Today’s Bible Reading:  JUDGES 1:1-3:30   Judges 2:7, 10 And the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the LORD had done for Israel. . . And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD or the work that he had done for Israel.   Accountability makes it easier to follow the Lord. To have someone wh

Today’s Bible Reading:  JOSHUA 22:1-24:33   Joshua 24:15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”   Serving God is a choice. It is a decision everyone must make. We must decide where our allegiance lies. We must determine whose banner we will fly and whose pa

Today’s Bible Reading:  JOSHUA 19:49-21:45, 1 CHRONICLES 6:54-81   Joshua 21:45 Not one word of all the good promises that the LORD had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.   We live in a world of broken promises. It is filled with unkept words and unfulfilled commitments. It is littered with vows that have been violated and agreements that have been broken. It’s hard to trust these days. A handshake used to be a man’s bond. It was an assurance that it wo

Today’s Bible Reading:  JOSHUA 18:1-19:48   Joshua 18:3 Then Joshua said to the children of Israel: “How long will you neglect to go and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers has given you?   Many of us procrastinate. We put things off. We live for the last minute. We are not in a hurry to hurry up. We dilly-dally and delay getting things done. We are proficient at trifling away our time.   Our text is placed approximately seven years after the Israelites had cr

Today’s Bible Reading:  JOSHUA 15:20-17:18   Joshua 15:63 “ But the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the people of Judah could not drive out, so the Jebusites dwell with the people of Judah at Jerusalem to this day.”   Try as we might, there are some things we just can’t shake. There are those things that haunt us our entire life. Oh, we may learn to live with it, but we can’t seem to drive it out. It’s those besetting sins that gnaw at us. They tempt us and try us as

Today’s Bible Reading: JOSHUA 12:7-15:19 Joshua 14:11 Caleb said. . . I wholly followed the Lord. . . Behold I am eighty-five years old, “I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. So give me the hill country of which the Lord spoke . . . “   We live in a compromising world. It is a place where commitments cease, where convictions crumble and where some who stood strong in th

Nothing Left Undone   Today’s Bible Reading: JOSHUA 10:1-12:6   Joshua 11:15 Just as the LORD had commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did. He left nothing undone of all that the LORD had commanded Moses.   Our lives are littered with lingering projects. We have a host of unfinished tasks. We leave things undone. We leave them incomplete. We start something but don’t finish it. We begin but then we bail. Our desire dwindles and our determinati

Today’s Bible Reading: JOSHUA 7:1-9:27, 1 CHRONICLES 2:7 Joshua 9:14 So the men took some of their provisions, but did not ask counsel from the LORD. -   For some, our prayer life is a series of supplications when we suffer difficult situations. It is cries to God in crisis. When all is fine we forgo prayer. When nothing is wrong there is no need for petition. It seems prayer is only necessary in times of great decision or grievous difficulty. We see something that looks ok o

Today’s Bible Reading: JOSHUA 3:1-6:27    Joshua 4:18 And when the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the LORD came up from the midst of the Jordan, and the soles of the priests' feet were lifted up on dry ground, the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and overflowed all its banks, as before.   We often encounter obstacles to our advancement. We are halted by obstructions in our way that hinder our progress. Once again, the Israelites were confronted by an i

Today’s Bible Reading: DEUTERONOMY 33:1-34:12, JOSHUA 1:1-2:24   Joshua 1:8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. -     Everyone wants to be successful, to prosper, and to flourish. Many books have been written by affluent people on how to thrive. For some that use

Today’s Bible Reading: DEUTERONOMY 31:30-32:52, PSALM 90   Deut 31:10-13 Then Moses commanded them: “At the end of every seven years, in the year for canceling debts, during the Festival of Tabernacles, when all Israel comes to appear before the LORD your God at the place he will choose, you shall read this law before them in their hearing. Assemble the people—men, women and children, and the foreigners residing in your towns—so they can listen and learn to fear the LORD your

Today’s Bible Reading: DEUTERONOMY 29:2-31:29   Deuteronomy 29:29 The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law.   In our spiritual quest we often get stuck on what has not been made known rather than study what has been manifest. We search for spiritual secrets instead of being satisfied with the scripture. We seek the unknown. We hunt for hidden mystical mysteries.

Today’s Bible Reading: DEUTERONOMY 26:1-29:1   Deuteronomy 26:17-19 17 You have declared today that the LORD is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules, and will obey his voice. And the LORD has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments, and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations t

Today’s Bible Reading: DEUTERONOMY 21:10-25:19   Deuteronomy 21:22-23 "And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God.   Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us-for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree"   All humanity is cursed. No

Today’s Bible Reading: DEUTERONOMY 16:18-21:9   Deuteronomy 20:1 When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the LORD your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.   Every day we face battles. We war against our enemies. Encounters with fleshly frailties, besetting sins and spiritual forces besiege us. They surround us and strive against us. They are relent

Today’s Bible Reading: DEUTERONOMY 13:1-16:17   Deuteronomy 16:16-17 Three times a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths. They shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed. Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD your God that he has given you.   People are often ungrateful. There seems to be an environmen

Today’s Bible Reading: DEUTERONOMY 10:1-12:32   Deuteronomy 11:26 See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse.   We all face a myriad of choices daily. We choose what to wear, what to eat, how to spend our down time and many more choices. The Israelites were approaching the Promised Land. Soon they would enter this next phase of their spiritual journey. But it would be different then the last 40 years. New difficulties would manifest and new decisions would be m

Today’s Bible Reading: DEUTERONOMY 6:1-9:29   Deuteronomy 6:4-9 4 " Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind

Today’s Bible Reading: DEUTERONOMY 3:21-5:33   Deuteronomy 4:9 Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children   Many people struggle with their physical and mental health, and rightfully so. Life compresses and crushes them. Stress and strain suck the life out of them. Navigating pain overwhelms them

Today’s Bible Reading: DEUTERONOMY 1:1-3:20   Deuteronomy 1:32 Yet in spite of this word you did not believe the LORD your God,     We all go through times of disbelief where we doubt whether the Lord will be with us, battle for us and bear us along. We may even have seen Him work in the past, but are leery of His work in the present. We have seen His help before, but struggle to believe He will help now.   As the children of Israel prepare to enter the Promised Land, Moses r