The Home Devo (Page 24)

                                                                                                                                                               After the opening of the seventh seal with the expectant of God delivering the judgement soon to come, we find silence in heaven.  John notes that there was silence for about…

                                                                                                                                                                Seals were used by kings and officials to identify the integrity of a document.  The seal consisted of wax that had been heated and impressed with a logo or specific seal to ensure a…

                                                                                                                                                                                             The book of Jude says a lot towards false teachers.  In verse 11, it’s interesting that he makes a lot of references to Israel’s history so they must have had a strong knowledge of…

                  Could you imagine Lebron James not practicing his free throws because he knew he couldn’t make all of them?  What about Tom Brady never practicing passing the ball because he knew that some of his passes would be missed?   Those ideas sound facetious, but at times that is the mindset of many Christians and their stance on sin.  If my goal is to be sinless like Christ, and I know that because of my sinful nature that is…

                   When I was a teenager, I used to spend my summers with my uncle who was a carpenter.   He would hire me as somewhat of a gopher for him while he was building houses.  I learned many lessons while on those job sites that continue to help me today, like how to properly hold a hammer, how to measure twice and cut once and how to properly take a break at…

              Today we have access to an endless knowledge at the click of a mouse, yet that knowledge does us no good if we don’t know how to use it.  Auto maker Henry Ford asked electrical genius Charlie Steinmetz to build the generators for his factory. One day the generators ground to a halt, and the repairmen couldn’t find the problem; So, Ford called Steinmetz, who tinkered with the machines for a few hours and then threw the switch.…

                  When I first began presenting lessons, I had a habit of using Webster’s dictionary to define the term or topic that I was wishing to cover.  For instance, if I was going to preach a lesson on the topic of “Lying”, my opening statement would sound something like this: “Webster’s Dictionary defines “Lying” as “marked by or containing untrue statements”.  My reasoning was simple; by defining the terms I was ensuring that everyone knew exactly what I was…

                  As some point all of us have made reservations for something.  Whether it be dinner reservations, hotel reservations or reserving a plane ticket for our vacation.  The purpose of having made a reservation, is to ensure that you have a spot, a table or a seat at a specific time.  The thing with having reservations is that we can cancel them, move them or just simply ignore them. However, there is one reservation that we all have that…

                  Michael Jordan is arguably the greatest basketball player who ever lived.  Yet, even Michael Jordan was cut from his basketball team during his sophomore season of varsity basketball.  Following being cut, he worked even harder at his game and saw that failure as an opportunity to succeed.  Michael once said, “Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.”   I would imagine that Michael worked nearly every day on the fundamentals of the game…

                                As we live in this world, there a lot of things that are out of our control.  We cannot control what the stock market will do, we can’t dictate the weather, we can’t even control how other people treat us.  When we notice all the things that are beyond our control, it is easy to remember what we can control…ourselves.   As Paul imparts his words of wisdom from the Holy Spirit to Titus he says…

  The apostle takes his metaphor from athletics. He advises Timothy that if he is striving to win in his ministry, he will not be crowned unless he disciplines himself to follow the rules. In games (whether cards, croquet in the backyard, basketball, or whatever), we are often confronted with the opportunity to bend or to break the rules. The player must discipline himself or face the penalties and maybe even find himself disqualified. If a player breaks the rules…

  In the first chapter of I Timothy, Paul is concerned about sound doctrine. He describes for Timothy (and us) the damaging results when faith is replaced by speculation and when dissension is substituted for love. What could Timothy do in such a situation? He could not remain silent in the face of heresy and could not compromise with it.  He was to stay at his post and fight for the faith. If chapter one is concerned primarily with sound…