; now I shall do what I can for Him without them.”

That is true grit, a grit that doesn’t quit. Joshua persisted, and there are not many in Scripture about whose character so few blemishes are recorded, as that of Joshua, the son of Nun.

Throughout all of his time leading Israel we find no idolatry, no alliances with the heathen, none of the transgressions that so angered the Lord. It is a virtually perfect example of faithfulness and character and fidelity to the Lord. His epitaph is: Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of Jehovah. Joshua, a Hebrew name, means the Lord saves—the same name in Greek is Jesus. May we be found to be faithful to the Lord all our days as well.

Faithful Father, grant me the strength to stay faithful to You all my life. Thank You for Your faithfulness to me year after year. Thank You for all You have seen me through…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE CAN
REMAIN FAITHFUL AND TRUE.

“But when he saw the strong wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’ Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and caught him, and said to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’”

— Matthew 14:30-31

One of the shortest prayers in the Bible gets right to the point. It was said by Peter when he began to sink after briefly walking on water. When he looked away from Jesus and at the sea, then he sank and cried out, “Lord, save me!”

Is your life filled with troubles? Christ can help you. Some of you may not even know Him. If so, there will come a day when you will find yourself sinking into a different kind of sea—a sea of fire from which there is no help. Right now you are sinking in your sins. Peter prayed his shortest prayer, “Lord, save me,” and instantly Christ stretched out His hand and saved him. If you have never experienced His salvation, if you will merely pray from your heart that prayer, “Lord, save me,” you will find that Christ has stretched out His hands for you and will instantly save you. Whatever your sin may be, Christ can wash it all away.

If you do know Him, I hope you will learn that lesson. Whatever troubles you may face now or yet in the future, the great lesson is: Trust Christ, and He will teach you to walk on the waves of the storms of life.

Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, thank You that You can save us when we are drowning. Give me strength for today to keep my eyes focused on You and not the problems of life pressing in around me…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE
FIND SALVATION IN CHRIST.

“But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts.”

— Romans 13:14

In the 19th Century a famous skeptic in England challenged a noted minister to a debate. The minister said he would gladly involve himself in this debate under one condition: that the skeptic would bring with him two people who could testify that the teachings of this skeptic had bettered their lives. The minister said he would bring 100 people who would testify that what he had taught had bettered and transformed their lives. The skeptic withdrew from the debate because he said he could not meet the condition.

Mel Trotter, an inveterate drunkard in Chicago, squandered money on alcohol rather than meeting the needs of his family. He came home one day to find his family famished from lack of food and his little son dead of malnutrition and neglect. What did he do? Though his heart was broken, he was so constrained and in bondage to alcohol he took the baby shoes off his little son and sold them for another drink. Having gotten that drink, he was so overwhelmed with remorse that he determined to throw himself into Lake Michigan and end it all. On the way to the lake, he heard, coming from a mission in one of the worst parts of Chicago, the glorious story of love of Jesus Christ for sinners. Mel Trotter became a new creature in Christ, resulting in the establishment of 56 missions around the United States for derelicts such as he had been. The Word of God changes lives.

Dear God, thank You that You can do the miraculous. Thank You that one of the greatest miracles of all is the transformation of the human heart. Change our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. Thank You, Jesus, for changing us from the inside out…

BY HIS STRENGTH, WE ARE
TROPHIES OF GOD’S GRACE.

“…when He appointed the foundations of the earth, then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him…”

— Proverbs 8:29-30

In Proverbs 8:22-31, there is a creation poem. Creation is described here as something that is not accidental. The Creator is not a blind force, but rather an intelligent being. The Word has been eternally generated by the Father. His first creation was wisdom. And this of course is the wisdom by which all other things have been created.

Now this contrasts marvelously with all of the heathen conceptions. In those schemes, caprice is supreme and accident and fortuitousness are involved, and blind forces work through a compulsion of necessity. But God, through His wisdom, has established laws and the whole world is an ordered process. Without the Christian concept of an ordered universe with God-given laws continually operating in the same way, science would never have come into existence.

Modern science was born in the 1500s and 1600s when a Christian worldview was dominant. And yet this same science, having turned its back upon God has adopted the materialistic and atheistic view of evolution. One of the things that is seldom discussed in evolution is the fact of the impossibility of physical laws ever arising by blind chance. You would not have laws operating always the same way throughout all of the universe continually the same, but you would have everything working by accident and continually changing. On the very premises of evolution, science would never have come into existence.

Our Heavenly Creator, all praise is due to You. We glorify You—the One who flung the stars into existence, who merely spoke and created all things. Help us to lift up our eyes and behold Your glory…

LORD GIVE ME STRENGTH FOR TODAY TO
ADVANCE TRUE KNOWLEDGE IN THE WORLD.

“I must do the works of Him who sent Me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work.”

— John 9:4

Have you ever noticed how sometimes, just on the eve of victory, someone will sabotage his own success by doing something foolish, even if it took him a while to get to that point? He subconsciously gave in to what some psychologists call “the will to failure.”

In her 1936 classic book, Wake Up & Live!, Dorothea Brande devotes a chapter to the “Will to Fail.” She talks about people who are “unconsciously…trying to fail.” She says that the people who essentially waste their lives, either explicitly or subtly, are given over to the Will to Fail. For example, she writes, “Easiest of all to recognize as lovers of failure are the heavy drinkers.”

She lists other examples of this “will to fail.” “There are the takers of eternal post-graduate courses, turning up on the campus year after year like so many Flying Dutchman.” Pursuits that basically cause us to waste our lives manifest the Will to Fail, and so she concludes: “…[If] we are not doing what we are best equipped to do, or doing well what we have undertaken as our personal contribution to the world’s work, at least by way of an earnestly followed avocation, there will be a core of unhappiness in our lives which will be more and more difficult to ignore as the years pass.”

God has given us the privilege to walk in the good works that He has prepared for us to do. Just ask Him to show what those are and then do them.

Heavenly Father, give us the strength today to do the work You have called us to do. Guide us and help us to obey You in all things…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH, WE ARE NOT
CAPTIVES OF THE WILL TO FAIL.

“As Jehudi read three or four columns, the king cut it with a scribe’s knife and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth.”

— Jeremiah 36:23

In the days of Jeremiah the prophet, Jehoiakim, an evil king, did not like hearing the Word of God. So he burned it. No other writings in history have been so intensely and consistently vilified over such a period of time as have the Scriptures. Even during the Old Testament period, the evil Jewish king Manasseh attempted to destroy all of the writings of the Scriptures. Yet, twenty years later, his grandson, Josiah, found a copy of the Scriptures hidden in the temple, and with that discovery began a great spiritual revival.

In 303 A.D., the Roman emperor Diocletian instituted another of the long line of terrible persecutions against the Christians and ordered all copies of the Scriptures to be burned. Ten years later, the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Toleration. Twenty-five years after Diocletian’s order to destroy the Scriptures, Constantine officially ordered the historian Eusebius to produce numerous copies of the Bible for the Roman Empire.

Voltaire, who died in 1778, said that within 100 years of his death Christianity would have become extinct. One hundred years after Voltaire died, an original copy of the writings of Voltaire sold for $0.11 while that same year a manuscript of the Bible sold for $500,000. The Word of God will stand forever.

Almighty God, it could only be by Your power that the Bible has escaped destruction. It is still under attack. Thank You for Your watching over Your Word as You watch over Your people…

BY GOD’S STRENGTH,
HIS WORD STANDS.