Guidelines For Living Devotional

Have you ever had the experience of having to drive a considerable distance to an appointment; but, the vehicle that you are driving shows that the gas gauge is closer to empty than you would like? You are in a hurry—late for your meeting—so you decide to see if you can make it. The red warning light comes on. Then the fuel gauge starts to rest solidly on the empty mark, and your stomach grows tighter mile by mile. Perhaps you make it—and perhaps you don't. And as the light stays on and the indicator sits on empty, you become more tense. When do you refuel?

Karl Crowe tells the story: A missionary Bible translator was working on a language that had not been reduced to writing when she came across a portion of Scripture which had already been translated into the language she was working on. She noticed that the word idinide had been used for the English word Savior. The word literally means "picker upper" or "one who picks up something." She thought, "This is definitely not the right word!"

What is the value of a human life? There is enough phosphorous in the human body to tip twenty-two hundred matches, enough iron to make a small nail, enough fat to seven make bars of soap (in some cases a few more than that); enough calcium to whitewash a chicken coop; enough sulfur to delouse a dog and enough sugar to fill a small bowl. But, is not life worth a great deal more than a few elements from a periodic chart?

Question: Is it true that the more you give to God, the more you get back personally? Which side of that question would you come down on? Yes or no? Has that been true in your personal life? Or, would you say, "Hey, churches and organizations use that line to get my money and build strong financial bases!" Question #2: Is there anything in the Bible—I mean in its context and rightly understood—that seems to convey that truth? Did not Jesus Himself say, "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you" (Luke 6:37). Well, did He not mean what He said?

Out of the mouth of babes come some of the toughest issues that ever confront theologians, to say nothing of Sunday school teachers or parents. For example, the question that my son, then five years of age, once put to me in rush-hour traffic: "Daddy, how did Jesus get to be God?" What struck me about the question was that we hadn't even been talking about the subject. Surprising as it may seem to you that very issue was one of the first controversies in the early church. Did Jesus become God when He was born? Or rather was He always God and only appeared to be a man?

When the sky turns dark, your health fails, your marriage partner walks out on you, or you are fired from the job you hoped you would keep until retirement, your world gradually unravels. Paul's words, "In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus," seem to torment you. No matter how you try to put things together, it just doesn't make sense.

Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. Deuteronomy 34:7 "Dear Dr. Sala," wrote a friend, "Would you have any suggestions to help people who have reached their eighties and feel they have nothing to live for? I admit feeling very useless at times. I am 82, in a wheelchair, and have little energy." In recent days, there has been a graying of society as more and more of us are living longer and longer; and with the years come new challenges. Frankly, every year I hear from more and more people who are struggling with the challenges of ageing. I've done two things, thinking about this issue. First, I've asked again, "What does God say in His Word about this?" Then, I've talked with a number of seniors who are there and asked them what they have found that is helpful, which I can share with you. The fact is that the number of men and women in their eighties has increased dramatically in the last two decades. Better medicines, better nourishment, and better health care in general have combined to give a lot of seniors more years. Whereas many would have succumbed to illnesses a few years ago, they now often fight back and have years to enjoy, provided they can enjoy them. Far sooner than we would like to admit, the years turn into decades and we find ourselves doing fewer and fewer things for the first time and more and more things for the last time. How can seniors handle the changes of life? May I suggest the following: Guideline #1: Come to grips with the fact that you are here by the will of God, not fate or chance. God makes no mistakes and suffers no surprises. Paul wrote, "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will..." Never forget, until He calls you, you've got work to do. Guideline #2: Realize that your true value as a person is dependent on your character and not your productivity. One of the flaws of our thinking, especially as we age, is that we are not worth much unless we are producing. This, of course, runs contrary to everything that the Bible says. It tells us that you are of value and worth, not because of what you do, but because of what you are. Paintings and fine books only become more valuable with age, and so it is with people. Guideline #3: Accept your lessening strength with grace. "I greet each day as a gift," says Beatrice Cole, at age 90. She says that the last decade, from age 80 to 90, has been the best gift of her life, though she has been alone most of that time except for the company of her pet poodle. Guideline #4: Force yourself to get out and mix with people. "After I lost Ethel," said Frank Emery, "I forced myself to get out, to travel, to play golf, to be with people. Sitting at home, refusing to reach out to others, only compounds your loneliness." Guideline #5: Refuse to accept defeat at the hand of yourself. Theologian Dr. Wilbur Smith once wrote, "It's no sin growing old, but it's mighty inconvenient." My wife of 60 years and I recently co-authored a book entitled, Age is Just a Number. Now that we are both in our 80s, it's nice to write about something we have experienced firsthand. As the horses of time gallop down the lessening hills, share your life experiences with those who follow in your footsteps. Your memories will be with them long after you are gone. Indeed. Never forget that age is a matter of the mind. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. Resource Reading: Isaiah 40:1-11

An eminent psychologist, Joseph Kreisler, recognized the importance of contentment from having observed problems of human nature from a professional viewpoint. Dr. Kreisler says, "If you wish to be miserable, think about yourself and what you want, what you like, what attention other people ought to pay you, and then you will find nothing will satisfy you. You will spoil everything you touch, and finally, you will make pain and misery out of everything God sent you."

