NLT 365-day Bible reading feature
ODJ community members, at the bottom of each day's devotional article you'll find a passage from God's Word that will allow you to read from Genesis to Revelation in just one year. Though this New Living Translation reading plan doesn't included every chapter and verse, it offers a complete view of Scripture and does so without being overwhelming. By not…
Life-giver
"He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since He is Lord of heaven and earth, He doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve His needs—for He has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and He satisfies every need" (Acts 17:24-25).
[caption id="attachment_6190" align="aligncenter" width="480" caption="Bajra Village, Indonesia"]
[/caption]
—pic submitted…
seeing with your heart
"Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation. By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be…
February 28, 2011
What’s the biggest change you’ve made in striving to glorify God better with your finances?
seeing potholes
Potholes can be a pain. If a car tire hits a deep one, we’re talking some serious damage. That’s why the idea of Italian engineering students Domenico Diego and Cristina Corradini is so bright—literally! The duo, noting that many potholes in Europe aren’t repaired due to lack of funding, have come up with something called the Street Safe initiative. Their creative…
restrained
Since my nephew’s birthday is 11 days before mine, we often celebrate together. This year we decided to do something different, so the extended family— grandparents included—went to eat pizza and play laser tag. At one point, I inadvertently fired my laser gun at one of my own team members, thinking he was a spy. Somehow missing the point that…
saying yes to his no
We find it relatively easy to thank God for saying yes to prayers we have prayed - healing from sickness, promotion on job, admission into college of our choice, spiritual growth, financial freedom, healing of marriage, and so many more amazing blessings. But, when was the last time we genuinely thanked God for saying NO to our requests? I shudder to…
editing my life
I am always looking for powerful questions I can use or that my closest friends can use to edit and vet my life. Though I will add to this list, here is a list of questions that I think am going to settle on for a while. These questions were produced by the Church Multiplication Association. The ten questions are…
are we just wearing the uniform?
When I was younger, back in the olden days (as my kids would say), I was a boy scout - Pack 5 for life, baby!. The funny thing is, I rarely attended the weekly meetings, I did shoddy work on the merit badge lessons and projects, I rarely read the Boy Scout book/manual to learn how to be a boy…
wilderness experiences
God sometimes works in strange ways. Jesus is baptized, and the next thing He experiences is temptation. Led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, He’s tempted by Satan—His adversary. Such is the nature of our own wilderness experiences.
The wilderness stirred many emotions for the Jews of Jesus’ day, evoking memories of their 40-year journey out of Egypt. To…
empowered
I have a new mobile phone. No, not the much vaunted high-end smart-phone that is currently all the rage in Nairobi. What I now have is by comparison a pretty modest handset, but with two features that particularly stand out for me: the browser and the organizer.
The browser because the internet is now literally mine for the asking. I may not send…
entrance into life
"Jesus told him, 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through Me'" (John 14:6).
If I could use one word to describe Jesus today, it would be "refreshing." There's nothing stuffy or stale about Him. Jesus isn't the Author of religion, but of relationship. In the beginning, God didn't create…
respecting God
In his book Faith at the Edge, philosopher Robert Wennberg describes attending a small church with his students as they traveled through Europe. The students were not greeted warmly by the church members, did not know enough of the language to follow the songs or the sermon, and generally considered their Sunday morning to be a complete waste of time. Wennberg…
gone fishing
"Jesus called out to them, 'Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!'" (Matthew 4:19).
—submitted By Ruth Tobing, Indonesia
