The Daily Memo

King Hezekiah of Judah faithfully served the Lord with his whole heart (2 Chronicles 29:2). After the nation had fallen into idolatry, he reestablished proper worship of God. But his devotion to the Lord also extended into his personal life, and that’s exactly how we should live as well.  Our seeking after God should be characterized by: Wholeheartedness. A united heart has one preeminent desire—to please the Lord. But a divided heart tries to live both for…

Walking with someone when you cannot agree on the direction or goal is frustrating, yet that’s exactly what we sometimes try to do with God. In the Scriptures, He gives us guidance for life. But then, when we don’t follow it, we’re surprised to see that He’s walking in a different direction than we are. Scripture uses the term “walk” to describe the course of a person’s life. For instance, Noah walked with God by having a…

On January 28, 1986, the US Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart seventy-three seconds after takeoff. In a speech of comfort to the nation, President Reagan quoted from the poem “High Flight” in which John Gillespie Magee, a World War II pilot, had written of “the high untrespassed sanctity of space” and the sense of putting out his hand to touch “the face of God.” Although we can’t literally touch God’s face, we sometimes…

Who is the wisest person you know or have known? Why do you say that? How did they show their wisdom? Wisdom is about action. It’s about character. James says if you have wisdom from above . . . then you’re going to be pure. There’s going to be a holiness about your life. The Bible has a great amount of teaching about wisdom. One regular theme is that true wisdom doesn’t talk about itself. The wise person recognizes his or her own limitations and…

We may not relate to the idols people worshipped long ago. But in modern life, potential idols are everywhere—and on the surface, they sometimes appear good and praiseworthy. Take health, for example. Is regular exercise an effort to be a good steward of the body God has provided, or do we turn to it for a sense of identity or worth? And what about finances—do we save money to wisely prepare for the future and fund kingdom work, or do we cling to financial…

Think about the most famous person you’ve ever met. How did this happen? How did you react to this person? Now reflect on the scene described in verses 2–3 of James 2. If this were to happen in your church, what do you think would happen? How would you treat the two people differently? We can figure out from this letter what the problems were with the people James wrote to. Those people gossiped sometimes. They got angry with one another. And when a rich person…

Many people today deny the existence of God. But the reason is suppression of the truth, not a lack of evidence. Because the Lord loves mankind, He has revealed Himself in several ways. We know God through ... His creation (Rom. 1:20). By observing the celestial bodies, the earth with its plants and creatures, and the laws of the universe, we must conclude that there is a Creator—such intricate design doesn’t happen accidentally. The order, balance, and beauty…

Six years after beginning what he assumed would be a relatively typical research process that sought to better understand how God transforms people’s lives, researcher George Barna discovered that he had tackled a deeply challenging and amazingly revealing journey. The product of his effort was the ability to identify some of the developmental processes, experiences, and obstacles that are common across the lives of Americans of all backgrounds. He contends that while…

It’s fine to pray for safety and blessings, but what if you want more? What if you desire power? In 1 Corinthians 10:13, Paul says that God provides us an escape route whenever we are tempted. But what happens when we refuse to take the help and instead implement our own ideas? Eventually, our human strength fails, and we give in to temptation. So it was with King David. He’d experienced the Lord’s rescue countless times, but he still allowed temptation to…