DAILY DEVOTIONALS

Read the loving and inspiration words of the bible as chosen by Joni Eareckson Tada in this amazing collection of devotionals sent to you daily via email.


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"Go ahead then, do what you promised! Keep your vows!"

--Jeremiah 44:25bToday Ken and I celebrate our wedding anniversary. Tonight we'll probably pull out the photo album and dine by candlelight. Maybe we'll rummage around to find the cassette of our wedding ceremony, and we'll listen to those tried and true words, "For better or for worse; in sickness and in health." The sickness and health part means more to us as the years go by. My disability, you see, isn't getting easier. But listening to those vows is a way to refresh the promises we made to one another. Big promises.

A fellow author once wrote, "If forgiving is the only remedy for what has happened in the past, then promising is the only remedy for your uncertain future." My friend is right. Forgiving takes care of what has already happened to us, and promising takes care of what is yet to happen.

I know that a young bride with bruised feelings is reading this right now. She’s saying to herself, "I want to get out of this marriage and start over with a guy who really loves me." But that woman will remember a promise she made, and so she will stick with her husband in hopeful love and helpful prayer.

A minister who is reading this, is telling himself, "I feel like moving on to a job that doesn't load me down with so much grief." But he remembers a promise he made when he was ordained, and so he sticks with his congregation in pastoral love.

Promise keeping is a powerful means of grace, especially in this day when people rarely live by their word. The only way to overcome the unpredictability of your future is through the power of promising. When you make a promise (and determine to stick by it), your future is secure. God will give you grace to honor your promise one day at a time. And a promise kept is grace given.

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Strengthen me to keep my promises, God, to take them seriously, and to make the necessary sacrifices to fulfill each one.

Tomorrow's Devotional

“By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.”

--Psalm 33:6It was July 4th of 1997. All of us were amazed when the Martian landrover, Pathfinder, began sending back color images of the stark, red landscape of Mars. The discoveries sparked a lively interest in other planets in our solar system, including the stars, along with the other untold numbers of galaxies in vast, unchartered regions of the universe.

The overwhelming data about the immensity of outer space also sparked conversations about “who” and “why” the universe was created. During a college astronomy lecture, a student asked his professor, “Why would God go to all the trouble to create all that?” The professor who happened to be a Christian replied, “Trouble? What trouble? Creating the suns and stars was no trouble for God. He accomplished it with simply his Word. You and I are the ones who have caused him trouble.”

The professor is right. God created the universe by the breath of his mouth. We were made “new creatures in Christ” by the blood, sweat, tears and death of the Son of God. Our salvation cost God big trouble.

We may stand under a full moon or high atop a mountain on a starry night and be overwhelmed at the greatness and glory of our God and think, Oh, how brightly the stars shine. We are awestruck and amazed. But nowhere does God’s glory shine brighter than when we stand in the shadow of the cross. It’s one thing for God to make a star; another thing to redeem sinful man to “shine like a star in the universe” (Daniel 12:3). Today, contemplate the humility and love of God in that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

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Lord Jesus, thank you for flinging the stars and suns into space with a simple command from your lips. Much, much more than that, thank you for laying down your life for me. I’m saved! Oh, God, thank you for taking the trouble!