Here's our first good look at David. He walks into the house, still smelling like sheep, and all of a sudden an old man hobbles over and pours oil on his head. It drips down his hair and drops on to his neck.
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If you want to develop the quality of persistence, you first have to appreciate the value of persistence. Second, you have to begin regardless of how you feel. Remember how Solomon described the sluggard? “The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion in the road! A lion is in the open square!’” (Proverbs 26:13).
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When anyone is raising kids buying school clothes, games, or toys or allowing them free time is the best thing ever, they may think. When a parent chooses chores and homework, disciplining them for whatever reason, the parent is viewed as a ‘meanie,’ especially a stepparent. Interestingly, chores teach responsibility, and homework prepares them for a great future, whether academically or they choose to choose a vocation.
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Early in the twenty-first century, a group of people predicted a date for the end of the world. Basing their claim on the last date recorded on the Mayan calendar, they determined the earth would run its course by December 21, 2012. Of course, it didn’t, and believers in the theory were able to sigh in relief—and probably in a little embarrassment.
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I am so glad that God will overrule my prayers at times, because I have prayed for things fervently, believing they were the will of God, and they were flat-out wrong. I am so thankful that God said no to those prayers.
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Perhaps you are among those who have struggled to comprehend a particular heartache and God's reason for allowing it. A thousand unanswered questions have been recycling in your mind—most of them beginning with "Why...?". You want desperately to trust the Father and believe in His grace and goodness.
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Do you ever feel like your Christian life is mostly a matter of duty? You might be doing all of the right things—but it’s coming from a place of obligation. And obedience that flows from obligation gets stale very, very quickly. How can we transform our obedience from duty to delight? We get a clue in, arguably, the most important passage in the Old Testament—2 Samuel 7.
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In Matthew 20:20-28 there is a telling incident about Mary. She went to Jesus and asked him if he would consider special treatment of her sons when he came into his kingdom—one to sit on his right and the other on his left. Jesus didn’t criticize Mary’s request, but when the other disciples heard it, they went ballistic with “Can you believe them?” and “How could they?”
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it's no secret that a good coach often becomes the greatest influence in a young person's life. High quality coaches are more concerned about mentoring athletes than winning games.
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Daniel was born in the land of Judah during a time when much of the nation had fallen away from God. He was a teenager when God permitted the forces of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon to lay siege to Jerusalem.
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