"Faith," wrote the Quaker scholar Elton Trueblood, "is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation." Yet the fact is, faith seems to contradict the world of reality. It is no wonder that the writer of Hebrews described faith as the "conviction of things not seen" (Hebrews 11:1, NASB). It is the battle of the tangible versus the intangible, the seen versus the unseen, the material versus the spiritual.

When Dr. Stanley Collins, a renowned Bible teacher and conference speaker, was felled with a heart attack, he looked up towards heaven, and though he did not actually say these words, his heart cried out, "Why me, Lord?" Collins, like King Hezekiah who lay dying long ago, reminded the Lord of what he had been doing for Him. Then, without hearing any voices or seeing any visions in the sky, Collins says it was almost as if he heard a voice so clearly say, "Why not you?"

When Larry Alexander learned that he had eighteen months to live, his world came crashing down. The prospect of experimental surgery offered some hope, but the future was pretty bleak. His wife, Anne, then pregnant with their third child, faced the stress of having to raise their three children, provide for the family and nurse a man who faced the prospect of losing his life.

It's an old story retold many times. In the fourteenth century, there was a duke named Ranald who lived in the country we now know as Belgium. The duke was not only overweight; he was grossly indulgent. He craved food and his appetite for more was never fully satisfied, so much so that the peasants called him Crassis which in Latin means "the fat one."

Finding your way back after an adulterous relationship is difficult, but it can be done. There's a roadmap which guides you when you recognize what a dreadful thing has happened and you sincerely want forgiveness, healing, and--yes! --restoration with your husband or wife. The roadmap is found in Psalm 51, and David, the author, simply describes the components of restoration which he went through.

Grace is getting what you don't deserve; justice is getting exactly what you deserve, and mercy is not getting what you really deserve. David knew that, and that's why, following his affair with Bathsheba, he pled for God's mercy. "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions."

Along with many other dictionaries, The Oxford English Dictionary takes more space to define the word touch than any other word. Its vast gamut of meanings can hardly be compressed into a single dictionary definition. Without touch you lose one of the most important of all the five senses.

"Dear God, I'm having a tough time financially, and I'd like a refund on some of the money I've given to you. Do you think you could arrange it for me?" In reality that's what a single mother of four children had in mind recently, but the church who had been the recipient of the money tends to feel that God doesn't make refunds.

When times are tough and money is tight, disagreements often erupt. And when discussions take place, almost always we are quick to inform the other person that the mess belongs on the other side of the disagreement. A word that prominently figures is the personal pronoun you, as in "YOU are responsible for this mess," or "If YOU hadn't spent so much on that stupid car we wouldn't be in trouble." Another variation is "YOU charged too much on our credit cards."

Probably no other generation in history has been more committed to living for the moment than is our present one, or put in somewhat less refined terms, no generation has been more committed to squeezing every ounce of pleasure and fulfillment out of living than the present one. Now all of this is not bad, but the constant emphasis on self produces a distorted picture of the individual's true worth. The end result is a selfishness that produces a marked disregard for others, and totally distorts a person's actual importance. Nothing is much smaller than an individual's world who shuts others from the heart as well as the hand and purse.

There are only three things you can do with it: spend it, save it, or give it away. Only three choices. Yet when it comes to the bottom line of disagreements, you'll probably find it, almost every time. It's money! No matter how much they have, or how little they have, people don't agree on how it's spent. Playing a prominent part in at least 85% of all broken homes, the handling of money is one of the most explosive issues that confront people today, especially in times of recession and inflation.

When the level begins to sink in the honeycomb of life, it does not merely affect one aspect of your life--say the physical or the emotional. It affects everything--your body, your emotions, and your spiritual nature all at once. There has been a blind spot in our thinking that compartmentalizes life. You have aches or pains. "That is physical!" you think. You are sure that aspirin or an antibiotic will be enough to cure it, but it does not work that way. The physical may merely be the cause of tension, and aspirin or antibiotics would merely be treating the symptom--not the cause.