Daily Challenges Archive

One of my young grandchildren told a sibling that they hated them the other day. It broke my heart to hear those words come from their mouth, and it hurt even more to know that their sibling’s ears heard them. I told her she didn’t really hate the...

In this verse, Solomon is specifically warning young men about prostitutes. I doubt many of you reading this devotion this morning are struggling with prostitution—although you may be, and if so, pay close attention to what Solomon says in this ch...

A friend sent me an article today explaining why 100,000 churches are expected to close in America over the next 25 years. The article made some interesting observations and a few others that couldn’t have been more wrong. However, one point that ...

I have done a pretty good job of removing this kind of person from not only my inner circle, but also from regular encounters as much as possible. However, depending on where you work and possibly what your particular role is there—or if you’re in...

Many of us know this verse as the constant companion of the prior verse: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;” (Proverbs 3:5 NIV). They belong together. However, I must confess that too often in my journey...

Today’s English lesson: “If-then statements are known as conditional statements or material implications. They consist of an ‘if’ clause, called the antecedent, and a ‘then’ clause, called the consequent, forming a hypothesis and its conclusion. C...

A number of years ago, I was having a conversation with a good friend who was also in youth ministry. We would take a couple of trips a year together with our teenagers. We pretty much knew where we were going to take the group each year. Over tim...

Can you imagine if we truly lived by that reality? Every word of God is flawless. Not just important, valuable, trustworthy, or any other positive description—it is flawless. That’s a concept that can be difficult to grasp in our fallen world. Mm ...

This is kind of the “after and then before” of the prodigal son story. As you recall, in that story the son squandered his father’s wealth on prostitutes and wild living. Then, after he hit the very bottom, he tucked his tail and scurried home, ho...

It used to frustrate me a great deal to watch lost people do mean, foolish, destructive, or hurtful things. Often, they did those things to others, which not only frustrated me but also angered me. Out of that anger often came a desire to get even...

I totally get this verse. I’ve actually experienced it a few times in my life—and I imagine you might have as well. I did a good bit of physical labor earlier in life. Living in Florida and working for a roofer in the summertime was pretty demandi...

I just read this to my 7-year-old grandson. His response was that he would never sell someone a plastic fork covered with silver. He said that’s basically stealing. To him, earthenware somehow meant an eating utensil. The point here is that even a...