Posts with the category “daily-devotional”

"Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves." – John 14:11 There is a deep human instinct to want everything to make sense before we commit. We want certainty. We want proof. But Jesus didn’t say, “Understand me and then believe.” He said, “Believe in me.” That distinction is everything. Belief isn’t built on perfect clarity. It’s...  Read More

"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him." – Luke 15:20 Sometimes resurrection doesn’t look like a miracle from heaven. Sometimes it looks like a quiet decision to turn around. In the story of the prodigal son, we often focus on the father running to meet him, but something else happened first. The son “arose.” He got u...  Read More

"My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." – John 10:27 It’s hard to hear someone’s voice in a crowded room. Especially when music is playing, people are talking, and distractions are everywhere. But the voice of someone you love cuts through the noise when you’ve learned to recognize it. That’s how it works with Jesus. The more time you spend with Him, the easier it becomes to...  Read More

"I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." - John 10:10 Some people treat faith like a security system. They want Jesus to keep them safe, protect them from harm, and help them avoid pain. And yes, He’s a shelter and a refuge. But He’s not just a door that keeps trouble out. He’s a door that invites you into something greater. A life that is full, not just protected. Jesus didn’t com...  Read More

"Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.'" - John 14:9 We all have moments when we ask God to make Himself clearer, to give us a sign, to show up in a way that removes every doubt. Philip was no different. After years of walking with Jesus, watching Him heal the sick and raise the dead, Philip still said, “Sho...  Read More

"Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb... He cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out.’" – John 11:38, 43 Some people will look at your story and assume it’s over. They see where you’ve been buried. The shame, the failure, the pain, and call it your ending. They roll the stone in front of your purpose and call it final. But they don’t get the last word. Not when Jesus is involved...  Read More

"And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked" – Ephesians 2:1-2 Just because someone is breathing doesn’t mean they’re alive. You can go to work, scroll your phone, make plans, and even show up at church, yet still be dead where it matters most. That’s what the Bible means when it talks about being spiritually dead. Not lifeless in body but empty in soul. Walking around, ...  Read More

"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?" – Luke 15:4 It is easy to believe that if you have wandered, messed up, or drifted away from God, He has moved on without you. Maybe you have convinced yourself that your failure has made you forgettable. But Jesus tells a ...  Read More

"I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture." – John 10:9 There is a restlessness that lives in all of us. You have probably felt it in those quiet moments when the noise dies down, but something still feels missing. It is that sense that life is supposed to be fuller than this. Even in success or comfort, there can be a lingering ache underneat...  Read More

"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me." – John 14:1 When life feels uncertain, the first thing we usually reach for is control. We want explanations. We want clarity. We want to know how things will turn out, what the next step should be, and why God hasn’t acted yet. The disciples were no different. In John 14, Jesus had just told them He was going away, and their h...  Read More

"Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?'" – John 11:25–26 Resurrection isn’t just something that happens after your heart stops beating. Jesus wasn’t only pointing to a future moment in a cemetery. He was talking about right now. There’s a resur...  Read More

"And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice." – John 10:16 Jesus didn’t come for a select few. He didn’t die for the most polished or religious. From the very beginning, His mission has been bigger than any one group. Bigger than cultural norms. Bigger than comfort zones. When He said He had “other sheep not of this fold,” He was maki...  Read More

"To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out." – John 10:3 It’s one thing to know about God. It’s another thing to be known by Him. That’s what Jesus is getting at when He calls Himself the Good Shepherd. This isn’t a distant, formal relationship. He knows His sheep. Not as a group. Not as a general category. He knows them personally...  Read More

"Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." – John 14:6 When life gets confusing, our instinct is to ask for directions. We want a clear path, a five-step plan, or a detailed map. Something to help us navigate the unknown. But what if the thing you're really searching for isn’t a roadmap at all? What if what you need is a person? Th...  Read More

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” – Ephesians 5:14 There’s a scene in the old play Our Town by Thornton Wilder that hits a little too close to home. A character who has died is given a chance to relive one day of her life. She picks an ordinary day, her twelfth birthday, thinking it will be sweet. But as she watches it unfold, something happens. She notices...  Read More

"Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live... Do you believe this?'" – John 11:25–26 Martha believed in God. She believed in the idea of a future resurrection and had confidence that one day everything would be made right. But when Jesus showed up at her brother's tomb, He challenged her to believe something deeper. Not just th...  Read More

"The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out." – John 10:3 There’s a big difference between being in the crowd and being known. You can sit in a room full of people and still feel invisible. You can show up, play your part, smile when expected, and still wonder if anyone really sees you. But Jesus does. Jesus isn’t building a fanbase. He’s not collecting numbers...  Read More

"Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep." – John 10:7 There’s a kind of pain that doesn’t come from sin or suffering; it comes from religion. Maybe you’ve felt it. You tried to walk into a church but felt like you didn’t belong. You asked questions and were met with shame. You wanted to know Jesus but ran into gatekeepers who seemed more interested in guarding traditions than openi...  Read More

"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me." – John 14:1 There are moments when life doesn't make sense. The path is foggy, the timing feels off, and the answers seem delayed or completely missing. In those moments, your heart starts reaching for clarity. You start asking the why, when, and how questions, hoping that if you could just get an explanation, the anxiety would...  Read More

"After saying these things, he said to them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.’" - John 11:11 There’s a kind of heaviness that can sneak into your soul. You might not be living in obvious rebellion, but things feel dull, lifeless, maybe even numb. The fire you once had has faded. You show up, go through the motions, but deep down you know something’s off. You wouldn’t ...  Read More

