Featured Devotionals

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ODJ: trust and reality

The young man looked at me in wide-eyed fear. He could climb no further. “What happens,” he cried, “if I fall off the rock?” “The problem isn’t falling; the problem is hitting the ground,” I said, smiling. He sent an accusing stare in my direction.
I continued. “You’re attached to a safety rope directly to me. You can’t fall, because I have a tight hold on you.” The stud

ODJ: widows and children

Widows were the epitome of the destitute and desperate in ancient Jewish society. In his gospel Luke often wrote of widows and their journeys of faith: the prophetess Anna who saw the newborn Messiah (Luke 2:36-38); the widow of Zarephath who ministered to Elijah (4:26; 1 Kings 17:18-19); the widow of Nain whose only son was raised from the dead by Jesus (Luke 7:11-15); and the poor widow who gave

ODJ: may i say something?

Elihu was upset. As he listened to the conversation between a suffering man and three of his friends, he became more and more angry (Job 32:2-3).
“Job, you are being punished for your sins!” “No, I’m innocent. God is treating me unjustly.” “Job, repent. God will not reject a blameless man.” “Whatever happens, I will be found guilty. So what’s the use of trying?” “Job

ODJ: His kids

Two teenage Chinese brothers are living with us as they attend school in America. Since we have three biological sons, my wife and I call Dongyao and Dongpeng our “Chinese sons”. They have loving parents in China, but we’re also striving to love them well. We now have five kids!
The apostle John had ministered for a couple of decades among the Gentiles in the Roman province of Asia (mod

ODJ: let go!

As the story goes, a man was hiking alone when he slipped and fell down a steep cliff. In desperation, he grabbed a tree limb and began shouting for help. Finally, he heard a booming voice answer, “Yes, I’m here.” The hiker was elated. “Who are you?” “It’s the Lord.” “Oh, thank you, Lord!” the hiker gasped. “What do you want me to do?” “Let go.” The terrified hiker coul

ODJ: the day

Recently our family took a trip to visit my parents in a distant state. Our two boys love their “Grams” and “Pa”, so they were excited to see their grandparents. They were also excited to miss a week of school, to travel by aircraft and, because we had tickets for all of the guys in the family, to attend a local university football game. As you can imagine, my boys counted the days leading

ODJ: after bad decisions

I have a soft spot for the apostle Peter, partly because we share the same name and partly because we’re both prone to making dumb decisions. In Luke 22 we find a prelude to one of Peter’s greatest missteps—the denial of Jesus (vv.54-62).
What strikes me about this passage is that Jesus knew Peter was going to fail big time. Despite His passionate insistence, Peter would deny Jesus not

ODJ: the real Jesus

When Peter brought the gospel to the Gentiles, he told Cornelius the story of Jesus. He explained how the Saviour travelled throughout Judea healing people and casting out demons, died on the cross and rose again, and then appeared to His disciples and commanded them to tell everyone He was Israel’s Messiah. And right in the middle Peter added, “We were those who ate and drank with him after h

ODJ: vindicated

Augustine’s Confessions traces his journey through misspent youth, false religion and finally to Jesus. As a man with much to confess, Augustine was sometimes tempted to be defensive. A translation of one of his prayers says: “O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself.”A story in the book of Judges tells how an unlikely leader chose not to vindicat