"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?" - Luke 15:4 Most people don’t count what’s missing. We count what we have. We track success by what stayed, by who showed up, and by how much was retained. But Jesus flips that. He counts what is missing. In Luke 15, Jesus ...  Read More

"Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep" - John 10:7 You’ve probably heard the phrase “all roads lead to God” or “just be a good person.” It sounds inclusive. It sounds fair. But Jesus didn’t leave that option open. He didn’t come to improve religion. He came to replace it with Himself. When He said, “I am the door of the sheep,” He wasn’t just giving a metaphor for comfort or safe...  Read More

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit." - John 12:24 If you’ve ever felt like your story was over, like the weight of what you’ve lost or endured has crushed any hope for what could be ahead, you’re not alone. Most people reach a point where things feel final. Like a chapter has ended, and it’s too ...  Read More

"This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me." – Luke 22:19 When was the last time you stopped to think about what you were actually doing during communion? Not just the motions. Not just the bread and cup, but the meaning and the weight, the relationship behind it. See, in the ancient world, breaking bread meant something sacred. It was all about relationship. It meant t...  Read More

"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" – John 1:14 If you’ve ever flipped an hourglass, you’ve seen what happens as all the grains of sand funnel into a single point. Everything narrows for a moment before expanding again. That image is a helpful way to think about the story of God’s revelation. Throughout the Old Testament, God revealed Himself in many ways. Through creation, covenants, p...  Read More

"Now he had to pass through Samaria" – John 4:4 You might not always feel worthy of God’s attention. You might even assume He’s waiting for you to figure things out, get your act together, or clean up the mess before He'll come close. But that is not how God works. Jesus was on His way from Judea to Galilee when Scripture says He “had to pass through Samaria.” At first glance, it sounds like a tra...  Read More

“Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding” – Proverbs 3:13 Long before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, or before His name was whispered in Nazareth, the wisdom of God was already at work in the world. Proverbs describes wisdom like a treasure, like a tree of life, like something that brings peace and delight to all who find it. But wisdom was never meant to stay abstrac...  Read More

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." – John 1:1 Some battles cannot be fought with fists or clever words. They are internal wars. Battles against fear, temptation, doubt, and lies. And when you are in the middle of that kind of fight, you do not need a motivational quote. You need a weapon. The Bible is not just a book filled with wise sayings and relig...  Read More

"Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God." – Psalm 90:2 You live in a world that runs on time. Alarms wake you up. Calendars fill your day. Deadlines mark your goals. And sometimes, it feels like time is either running out or dragging on. But God does not live inside your schedule. He exists outside of it....  Read More

"Then the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’" – Exodus 3:4 Moses wasn’t in a temple when God spoke to him in Exodus 3. He wasn’t in a prayer meeting or reading Scripture. He was tending sheep in the wilderness, walking the same paths he had probably walked for years. It was an ordinary day in an ordinary place. Until i...  Read More

"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden." – Matthew 5:14 At the Bowery Mission in New York City, there was a man named Joe who didn’t have a platform or a microphone. He didn’t preach sermons or lead Bible studies. He cleaned the bathrooms. He scrubbed floors. He served food and carried those too weak to stand. And he did it with gentleness, grace, and joy. Joe’s lif...  Read More

"Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." – Matthew 5:16 We live in a time where everything gets filtered, edited, and shared. We track likes and followers, trying to prove that we are doing something meaningful. Even in church circles, it’s easy to confuse spotlight with significance. You might be doing good things. ...  Read More

“After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the twelve, Do you want to go away as well? Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” – John 6:66-68 This moment in John 6 is one of the most sobering scenes in the Gospels. Jesus had just delivered a hard teaching. Not a feel-good message or a crowd-pleaser...  Read More

"Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?" – John 4:29 She wasn’t looking for a Savior. She was just trying to get water without being seen. In John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well in the middle of the day. That detail matters. Women in that culture usually came in groups during the cool morning hours, but she came alone, likely because of the shame tied ...  Read More

“When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’” – John 6:60 Not long after Jesus fed more than five thousand people with just five loaves and two fish, the crowds followed Him across the sea, looking for more. They had seen a miracle with their own eyes. Their stomachs were full. Their curiosity was stirred. But Jesus didn’t give them another perfor...  Read More

"Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.'" – John 8:58 When Jesus said, “I Am,” He wasn’t being poetic or mysterious. He was making one of the boldest statements ever recorded. He was identifying Himself with the eternal God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. That name, “I Am,” wasn’t just sacred; it was personal. And because Jesus claimed it, everything c...  Read More

“One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and, seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.” – Exodus 2:11-12 Before Moses led Israel through the Red Sea, before the plagues and the burning bush, he tried to step into his calling with his o...  Read More

“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” – Matthew 5:16 When Jesus told His followers to let their light shine, He didn’t just mean any kind of light. The word He used for “good” in this verse was kalos, not just morally good, but beautiful, attractive, winsome. That word matters. Because how we shin...  Read More

“Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’” – John 8:58 In John chapter 8, Jesus was in the middle of a heated conversation with the religious leaders. They were accusing Him of all kinds of things, questioning His authority, and dismissing His words. But what Jesus said next stopped everyone cold. He claimed a name that carried weight beyond anything they expecte...  Read More

“So they said to him, ‘Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform?” – John 6:30 The moment is almost hard to believe. Just one day earlier, Jesus had fed over five thousand people with a boy’s lunch. They had seen it with their own eyes. Tasted it with their own mouths. But now here they are, the same people who stood there the day before, are standing in f...  Read More